Local courier service, by metro

Moves your item directly, usually same-day, without it entering a sort facility. A driver is assigned to the job and the item stays in one vehicle from pickup to delivery — which is what separates a courier from a parcel carrier, and why a courier can commit to a two-hour window across a metro when a carrier cannot.

Start with the metro rather than the suburb. Courier companies cluster near expressways and airports rather than near their customers, so the company that serves your street is frequently headquartered thirty miles from it. Every listing here shows the coverage area alongside the address.

Tell them before the job, not during it — with a courier you are hiring a specific driver, so you can give directions a parcel carrier has no way to accept. Useful things to hand over: a phone number they can call from the road, GPS coordinates or a what3words reference for an address maps place wrongly, gate and lockbox codes, and a landmark to turn at. If the last stretch is unpaved or seasonal, say so when you book rather than when they are stuck, because it changes which vehicle they send. Where access is genuinely impossible, agree a meeting point in advance.

Almost always a base rate plus a per-mile charge, with multipliers for rush tiers, after-hours, weekends, oversized items and dedicated vehicles. Very few couriers publish rates because the multipliers dominate, so the question worth asking on the phone is which of them apply to your job.

Within a metro, almost always — same-day is the core product for most of these companies. The tiers usually run from immediate dispatch through two- and four-hour windows to an end-of-day option with a morning cutoff, and the price difference between the fastest and the slowest is large.