OptimoRoute and CrewLink both deal with the drive. That is why they turn up in the same searches. They deal with it at different points in the life of a job, and that difference decides which one you need.
This page sets out what OptimoRoute says it does, on its own site, what CrewLink does, and when OptimoRoute is the better pick. All OptimoRoute details are from its public website as of October 2026.
What OptimoRoute is
OptimoRoute's homepage describes it as "Organizing the mobile workforce" and says "Plan your day instantly. Optimize for top productivity." It lists automated route planning and optimization, driver and vehicle management, scheduling with time windows, a mobile driver app, live tracking, customer notifications and proof of delivery. The industries it names run from food delivery, retail distribution and couriers to installation and maintenance, pest control, pool maintenance, cleaning and HVAC services.
Its features page is specific:
- On planning: "Easily import thousands of orders and instantly get the most efficient routes and schedules for your drivers."
- On constraints: "Add priorities, time windows, job durations, skills, and more," and "Account for driver skills, costs, vehicle capacities as you plan."
- On the horizon: "plan up to 5 weeks in advance with one click."
- On changes during the day: "Insert last minute orders, adjust stop sequence or replan when a driver calls in sick."
- On customers: "Send customizable SMS messages or emails to customers informing them when the driver is scheduled to arrive."
- On connecting systems: an API for integration "with your ERP, CRM, POS, FSM or any other platform."
On its own routing and scheduling article, OptimoRoute draws the line like this: "Scheduling is the process of planning out time windows for when deliveries will be made and who will make them. Routing is the process of mapping specific routes that drivers will take to make these deliveries."
OptimoRoute publishes its plans on its pricing page, with plan tiers, a 30-day free trial and a custom plan for larger operations.
That is a capable routing and planning tool. If your work is deliveries, or service visits where the customer gives you a day or a window and you decide the order, it is built for exactly that.
Where the difference sits
The useful question is when the drive is checked, and against what.
OptimoRoute's features page describes importing orders, with their time windows, durations and skills, and then producing efficient routes and schedules. The orders arrive from somewhere: a spreadsheet, your FSM, your ordering system, through the API. Within the time windows those orders carry, OptimoRoute finds a good plan.
CrewLink works one step earlier, at the moment the customer is offered a time. Its booking page offers only start times a qualified tech can actually make, counting their other jobs, their calendar, time off and the drive at that hour, computed from where the truck will be (the previous job), not from the shop. A picked time is held for 5 minutes and rechecked against the live schedule. Addresses outside every tech's area become an out-of-area request instead of a fake slot. That is travel time scheduling.
Why that matters: a route planner can only work inside the promises already made. If three customers on three separate calls were promised 8:00 downtown, 10:00 forty minutes north and 11:30 downtown again, the optimizer can't move the 10:00, because a customer was told 10:00. It can only make the best of it. The booking-time check would never have offered that 10:00 to that crew. The general version of this argument is in route optimization vs feasible scheduling, and the category comparison is in CrewLink vs route optimization software.
The reverse is also true. If your customers don't pick a time (a delivery on a given day, a pest control route that visits each account monthly), there is no booking moment to protect, and an optimizer that builds the best route from the day's orders is the right tool.
What CrewLink does and does not do
CrewLink is in early access. It does these things today:
- Online booking into drive-feasible open times, on a hosted or embeddable page or through the public API.
- An office dispatch board with month, week and day views, and a live board with each tech's status and ETA to the next job, from the tech's phone app.
- Same-day emergencies: finds a qualified tech who can still get there today, or says why no one can.
- A tech phone app: on my way, arrived, done, notes, photos and parts used.
- A mid-job check-in that re-flows the rest of a tech's day when a job runs long, and texts the affected customers.
- Customer texts: confirmation, a 24-hour reminder, on the way with an ETA, invoice sent and a review link.
- Deposits at booking and invoices with a pay link.
- CrewConnect, for sending work into partner companies' and 1099 contractors' open time.
CrewLink does not do multi-stop delivery routing with vehicle capacities, proof of delivery, or pickup-and-delivery planning. It does not use vehicle GPS; positions come from the tech's phone app. If those are your needs, OptimoRoute's pages describe features for them and CrewLink does not.
Side by side
| CrewLink | OptimoRoute | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Booking and dispatch, with the drive checked before a time is offered | Route planning and optimization for orders and jobs (features) |
| When travel is considered | At booking, from the previous job, at that hour | When routes are planned from imported orders, within their time windows (features) |
| Customer self-booking | Booking page and public API | Not described on the pages we checked |
| Time windows, skills, durations | Qualified techs only; time on site recorded and used for future bookings | "Add priorities, time windows, job durations, skills, and more" (features) |
| Vehicle capacities, proof of delivery | No | Yes, per its homepage and features |
| Customer notifications | Texts from confirmation to review link | SMS or email arrival notifications (features) |
| Partner and 1099 work | CrewConnect, open time only, agreed pay terms | Not described on the pages we checked |
| Pricing | Public plans on /pricing | Public plans on its pricing page |
All OptimoRoute details as of October 2026.
Who should pick OptimoRoute
Pick OptimoRoute if your work is mostly deliveries or route-based visits where you, not the customer, choose the order and the time. If you need vehicle capacities, proof of delivery, pickup and delivery, or routing for a large number of stops a day, its pages describe those directly. It also makes sense alongside an FSM that already handles booking, since its API is built to take orders from other systems.
Who should look at CrewLink
Look at CrewLink when customers pick their own appointment times and the problem is the promises themselves: arrival windows nobody trusts, a dispatcher moving booked jobs every morning, trucks crossing their own path. Those are booking problems, and fixing them after booking leaves the promises in place.
You can put a rough number on it. Take your trucks (T), the avoidable drive per truck per day in hours (D) and a loaded hourly cost (R). The yearly cost is about T × D × R × 5 days × 48 weeks.
That is an illustration, not a result. The windshield time cost calculator runs it on your numbers.
What to take away
- OptimoRoute plans and optimizes routes for orders and jobs you give it, with time windows, skills, durations and vehicle capacities.
- CrewLink checks the drive before a time is offered to a customer, from the tech's previous job at that hour.
- If you choose the order and the time (deliveries, route visits), OptimoRoute fits. If customers pick times and the promises are the problem, look at CrewLink.
- The two run at different moments, so some companies use a booking-time check and a route optimizer together.
Common questions
Is CrewLink an OptimoRoute alternative?
For service companies whose customers book their own appointment times, it can be, because it handles the drive at booking. For deliveries, pickup and delivery, or proof-of-delivery work, it is not, and OptimoRoute's pages describe features for those as of October 2026.
Does OptimoRoute let customers book appointments?
The OptimoRoute pages we checked in October 2026 describe importing orders and planning routes and schedules from them, plus customer arrival notifications. They don't describe a customer booking page. Ask OptimoRoute directly if you need one.
Can I use OptimoRoute and CrewLink together?
They work at different moments, booking versus route planning, so in principle the two jobs are complementary. CrewLink offers a public API and webhooks; it does not claim a built-in integration with OptimoRoute.
What is the difference between route optimization and booking-time scheduling?
Route optimization finds the best order for jobs that are already booked, within the times already promised. Booking-time scheduling decides which times to offer in the first place, so the day it produces is already reachable.