Most dispatch demos are a tour of features. Most dispatch regrets are about something the demo never showed: how a job is offered at 2 a.m., what the invoice run does to a shared account, what the bill becomes when three drivers share one car, what you get back when you leave. This checklist is built around those moments. Work through it with each vendor and the shortlist tends to sort itself.
Start with your booking mix, not the feature list
Count a normal week: how many jobs come by phone, how many from your website, how many from an app, how many on account, how many hailed on the street. The split decides what matters. A phone-heavy office needs a fast job form and a dispatcher who can see the whole fleet; a fleet with hotel and corporate accounts needs account billing and references on every job; a fleet that wants to stop paying a night dispatcher needs a web booker and an app that take bookings while nobody is at the desk.
Write the split down and bring it to every demo. Ask each vendor to run your most common booking end to end, not theirs.
The twelve-point checklist
- Automatic dispatch you can read: can you see why a job went to that driver, and change the rule yourself?
- A live map that shows what each driver is doing — free, on a job, on a break, signed off — not just a dot.
- A driver app with a timed job offer, accept and decline, and a status flow your drivers will actually follow.
- A web booker you can put on your own site in your own brand, with a fare quote before the passenger books.
- A passenger app if your riders expect one — and clarity on what is white-label and what is not.
- Account billing: customers who pay on account, with a reference on each job and a monthly invoice per account.
- Fares and tariffs you can edit: time bands, zones, waiting time, airport pickups, fixed prices for regular runs.
- Payments the way your riders pay: cash, card at the kerb, in the app, on account — reconciled to one ledger.
- Reports and exports your accountant can open without you, including driver settlements and commission.
- Permissions and an audit trail: who changed a fare, who edited a closed job, who refunded whom.
- An exit: what records you can export, in what format, and what it costs — asked while you are still a prospect.
- A pricing model that fits your fleet: per active driver, per vehicle or per trip change the bill in different directions.
Pricing model fit is a feature
Two vendors can quote similar-looking numbers and send you very different bills. Per-vehicle billing charges for every car on the licence whether it moved or not; per-active-driver billing charges for the people who worked; per-trip and revenue-share models grow with your bookings. Then there is the monthly minimum, the one-off onboarding fee and the contract term, each of which can outweigh the rate itself. Our cost guide puts the commonly quoted figures for thirteen platforms side by side, with the models explained — read it before you compare quotes.
Run a real week, not a demo
A trial is only useful if it carries real jobs. Book a ride from your own website, accept it on a driver's phone, complete it, settle the driver, and invoice an account customer for it. Then export the week. If any step needs the vendor's help, that is what day-to-day will feel like.
- Book → dispatch → complete → settle → invoice → export, with your own data.
- Let your dispatcher and two drivers use it unprompted for a shift; watch where they get stuck.
- Change a fare and confirm the next quote reflects it.
- Switch a driver's status from the app and watch the console follow.
Red flags that should end the conversation
- No published minimum, and a vendor who will not say what it is.
- An onboarding or migration fee that is not in writing before you sign.
- A multi-year term with the exit priced vaguely or not at all.
- No answer to 'what do I get back if I leave, and in what format?'
- 'AI dispatch' with no way to see the rule that assigned a job.
Where TaxiDex fits, and where it does not
TaxiDex is cloud dispatch for taxi, private-hire and chauffeur fleets, billed per active driver with a published minimum and no per-trip fee. The passenger app and web booker carry your brand; the driver app is the TaxiDex driver app. If your drivers must run an app under your own name, we are not the right answer. If your office wants to see its rules, bill its accounts and export its own records, we would like to show you a real week.
The vendor you want is the one whose demo survives your most ordinary booking.