Ten stops, five overlapping time windows, and no honest way to know which door to knock on first — that is exactly how late deliveries happen. This free delivery stop sequence planner by time window orders your stops by their windows, works out every arrival time, and flags any stop that will land late, instantly in your browser with no account.
Delivery Stop Sequence Planner
How to use this delivery stop sequence planner
Step 1 — add your stops. Type each stop name, its delivery window start and end, and how many minutes you will spend at the door. Add or remove rows as you like.
Step 2 — set your start. Enter the time you roll out and the travel minutes between stops. Ten minutes is the default, and the tool applies it between every pair of consecutive stops.
Step 3 — read your sequence. The tool sorts stops by window start, then shows arrival, service and departure time for each one, with On time or LATE next to every stop. Copy the result, print it, or clear and start again.
Worked example: delivery stop sequence planner by time window in action
Press Load example and the planner fills in six stops whose windows overlap. They are deliberately listed out of order, the way a driver’s list often arrives.
| Stop | Window | Service (min) |
|---|---|---|
| North Street Bakery | 09:00–10:00 | 15 |
| Riverside Clinic | 08:00–09:00 | 10 |
| Maple Avenue Flats | 09:30–11:00 | 20 |
| Harbour View Office | 08:30–09:00 | 5 |
| Elm Grove House | 10:30–12:30 | 25 |
| Station Road Cafe | 11:00–12:00 | 10 |
In list order, the Harbour View Office would be visited fourth and arrive at 09:25 — twenty-five minutes after its 08:30–09:00 window closed, so LATE.
Re-sequenced by window start, the same six stops all land on time:
| Seq | Stop | Window | Arrival | Service | Departure | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverside Clinic | 08:00–09:00 | 08:10 | 10 | 08:20 | On time |
| 2 | Harbour View Office | 08:30–09:00 | 08:30 | 5 | 08:35 | On time |
| 3 | North Street Bakery | 09:00–10:00 | 08:45 | 15 | 09:00 | On time |
| 4 | Maple Avenue Flats | 09:30–11:00 | 09:10 | 20 | 09:30 | On time |
| 5 | Elm Grove House | 10:30–12:30 | 09:40 | 25 | 10:05 | On time |
| 6 | Station Road Cafe | 11:00–12:00 | 10:15 | 10 | 10:25 | On time |
Total route time: 145 minutes. Finish time: 10:25. Late stops: 0. The Harbour View Office arrives late in list order but on time when re-sequenced — that is the whole point of the tool.
Common mistakes this planner fixes
Driving in list order. The list was made for reading, not for routing. Re-sorting by time-window start puts the tightest windows first, before they close. The same “tightest first” thinking powers our multi-item stock days left calculator, which orders stock by what runs out first.
Ignoring the windows. Treating every stop as equal ignores the one constraint that matters: the customer’s window. A stop with a 09:00 close cannot wait behind a stop whose window runs to noon.
Forgetting service minutes. Travel is not the only cost. Ten minutes at each door across fifteen stops is two and a half hours of service time. Enter the minutes honestly — the planner adds them to every arrival and departure, so the finish time stays truthful. Small minutes add up in every plan, as our freelance capacity planner shows for working hours.
Delivery stop sequence planner FAQs
How are my stops ordered?
By time-window start, earliest first. If two windows start together, the one that ends earlier goes first; if both match, stops are ordered by name, so the result is always the same.
What does LATE mean?
You would arrive after the stop’s window end. The planner marks the stop LATE and adds a note saying its window had already passed at your arrival time, so you can phone ahead or re-plan.
How do travel minutes work?
One field sets the travel minutes applied between every pair of consecutive stops, starting from your route start time. It keeps the model simple and honest — adjust it to your area’s average drive between drops.
What if two windows start at the same time?
The earlier-ending window is visited first, because it runs out first. That is the safest choice when windows clash.
Does the tool need an account or track my location?
No. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and there is no account or sign-up. It never asks for your location — it only needs the times you type in.