What Is White-Glove Delivery? Service Tiers and What They Cost

White-glove delivery is a premium service in which the item is carried into the building, taken to the room you choose, unpacked, placed in its final position, and the packaging taken away. What it covers beyond that varies by provider, and the term itself is unregulated.

Almost every quote for a large or valuable item now offers white glove as an upgrade, usually without specifying what the upgrade includes. A furniture retailer, a freight broker, and a fine art shipper will all use the phrase, and all three mean something different by it. The gap between those meanings is where people get caught out, because the difference only becomes visible on the day, when a crew either does or does not do the thing you assumed was included.

The people who ask us this most often are interior designers taking delivery on behalf of a client, and private collectors receiving something bought at auction. Both need to know exactly where the service stops.

This page sets out what the term covers, how the service tiers below it differ, and what changes when the item being delivered is a painting rather than a sofa.

Key Takeaways

• White-glove delivery covers inside delivery, placement in the room, unpacking, and removal of packaging waste.
• The term is not regulated, so two providers can quote white glove and deliver different levels of service.
• Standard white glove for furniture usually includes assembly. For fine art, hanging and mounting sit outside the service and are arranged separately.
• Fine art white glove adds custom crating, a condition report, trained handlers, and insurance based on the declared value.
• Cost is driven by crew size, time on site, building access requirements, and the value being insured.

White Glove Delivery Quick Answer

White-glove delivery is a premium delivery service that typically includes inside delivery, room-of-choice placement, unpacking, positioning, and removal of packing materials. For fine art, however, true white-glove shipping also includes condition reporting, specialist art handlers, custom crating, and insurance based on declared value rather than weight.

What White-Glove Delivery Includes

At a minimum, a white-glove service should cover five things:

• Inside Delivery: The item comes through the door rather than stopping at the curb or the lobby.
• Room of Choice: It is carried to wherever you want it, including up stairs.
• Unpacking: Wrapping and crating are opened on site rather than left for you.
• Placement: The piece is placed where it will live, rather than left in the middle of the floor.
• Debris Removal: The packaging leaves with the crew.

Everything past that point is where providers differ, and it’s worth asking rather than assuming. Our local and nationwide collection service covers all five as standard, along with the parts that only matter for artwork. Where a piece cannot leave the building unpacked, onsite packing brings the materials and the crew to the object instead.

What Each Delivery Tier Includes

The names below are used loosely across the industry, so treat them as a rough map rather than a standard. What matters is what you confirm in writing before booking.

Curbside Delivery

The driver brings the shipment to the curb or the end of the driveway and leaves it there. Getting it inside is your problem. This works when you have a commercial receiving bay, staff on site and something to lift with. It does not work for anything a single person cannot carry, and it’s where most damage to unprotected work happens.

Threshold Delivery

The piece is carried through the front door and set down just inside. Nothing happens beyond the entryway. Galleries with their own handlers often buy this deliberately, because they would rather unpack the work themselves than have a stranger do it.

Room of Choice

The piece is carried to a room you nominate on the ground floor, still crated or wrapped. Ground floor is the standard, and this is the detail that catches people out. Stairs, walk-ups and buildings where the freight elevator has to be reserved all need flagging before booking so the access can be priced. Tell your shipper the floor and the route in when you request the quote, not on the morning of the delivery.

White Glove

Room of choice, plus unpacking, removal of the packaging, and the piece set in its final position. This is the point where the phrase starts to mean something. If a provider is describing anything short of this as white glove, they are using the label loosely.

Fine Art White Glove

Everything above, carried out by handlers trained on artwork rather than general freight crews. At this tier the certificate of insurance for the building is issued and the freight elevator is booked as part of the job. This is the tier for a piece where damage cannot be repaired or replaced, and it is the reason specialist shippers exist.

What You Buy Separately

These four are not delivery levels and none of them arrives automatically, whichever tier you book. Each is priced on its own and each can attach to any of the tiers above.

• A custom crate built for the piece. Protects against impact and vibration in transit, priced on the dimensions of the piece.
• A condition report before collection. Documents the state of the piece before it moves. Without one there is no baseline to compare against on arrival, and a damage claim becomes an argument about when it happened.
• Cover on declared value. Insures the piece for what it is actually worth. A carrier’s standard liability is calculated on weight, which bears no relation to the value of artwork.
• Assembly or hanging. Carried out by a specialist installer, arranged and coordinated alongside the delivery.

Ask for these by name. Assuming a premium tier includes them is the most common and most expensive mistake in this category. If you already use a provider and aren’t certain which tier you have been buying, our piece on reevaluating a transport provider covers how to check without disrupting work in progress.

What White-Glove Delivery Does Not Include

Here is where the general definition and the fine art reality separate. For designer furniture and fixtures, white glove commonly includes assembly, and the crew will build the item before they leave. For artwork, the equivalent step is hanging or mounting, and that is a different job requiring different skills.

Hanging a heavy piece involves knowing what the wall is made of, what fixing it needs, and how the weight will behave over time. It’s closer to construction than to delivery. Our own work ends with the piece unpacked and placed where you want it, and for local projects, we can arrange installation with installers we work with regularly. The installer carries their own insurance for that part of the work, which is worth understanding before the day rather than after.

Two other things are commonly assumed and rarely included by default. Removing an existing piece from the wall to make room for the new one is a separate task. So is the disposal of anything the new piece replaces.

Not sure what your quote covers?

Send us the piece and the destination, and we will come back with an itemized plan that says which steps are included.

What Changes When the Item Is Fine Art

A sofa and a painting can both be described as a white-glove delivery, and the work involved has almost nothing in common. Four things are added when the object is artwork.

• The Packing is Engineered: A soft wrap protects a finish. A custom crate isolates the piece from vibration and compression across the whole journey, and it is built to the object’s dimensions rather than pulled off a shelf. We have set out how that decision gets made in our guide to custom wooden crates, and covered the particular problem of framed and glazed work separately.
• The Condition Is Documented: A condition report is made before collection, photographing the surface and any existing damage. If anything changes in transit, that record is what a claim rests on.
• The People Are Trained for It: Furniture crews are trained to move weight. Art handlers are trained in how objects fail, which is a different skill, and the reason specialist shipping differs from standard freight.
• The Insurance Works Differently: Standard carrier liability is calculated by weight. All-risk transit insurance is arranged against the declared value of the piece, which is the arrangement that actually protects a valuable object.

White glove across a border adds a further layer, because the crate itself has to satisfy phytosanitary rules, and the paperwork is settled before anything is packed. Our international shipping and customs service handles that side, and we have explained the crate requirement in our piece on heat-treated wood and HT stamps.

What White-Glove Delivery Costs

There is no standard rate, and any provider quoting one before asking about the item is guessing. Five things move the price.

• Crew Size: Two handlers become four when a piece is heavy or awkward on a staircase.
• Time On Site: Unpacking and placement take time that a curbside drop does not.
• Building Requirements: Certificates of insurance and booked elevator windows add administration before anyone arrives.
• Protection Level: A fitted crate is usually the largest single line on a fine art quote.
• Declared Value: Insurance is priced against what is being protected.

Published ranges for furniture white glove are not a useful guide for artwork because the crating and insurance elements dominate the number. We have set out the real drivers and worked examples in our guide to the cost of shipping art. Distance changes the picture too, and our domestic shipping service explains how a dedicated run differs from a shared specialist load.

White-Glove Delivery in New York Buildings

In the city, the constraint is frequently the building rather than the object. Many pre-war co-ops and managed buildings will not let a crew through the door without a certificate of insurance naming the building, approved in advance by the managing agent. Freight elevators have to be reserved, often within narrow weekday windows.

For galleries, collectors, and interior designers working across Manhattan, these building requirements often determine the delivery schedule more than the travel distance itself.

A provider who works in the city regularly treats that paperwork as part of the job. Our guide to fine art shipping in New York covers what the buildings require, and the chain of custody record shows who held the piece at each stage between the truck and the wall. Galleries in Chelsea and on the Upper East Side deal with these requirements weekly, and we work to those requirements as standard.

Because the paperwork, rather than the distance, usually sets the date, it is worth working backward from when the piece needs to be in place. Our art shipping timeline calculator does that for you, including the extra time a certificate of insurance adds to a New York job.

How to Check What Your Quote Actually Covers

Four questions settle it, and any provider worth using will answer them without hesitating.

• Does the crew come inside, and will they carry the piece up stairs?
• Who unpacks it, and who takes the packaging away?
• Is the piece placed where I want it, or left where it lands?
• What insurance applies, and is it based on value or on weight?

Frequently Asked Questions About White-Glove Delivery

These are the questions we’re asked most often once white glove appears on a quote. If yours is not here, call us on 516-867-4366 and a person who can answer it will pick up.

Is white glove delivery worth it?

For anything fragile or valuable, usually yes. The cost sits well below repairing a damaged piece, and for artwork, it is often the difference between a documented handover and no record at all. For a sturdy item you could carry yourself, standard delivery is fine.

Does white glove delivery include assembly?

For furniture, usually yes. For artwork, no. Hanging and mounting are separate jobs with different skills and different insurance, and they should appear as a separate line on any honest quote rather than being folded into delivery.

Are you supposed to tip white glove delivery?

That is entirely up to you. It is not expected and it is never built into the price. If you think the crew did a good job, they will certainly appreciate it. If you would rather not guess, ask when you book and we will tell you straight.

What is the difference between inside delivery and white glove?

Inside delivery gets the item through the door and no further. White glove continues from there: the piece goes to the room you choose, is unpacked, placed where it belongs, and the packaging leaves with the crew. Inside delivery is one step within white glove rather than a synonym for it.

Do I need white glove delivery for a painting?

For anything of real value, the relevant question is broader than white glove. You want crating, a condition report, and insurance based on the declared value, which standard white glove does not include. Our fine art shipping services cover the full set. If the piece came from a sale, our work with auction houses also covers collection from the saleroom.

Does white-glove delivery include insurance?

Not always. Standard white-glove delivery for furniture often includes only the carrier’s limited liability, which is typically calculated by weight rather than the item’s true value. For fine art and other high-value goods, specialist white-glove shipping usually includes, or can arrange, all-risk transit insurance based on the object’s declared value. That approach provides significantly more appropriate protection for irreplaceable or valuable pieces.

Is white-glove delivery the same as white-glove shipping?

No. White-glove delivery usually refers to the final stage of the journey, including inside delivery, room-of-choice placement, unpacking, positioning, and removal of packing materials. White-glove shipping covers the entire transport process, from collection and packing through custom crating, condition reporting, transportation, and final delivery. For fine art, the shipping stage is when many of the most important protective measures are implemented before the artwork ever reaches its destination.

Know Exactly What’s Included Before You Book

White glove is a useful shorthand and a poor specification. The version that protects a valuable piece includes crating and documentation, with coverage based on the object’s value. If you have something to move and want to know exactly which steps are included, tell us what it is and where it needs to go. We have also compared specialist art movers against regular moving companies if you are weighing the two, and written about why communication matters during a white-glove move.

You can also see how we work with galleries, designers, collectors, and institutions.

Moving something valuable?

Send us the details, and we will respond with a clear, itemized plan.