Manual quoting is one of the biggest time sinks in a courier business. A customer calls, you gather the details, you estimate the distance, you do the math, you send a number,and sometimes they ghost you anyway. Multiply that by 10-20 quote requests a day and you're spending hours on a process that can be fully automated.
Here's how automated delivery pricing works and how to set it up on your website.
The components of automated delivery pricing
To automate pricing, you need three things working together:
- Distance calculation. The tool needs to calculate the distance between the pickup and drop-off addresses automatically. This typically uses a maps API that returns driving distance in miles.
- Your pricing rules. Your base rate per mile, minimum charge, and any surcharges (after-hours, stairs, inside delivery, weight) need to be configured once in the system.
- A customer-facing interface. A form or widget where customers enter their details and get an instant price,without your involvement.
When all three are in place, the flow is: customer enters pickup and drop-off → system calculates distance → applies your pricing rules → returns an estimate. Completely automatic.
How to configure your pricing rules
The accuracy of automated quotes depends on how well your pricing rules are configured. Here's what to think through:
- Base rate per mile. Your core pricing variable. If you charge $2.50/mile, that goes here. Consider your fuel costs, driver time, and desired margin when setting this.
- Minimum charge. Local jobs under a few miles would be priced too low at pure per-mile rates. A minimum charge (e.g., $35 minimum) ensures you're not losing money on short runs.
- Service type multipliers. Same-day rush jobs should cost more than standard scheduled delivery. Configure multipliers or flat surcharges for each service tier.
- Extra fees. Stairs, inside delivery, oversized items, after-hours delivery,these add real cost. Each should have a corresponding fee customers can select.
Once configured, the system handles the math. You don't review each quote manually,you review the leads that come in and decide whether to accept them.
Setting it up
With Qalt, setup takes about 10 minutes:
- Create an account and enter your pricing rules in the Pricing Settings page.
- Customize the widget's appearance,your logo, color, header text.
- Copy your embed code and paste it into your website (one iframe snippet).
That's it. From that point on, every customer who visits your site can get an instant quote based on your real pricing. Requests arrive in your dashboard with all the job details,you confirm, contact the customer, and do the delivery.
What you review, what the system handles
Automation doesn't mean you're completely hands-off. The system handles pricing and lead capture; you handle accepting jobs, coordinating delivery, and following up on requests. But the manual quoting step,the back-and-forth to figure out what to charge,is gone.
For most courier businesses, that's a 1-2 hour daily time savings and significantly more leads converted, since customers don't have to wait for a response to know if your price works for them.
Set up automated delivery pricing on your site with Qalt,free for 14 days.