Bus ticketing software: the complete guide to choosing one

It is your bus line's working tool, not the passenger's. It brings together in one place what today is spread across the ticket window, the box office phone and the notebook: the seat map of every bus, your routes with their schedules and fares, counter sales, online and WhatsApp sales, each cashier's cash drawer and the reports that tell you how much you sold. Good ticketing software makes all of that talk to each other: when a seat is sold at the box office, it stops showing as free on your website and on WhatsApp at that very moment.

What it does

• Sells seat by seat with a live seat map, so nobody sells the same seat twice.
• Logs every payment with its cashier, shift and payment method, and adds it to that cashier's cash-up.
• Delivers the ticket printed or by WhatsApp and email, with its QR code.
• Keeps your routes, stops, fares per leg and trips, and lets you move a departure time while notifying only the passengers whose time changes.
• Shows you from your phone how much came in today, what is still to be deposited and who owes it.

What it is not

It is not a passenger app. A passenger app is for finding and buying a trip; bus ticketing software is for running the bus line that sells that trip. With Boleti, your passenger downloads nothing: they buy at your box office, on your sales website from their phone's browser or over WhatsApp, and the ticket arrives in the chat and in their email.

It is not a ticket marketplace either. Marketplaces are websites that sell tickets for many bus lines at once; it pays to have them connected to your system so those sales show up on your seat map and in your cash. They can be one more sales channel, but there the passenger ends up as their customer, not yours. A ticketing system is yours: your website with your brand, your seat map, your cash and your reports. If you also sell through marketplaces, that connection means you do not enter everything twice; you can see how in integrations.

And it is not desktop software. A program installed on a single computer stops selling if that machine fails, and you can only see it from the box office. A cloud system like Boleti runs in the browser of a computer, a tablet or a phone, with nothing to install; what it does need is an internet connection.

The question is not whether your line is big enough for bus ticketing software, but how much today's disorder is costing you. A line with one bus and one box office has the same underlying problem as one with twenty: knowing what was sold, who collected it and where the money is. What changes is how many box offices, users and buses you run, and that is why the plans go by size.

Small bus lines, 1 to 3 buses

One box office, the owner selling and taking almost everything in cash, the books kept in a notebook. Here the urgent part is selling with a seat map, sending the ticket by WhatsApp and seeing the day's cash-up on your phone. The Ruta plan is built for exactly that, and if later you want your own sales website, OXXO cash payments or GPS, you move up to Línea without changing systems. More in small bus lines.

Intercity lines, 3 to 25 buses

Several box offices, daily trips, drivers on the road and money coming in from many places. Here what weighs most is cash control per cashier, deposits with photos, trips with stops and fares per leg, each driver's trip expenses and knowing where every bus is. The Línea, Flotilla and Central plans cover up to 8, 15 and 25 buses. More in bus lines.

Cooperatives and coordinated companies

Companies of partners and permit holders with several routes or regions, where each bus owner wants to see their own numbers. You see the whole company, each manager runs their region and each partner checks their routes, their buses and what they earn from their phone. You decide how the money is split, with clear figures per bus. That is what the Coordinados plan is for. More in cooperatives.

Tourism and charter

Companies that put together tours, pilgrimages and trips to events, and sell every seat on the bus. Each departure is a trip with its own seat map: you sell it at the box office, over WhatsApp and on your website, take deposits and OXXO cash payments, and a group can buy several seats in a single online purchase. If you rent out the whole bus, you schedule it as a trip to keep track of the driver, the expenses and the payroll. More in tourism and charter.

Do you have more than 25 buses or need servers just for your company? Let's talk it through: write to us and we will work it out with you.

Do not get carried away by endless feature lists. A complete bus ticketing system covers the three parts of your business, selling, collecting and operating, and all of them use the same information. These are Boleti's 11 features, in the order you usually need them. The box office, WhatsApp, cash control, routes and trips, frequent riders and CFDI 4.0 invoicing come with every plan; the sales website, online payments, GPS, maintenance and drivers with their payroll start at the Línea plan.

Box office with seat map

It is the heart of the box office system. Your cashier logs in with their own user, opens their cash drawer, looks up the departure and taps a free seat on the seat map: from that moment the seat is held, and the other box offices, your website and WhatsApp see it as taken. They take cash, card or part of each, and hand over the ticket printed on thermal paper or sent by WhatsApp and email with a QR code. It also handles what today lives on scraps of paper: reservations with a deposit, open tickets, changes of date, seat or passenger without cancelling, discounts such as the senior (INAPAM) discount and, from the Flotilla plan, round trips in a single sale.

Online sales

Your own website for selling bus tickets, with your name, your logo and your colors, and if you already have a domain, at the address people already know. The passenger looks up their trip, chooses a departure and a seat on the same seat map your cashier sees, and pays by card or at OXXO; once the payment is confirmed, the ticket arrives by WhatsApp and email. The sale is marked as a web sale, right next to your box office sales. Starts at the Línea plan. See Online sales

Tickets on WhatsApp

Your passengers already message you on WhatsApp; the trouble starts when that chat lives on a single loose phone. With Boleti, conversations land in an inbox your team shares, replies are given while looking at the free seats on the same seat map and, once payment is confirmed, the ticket with its QR code arrives in the same chat. Then comes the trip reminder and, if you move a departure, a notice only to the passengers whose boarding time changes. Each bus line connects its own number to the official WhatsApp business platform. Comes with every plan; AI auto-replies start at Flotilla. See Tickets on WhatsApp

Card and OXXO payments

Your passenger pays however suits them, and every payment is tied to its ticket: cash into the cashier's cash-up, bank transfer with its reference, card on your own terminal by logging the approval number or on a Pinpad connected to Boleti, online card payments and cash payments at OXXO and convenience stores. Whoever chooses OXXO gets a payment reference, their seat is held while they pay and the ticket is issued automatically once the payment is confirmed. Everything lands in the same cash register, and Boleti charges no fee per payment: each bus line connects its own account. Box office payments come with every plan; online card payments, OXXO and the Pinpad start at Línea. See Card and OXXO payments

Cash and collections

This is where a system either pays for itself or is useless. Every shift opens with its starting float and closes with its cash-up: what came in as cash and by card, what went out, what should be there and the difference. The cashier uploads a photo of the deposit slip, logs expenses with a receipt and, when handing cash to another cashier, it is recorded as a transfer that the other person confirms. Collections reviews every box office in the end-of-day close, and you see from your phone how much came in, what is still to be deposited and who owes it, plus the income statement by route, by month or by bus. If a cashier forgets to close, Boleti closes their drawer in the early morning and flags it for review.

Routes and trips

Your schedules, stops and fares stop living in a spreadsheet. You build each route with its stops, kilometers, minutes and the fare for each leg, so a passenger who boards at an intermediate stop pays only for the distance they travel. You schedule trips by date or by a range of days, and suspend the ones you will not run without cancelling them. If you move a time, the following stops shift with it and only the passengers whose boarding time changes are notified. If a bus breaks down, you swap the vehicle or record a transfer to another bus without anyone losing their seat, and the driver boards passengers by scanning their ticket from their phone. Comes with every plan. See Routes and trips

Drivers and payroll

Settling up with the driver stops being a matter of their word against yours. You hand over their trip allowance, they log diesel, tolls and per diem with a photo of each receipt from their phone, and when they get back you settle up: you approve receipts, see what they returned, and any shortfall is deducted from their pay. Payroll is calculated per trip, per kilometer, as a commission on what they sell on board or a mix, and it is paid with a signature, a photo and a numbered receipt. With user roles, everyone sees only their own part. Starts at the Línea plan. See Drivers and payroll

Maintenance by bus

If the workshop lives in a notebook, you do not know what each bus costs you. With this module the driver reports a fault from their phone, it becomes a numbered work order tied to that bus, the mechanic closes it with a photo of the finished job and every spare part is charged to the bus that used it. In the income statement by bus you see what each one sold, what it cost and what it left you, and in its history when each repair was done and at what mileage. Starts at the Línea plan. See Maintenance by bus

GPS tracking

Knowing where every bus is without calling the driver. The GPS is registered on the record of the same bus you assign to your trips, so the live map, the day's route and the reports on kilometers, speed and ignition are in the same system you sell with, with no other app and no other password. Everyone sees the buses that belong to them according to their role. You need a GPS device on each bus; when you sign up, we tell you which ones are compatible. Starts at the Línea plan. See GPS tracking

CFDI 4.0 invoicing

Invoicing tickets by hand holds up the line. With Boleti, your passenger gets their own invoice from your website using their ticket number, or your box office issues it for them from the ticket itself. Boleti stamps the CFDI 4.0 invoice, emails them the PDF and the XML and keeps it tied to the sale, and an invoiced ticket cannot be cancelled or change price while its invoice is still valid. Comes with every plan; each invoice uses one stamp, which you buy in packs from your account, and the self-service portal for passengers comes with your sales website, from Línea up. See CFDI 4.0 invoicing

Frequent riders

Some passengers ride with you every week, and at the box office they look the same as someone who travels once. With the frequent rider program, every trip earns points, those who travel more move up a level and can pay for their next ticket with points. You give away free tickets, set up promotions with their dates and see each passenger's trip history. Comes with every plan; what changes is how many registered passengers fit. See Frequent riders

Beyond the 11 features, check that the system connects with what you already use. Boleti connects with domestic and international ticket sales platforms, with payments and with invoicing; the details are in integrations and the overview of everything in features.

If you are wondering how to choose bus ticketing software without getting it wrong, start here. Before you sign up for a bus ticketing system, ask these ten questions, get the answers in writing and check them during the trial with your own sales. If the answer to any of them is sort of, that is exactly the problem you will run into later.

1. Do the box office, the website and WhatsApp sell from the same seat map? If each channel keeps its own list of seats, sooner or later you will sell a seat twice, and the problem will show up on the platform, in front of everyone.
2. Is every payment logged under a cashier and in their cash-up? Ask to see a sample cash-up: starting float, what came in, what went out, what should be there and the difference.
3. Does it take payments the way your passengers pay? Cash, card terminal, bank transfer, online card and OXXO. Also ask whether the system charges you a fee per payment or per ticket.
4. Does it run in the browser, with nothing to install? It should work on the box office computer, on a tablet and on your phone, and not depend on a single machine.
5. Does it handle stops, fares per leg and schedule changes? If your route has intermediate stops, the system has to sell each leg without clashes and notify the passenger when their boarding time changes.
6. Does each person see only what they need? The driver, the cashier, collections, the manager and you should not all see the same things. Ask about user roles and whether every change is recorded with the name of the person who made it.
7. Does it also cover what happens outside the box office? Trip expenses, driver payroll, workshop costs per bus and GPS. If that lives in another system, you will keep cross-checking data by hand.
8. Does it issue CFDI 4.0 invoices without retyping anything? The invoice should come from the ticket, with its PDF and XML, and the passenger should be able to get it on their own.
9. Can you try it with your real sales and without a lock-in contract? A trial with no credit card, using your own routes and cashiers, is worth more than any demo.
10. What happens to your data, and who helps you? Ask whether you can export your information if you ever leave, whether your company's data is kept separate from other bus lines' data and whether a real person answers when you get stuck.

With Boleti, all ten are answered in this guide and on each features page. If you would rather go through them with someone, write to us and we will review them together.

A ticketing system for buses can be charged in many ways: a one-time license, a monthly fee, a commission per ticket or a mix. Before comparing prices, ask what each option includes and what costs extra, because a low monthly fee with a commission on every ticket can end up costing more than a flat plan once you sell a lot.

With Boleti you pay a monthly plan based on the size of your bus line, with no lock-in contract, and Boleti charges no fee per payment. These are the plans:

Every plan includes the box office with seat map, tickets on WhatsApp, cash and collections, routes and trips, frequent riders and CFDI 4.0 invoicing. Parcels and shipments come with every plan. What changes is how many buses, box offices and users you run, and which modules are added: the sales website, online payments, the Pinpad, GPS, maintenance and driver payroll from Línea; round trips, connections to other systems and AI automations from Flotilla. To issue invoices you buy stamps in packs from your account. Payment gateways and the bank behind your card terminal charge their own fees, according to what you have agreed with them.

The full plan-by-plan comparison is on the pricing page. And if you want to see how to weigh the cost against what you lose today to double-booked seats or cash-ups that do not add up, read how much a ticketing system costs (in Spanish).

Switching systems is scary because sales cannot stop. The good news is that you do not have to switch anything off to get started: you try it, load the basics and move the operation over as your team gains confidence.

1. Start the 30-day trial

You sign up and use Ruta, Línea, Flotilla or Central free for 30 days, with no credit card (Coordinados is quoted by our sales team). There is nothing to install: you log in from the browser. On day 28 we let you know, and if you do not choose a plan when the trial ends, your account is simply paused, with no charges and without losing anything you entered.

2. Load your routes, fares and buses

You start with what you already know by heart: your routes with their stops, your schedules, your fares per leg and the seat map of each bus. We work through moving your data with you: we help you load routes and fares, and for large operations we do the migration ourselves at no cost.

3. Add your team, each with their role

Every cashier, driver, collections clerk or manager logs in with their own user and sees only what they need. That way, from the very first ticket, every sale and every payment is recorded under the person who made it.

4. Sell for real and learn as you go

Your cashier sells with the live seat map, opens and closes their drawer, and you check the cash-up from your phone. To learn, you have step-by-step guides and help over WhatsApp: a real person answers Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mexico City time. There is no fixed deadline to master it; every team goes at its own pace. If you ran tests before going live, the administrator can reset collections to zero from a given date, without deleting any sale.

5. Add the rest when you need it

Once the box office is running smoothly, you turn on your sales website, OXXO payments, GPS or invoicing. For invoicing you load your tax details and your SAT digital seals, and we stay with you until your first real invoice.

If you want to see what the first step looks like, start with the box office with seat map: it is the first thing your team uses and the first place you notice the difference in the cash-up.

These are the stumbles that come up again and again when a bus line switches systems. They are all expensive, and they can all be avoided by asking in time.

• Choosing by the feature list instead of your day-to-day. A system with a hundred options your cashier does not understand sells less than a simple one they use well from the first shift.
• Depending on a single computer. If the program is installed on the box office machine and that machine fails, you are left unable to sell and unable to see your numbers.
• Selling online in one place and at the box office in another. If your website cannot see the box office seat map, a double-booked seat is only a matter of time.
• Not checking cash control. If the system sells well but does not give you cash-ups per cashier, deposits with proof and expenses with photos, it does not solve the main problem, which is the money.
• Giving everyone the keys to everything. Without user roles, anyone can see the business reports or change a fare, and nobody knows who did it.
• Paying commission on your own tickets without doing the math. Check how much each ticket leaves you after fees; sometimes the cheap option ends up costing more.
• Signing up without trying it. Do not sign anything before using it with your own routes, your fares and your real sales.
• Not asking what happens to your data. Your sales, your passengers and your cash-ups are yours; make sure you can export them if you ever switch.

Notebooks and spreadsheets worked for years and, for an occasional departure, they can still be enough. The trouble starts when there is more than one point of sale, more than one cashier or sales over WhatsApp: with a notebook you do not know how much you sold until you add it up by hand, in a spreadsheet anyone can change a number without leaving a trace, and neither of them warns you when a seat has already been sold somewhere else.

Bus ticketing software does that math for you: it locks the sold seat, adds every payment to the cash-up of whoever took it, records who did what and lets you see everything from your phone. On a separate page we compare both ways of working task by task, honestly: when it makes sense to stay as you are and when it no longer does.

Trip, leg, stop, seat map, open ticket, deposit, cash-up, trip allowance, driver settlement, permit holder, transfer, invoice stamping. If you are choosing a system, it helps when you and the people selling it speak the same language. We gathered the terms most used at a bus line in Mexico, with their Spanish names, each one explained in a few words and linked to the feature that handles it.