Excel alternative
Excel works as long as the fleet is small and routes stay simple. As soon as vehicles grow, constraints multiply and unexpected events hit during the day, the spreadsheet becomes the bottleneck. Optivo starts from your Excel — imports it as is — and turns it into optimized plans, with fleet tracking and a driver app built in.
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Excel is still the most common tool used to plan deliveries in small and mid-size operations. It works, it's cheap, everyone knows it. But once the fleet passes 5-10 vehicles or daily deliveries cross the dozens, the limits become obvious.
Honestly: Excel still makes sense for very small fleets with a few repetitive routes and no complex constraints. It costs nothing on top of the Office license you already have, everyone understands it, and it requires no onboarding. If you run 2-3 vehicles with identical deliveries every day and no need for tracking, Excel can be enough. The problem starts as complexity grows: time windows, delivery slots, different vehicle capacities, multiple depots, real-time disruptions. That's where the spreadsheet stops scaling — and every hour spent reworking it is a hidden cost.
Key differences
On Excel an experienced fleet manager typically spends 3-5 hours a day building and adjusting routes. Optivo imports the same Excel file as is and returns an optimized plan in 5-30 minutes — AI completes missing addresses, recognizes recurring customers from historical data and applies all constraints at once. The dispatcher moves from manual operator to supervisor, getting half a day back.
Excel can handle one constraint at a time: optimize for kilometers, or for time windows, or for vehicle capacity. In real life constraints come together — delivery time windows, vehicle capacity, multiple depots, customer priorities, fixed sub-contractors, mandatory sequences for retail. Optivo handles them all simultaneously in the optimization engine, and lets you define industry-specific constraints without writing formulas.
Excel tells you what you should have done at the start of the day. It does not tell you where vehicles are right now, whether they are running late, whether a stop has been skipped, whether fuel consumption is anomalous. Optivo includes plug & play fleet tracking, a Control Tower with a live view, and automatic alerts. When something unexpected hits mid-morning, the system recalculates — you don't have to rebuild the spreadsheet.
With Excel, proof of delivery is a paper sheet that comes back to the office days later — or not at all. Optivo digitizes POD (signature, photo, notes) and sends it in real time to the dispatcher and the customer. All data flows into KPI dashboards: success rate, average times, cost per delivery, CO2 emissions — the objective baseline for deciding where to optimize next quarter.
| Dimension | Excel | Optivo |
|---|---|---|
| Average planning time | 3-5 hours per day | 5-30 minutes |
| Multi-constraint optimization | Manual, one constraint at a time | AI, all constraints together |
| Real-time fleet tracking | Not available | Included (plug & play or cloud) |
| Driver app and Proof of Delivery | Not available | Included WebApp, digital POD |
| Re-planning on disruptions | Manual, by phone | Automatic from the Control Tower |
| Reporting and KPIs | To build by hand | KPI and ESG dashboards out of the box |
| eFTI / waybill documents | Manual | Automatic generation |
| Learning curve | Already known by everyone | Guided onboarding by the Optivo team |
| Cost | Included in Office 365 / Sheets free | Modular quote based on fleet and modules |
Excel is included in your Office 365 subscription (or free with Google Sheets), so the additional license cost is zero. What you pay, however, is the hidden cost of fleet manager hours and planning errors: according to the Politecnico di Milano Contract Logistics Observatory, last-mile delivery accounts for up to 53% of total shipping cost, and operational inefficiencies can fully erode margins.
Zero license cost (included in Office 365 or free). Hidden costs: staff hours dedicated to manual planning, errors and excess kilometers, no visibility on the real cost of each route.
Modular quote built around your fleet: plug & play tracking hardware included when needed, driver app included, onboarding and dedicated team support included. No per-task or per-stop fees. Book a demo to receive a personalized quote.
Stay on Excel if…
You run a very small fleet (1-3 vehicles), routes that stay almost identical every day, no tight time windows and no need for tracking or digital proof of delivery. If planning takes you less than an hour per day and customers don't ask for delivery visibility, the spreadsheet is still the simplest choice.
Move to Optivo if…
You manage 5+ vehicles, you have time or capacity constraints that change often, you need to answer customers asking where deliveries are, you spend more than an hour a day planning or recalculating routes when something unexpected happens. If you want objective data to demonstrate ESG and KPIs to management, and if you need to align the work of multiple dispatchers or depots, the investment pays back within the first quarter.
The transition is designed to be painless: you don't have to reformat your files or change the way dispatchers already work.
The Optivo engine accepts raw Excel files. It recognizes addresses, completes missing data from historical records and flags rows that need review. No required template, no preparation.
In an onboarding session we configure together the constraints specific to your operation: time windows, fixed sub-contractors, retail sequences, per-vehicle capacity. Dispatchers see optimized routes that follow the same logic they already use.
Plug & play trackers on vehicles or cloud connection in line with the EU Data Act. Activation in minutes, no modification to the vehicle.
After the first month you have objective data on planning time, kilometers driven, fuel and delivery success rate. Comparing it with the Excel period makes the return on investment visible.
In the first optimization tests we cut 2 trucks per day from the fleet while keeping the same service level.
-2 trucks/day
fleet reduction in early tests
Yes. Optivo imports raw Excel files without requiring a specific template. The AI recognizes addresses, retrieves historical data and completes missing information automatically. You keep your workflow and add optimization on top.
Optivo offers a modular plan built around your fleet and the modules you activate (route optimization, tracking, driver app, Control Tower). Book a free demo to receive a personalized quote. Excel has zero license cost but generates significant hidden costs: staff hours and excess kilometers.
Typical activation takes a few weeks. The cloud platform is ready from day one; the time goes into configuring operational constraints and, if requested, installing plug & play trackers on vehicles (a few minutes per vehicle, no modification to the vehicle).
The interface is designed for people who plan on Excel today: the same way of reading routes, the same kind of filters. The difference is that the AI engine does the calculation instead of the fleet manager. The Optivo team supports dispatchers throughout onboarding.
The Control Tower receives alerts from vehicles (delays, deviations, missed deliveries) and recalculates the remaining routes automatically. The dispatcher decides whether to apply the suggested re-plan. On Excel the same thing requires phone calls and manual recalculations.
The OptivoTrack module is included in the platform. You can activate it via cloud connection (in line with the EU Data Act) or via a plug & play device on the vehicle. No modification to the vehicle, no additional vendor to manage.
Comparison information is accurate as of the last-updated date above. Times and benefits depend on the complexity of your fleet and operational constraints.
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