Regional Carriers Guide: OnTrac, LSO, and Spee-Dee for E-commerce

If you only ship through USPS, UPS, and FedEx, you are probably overpaying on a meaningful portion of your shipments. Regional carriers serve specific geographic areas with rates that undercut national carriers by 15 to 35 percent, and for businesses concentrated in certain parts of the country — or using multi-warehouse fulfillment — they represent a genuine competitive advantage.

The catch is that regional carriers require more logistics planning than simply handing everything to UPS. You need to understand which carrier covers which area, how to integrate them into your shipping workflow, and when national carriers still make more sense. But for the shipments that fit, the savings are real and consistent.

OnTrac: West Coast

OnTrac has been around since 1991 and covers eight western states: California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. They process over two million packages daily, making them the largest regional carrier in the US by volume.

For e-commerce businesses based on the West Coast or shipping heavily to western states, OnTrac is the most impactful alternative carrier to consider. Their ground delivery service typically delivers in one to three business days within their coverage area, matching or beating FedEx Ground and UPS Ground transit times. Rates run 20 to 30 percent below national carrier published rates for comparable service levels.

OnTrac offers residential delivery seven days a week in most of their coverage area, which is a meaningful differentiator — UPS Ground does not deliver on weekends, and FedEx Home Delivery only covers Saturdays in most areas. Weekend delivery improves the customer experience without costing extra.

The tradeoff with OnTrac is that their tracking and delivery confirmation technology is less polished than national carriers. Tracking updates can be delayed, and delivery photos are not available in all areas. For premium products where customers expect real-time delivery visibility, this can generate more customer service inquiries than you would see with UPS or FedEx.

Integration is straightforward through most multi-carrier shipping platforms. OnTrac provides API access and works with platforms like atoship, ShipStation, and EasyPost, so you can rate-shop OnTrac alongside national carriers and automatically choose the cheapest option for each western shipment.

LSO: Texas and South Central US

Lone Star Overnight, known as LSO, has operated since 1994 and covers Texas plus six surrounding states — Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and parts of adjacent states. They handle about a million packages daily and have particularly strong coverage in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin metropolitan areas.

LSO's biggest advantage is Texas coverage. If you ship a high volume of packages within Texas or from Texas to surrounding states, LSO rates can be 25 to 35 percent below UPS and FedEx. Their overnight service within Texas is reliable and costs a fraction of what national carriers charge for next-day delivery.

For e-commerce businesses based in Texas — and there are a lot of them, given the state's favorable business environment and central geographic location — LSO should be a core part of the carrier mix. Texas is the second-most-populous state, so a large percentage of orders from any nationally-selling Texas business stay within LSO's coverage area.

LSO also offers Saturday delivery at no additional charge within their core coverage area, and their customer service is notably responsive compared to the sometimes-frustrating experience of dealing with national carrier support lines.

Spee-Dee: Midwest

Spee-Dee Delivery has been operating since 1978 and covers the Upper Midwest: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Ohio. With roughly 500,000 packages daily, they are smaller than OnTrac or LSO but deeply embedded in their region.

Spee-Dee's strength is rural delivery. The Midwest has a higher proportion of rural addresses than the coasts, and national carriers often charge delivery area surcharges for these locations. Spee-Dee does not charge delivery area surcharges for addresses within their network, which can save three to five dollars per package on rural deliveries — a significant advantage for businesses that ship to farming communities, small towns, and suburban areas throughout the Midwest.

Transit times are one to three business days within their coverage area, and their on-time performance rate is consistently competitive with national carriers. Spee-Dee also offers a ground economy service for non-urgent shipments at rates well below USPS Ground Advantage.

Eastern Connection and Better Trucks

The Northeast is served by Eastern Connection, which has operated since 1983 and handles about 300,000 packages daily across the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. Their focus on high-density urban areas — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC — means they handle the unique challenges of apartment buildings, doorman buildings, and dense commercial districts efficiently.

Better Trucks is a newer entry, founded in 2019, focusing on same-day and next-day delivery in select metropolitan areas. Their coverage is more limited than traditional regional carriers, but for businesses that need rapid local delivery in their served markets, Better Trucks offers a service level that even national carriers struggle to match.

How to Actually Use Regional Carriers

The practical challenge with regional carriers is that they only cover part of the country. You cannot hand all your shipments to OnTrac any more than you can hand them all to LSO. You need a system that automatically routes each shipment to the optimal carrier based on the destination.

Multi-carrier shipping platforms solve this problem. When you rate-shop a shipment through a platform like atoship, the system checks rates from national carriers and any regional carriers that serve the destination, then shows you the cheapest option meeting your delivery timeline. If the customer is in Phoenix, OnTrac might save you two dollars over UPS Ground. If they are in Dallas, LSO might save you three. If they are in rural Minnesota, Spee-Dee avoids the delivery area surcharge entirely.

The setup requires connecting your regional carrier accounts to your shipping platform and configuring routing rules. Most platforms make this a one-time configuration that runs automatically afterward.

For businesses shipping from a single location, start with whichever regional carrier covers your home region — that is where you will see the highest savings since a large portion of your shipments likely stay within a few hundred miles. For businesses using multiple warehouses or fulfillment centers, regional carriers at each location can collectively cover a majority of the country at below-national-carrier rates.