TMS transport software for small businesses: built your way

In May 2026, a French transport professional described building his own TMS: he knows the field but lacks development skills. What routing software charges, what it leaves out and what your own tool can take over without crossing red lines.

TMS transport software for small businesses costs €34–€74 excluding VAT per vehicle monthly at AntsRoute, $35.10 per driver at OptimoRoute, and from $619 monthly at Onfleet (rates consulted September 2, 2026). French TMS Dashdoc publishes no price. On January 1, 2023, 56,000 private-hire operating businesses were listed in the national register (2024 report from the national observatory of individual public passenger transport).

A transport professional building a tool, and what he says

In May 2026 on r/developpeurs, a transport professional writes: ‘I work in transport and, like many people currently, have started the vibe-coding adventure to create my own TMS. My advantage is field knowledge. My limitation is development.’ He targets €30–€50 monthly for colleagues. An operator does not start empty-handed: working routing software and stacks of platform statements exist. The first task is describing these sources column by column to agent Margaux, saying what to retain and abandon. Describing the goal and letting AI write code answers half the problem; the other half is a document fixing what the tool must do before code.

What routing software charges, and by which unit

AntsRoute sells per vehicle: Lite €34 excluding VAT monthly, Essential €54, Pro €74, reserving proof of visit and customer notifications for the top two. OptimoRoute charges per driver scheduled that month, $35.10 Lite and $44.10 Pro, with delivery proof only in Pro. Onfleet changes scale and bills task volume from $619 monthly for 2,500 deliveries, with a courier module from an extra $299. These tools optimise routes well: an operator scheduling twenty stops daily per vehicle saves time in week one. The bill grows with the fleet, and unit pricing stings when hiring.

What drivers say about the rest

In the French App Store, complaints concern what follows the trip. An Uber Driver user writes: ‘for 2 days I no longer see the cash-payment part in my earnings, only the total net, so with the company I work for I have no visibility of card versus cash’ (sisa92paris, 4 stars, August 25, 2026). On Allocab Driver, another describes payment pending since December 16 (yaz97420, 1 star, December 20, 2025). On Mapo Driver, a delivery driver requests more than three attached delivery photos (Bravo46513, 4 stars, June 23, 2026). On VTC Planner, a user judges price: ‘Excessively expensive, €500 a year, €50 monthly for order forms’ (Lil Joy, 1 star, June 22, 2026), while another values it. The disagreement concerns price, not function.

Five functions for your own TMS

Platform-statement reconciliation first: import Uber, Bolt, Heetch, Stuart and direct trips, flattening gross amounts, commissions, penalties, cash and card shares trip by trip into an exportable accountant's journal. Then a prior-reservations log containing mandatory booking-evidence details. A fleet and driver register: registration plates, insurance, inspections, professional-card expiries, with alerts 60 days ahead. Real cost per kilometre by vehicle and margin per trip, platform and slot rather than intuition. And evidence of work: timestamped delivery note, unlimited photos, signature and non-delivery reason.

Lines custom software does not cross

The private-hire operator register costs €170 and since June 27, 2026 requires named employed drivers, professional-card numbers and operated plates: these data live with the state, not your file. Professional cards renew every five years and the register produces the sticker. Picking up without prior reservation carries, since the same date, three years' imprisonment and a €45,000 fine; the August 6, 2025 decree fixes booking-evidence contents: your tool produces evidence, not the right. For international freight above 2.5 tonnes, tachographs have been mandatory since July 1, 2026; urban trips and domestic delivery below 3.5 tonnes remain outside scope. For employee geolocation, the CNIL bounds usage: no collection outside working time, employee disabling available and two-month default retention. Finally, an operator taking individual payments keeps a compliant till: commissioned software must never record a private customer's payment. Have your adviser validate your case.

Where to start

Take the latest platform statement and the same month's bank statement and seek the gap. If explaining it takes over an hour, that is the first function to build, ahead of routing your current software already does. Describe the gap to an AI agent team, read proposed requirements and compare with today's per-vehicle cost. Operators running service visits rather than deliveries will find the same reasoning applied to their profession.