Estimate what a move will cost — from your home size and distance — comparing full-service movers to a DIY truck rental.
A rough estimate. Local moves are priced by crew hours (~$25–50/mover/hr plus truck); long-distance by shipment weight and distance. Real quotes vary with stairs, access, packing services, season, and insurance. Always get 2–3 written quotes. Estimate only.
Moving cost hinges on two things: how much you're moving (roughly, home size) and how far. Local moves are billed by the hour for a crew and truck; long-distance moves by the weight of your shipment. DIY truck rental is cheaper up front but costs your time and effort — this compares both.
Moving is two different industries wearing the same name, and they are priced on different units. A local move is sold by the hour: a crew and a truck show up, the clock runs, and what you pay is a rate multiplied by how long your belongings take to carry. A long-distance move is sold by weight and distance: your shipment is weighed, and you pay a rate per pound that rises with the miles. That is why a single "cost of a move" number is close to meaningless, and why this calculator branches. With the move type left on Auto, anything under 100 miles is treated as local and anything at or above it as long-distance.
The defaults are a 2-bedroom home moving 50 miles. Fifty is under 100, so the local model runs. It estimates crew time as two hours of fixed overhead plus an hour and a half per bedroom: 2 + (2 × 1.5) = 5 hours for a two-person crew. At the $120 per hour the tool assumes for two movers and a truck — about $60 per mover-hour — that is 5 × $120 = $600, and the quoted band of $540 to $780 is that midpoint taken 10% down and 30% up, because real quotes cluster above the estimate more often than below.
The DIY line is built differently: a $40 truck day rate, plus $0.79 for each of the 50 miles ($39.50), plus $30 a bedroom for boxes and tape ($60). That totals $139.50. Against the $600 midpoint for movers, the headline gap is about $460.
This is where an honest tool has to speak against its own headline. The movers figure is complete — it is what you hand over. The DIY figure is not. It does not include fuel, and a rental truck's consumption is nothing like your car's. It does not include the pizza-and-beer tax on the two friends you talked into it, or what you owe them next time. It does not price your Saturday, or the risk that you drop the television. So read the comparison as "movers cost roughly $460 more in cash", not "DIY is $460 cheaper". For a 2-bedroom local move those unpriced items are usually worth less than $460 to a fit person with willing friends, and worth far more than $460 to anyone with a bad back, a narrow staircase or a job on Monday.
Treat the output as a band to sanity-check written quotes against, not as a quote. If a bid comes in at double the top of the range, something in it — access, packing, valuation — is not in this model, and the right move is to ask which. Two or three written quotes, on the same scope, remain the only way to know the real number.
A move is rarely one cost. It is the deposit, the first month, the overlap where you are paying two rents, the utility connection fees, the van, the cleaning to get the old deposit back, and the things you replace because they did not survive. Each is small; together they are the reason moves overrun. That is a ledger problem rather than a calculator problem — the moment you need to see what has been spent against what you set aside, a running cash envelope budget tracker does what a single estimate cannot. Get the quotes first, then give the whole move one line per cost, and the overrun stops being a surprise.
Stairs, long carries, elevators, packing services, bulky specialty items, peak season (summer), and insurance. Ask what's included so quotes are comparable.
Usually up front, but factor fuel, your time, help, and the risk of damage. For long distances or big homes, the gap narrows.
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Yes. The Moving Cost Calculator is completely free, runs in your browser, and never asks for a signup, email, or download. Enter your numbers and the result updates instantly.
It uses standard formulas and recalculates the moment you change a value, so the math is exact for the inputs you enter. Treat the result as a reliable planning estimate; for decisions with legal or tax consequences, confirm the figures with a qualified professional.
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Last reviewed: September 2026. Free to use, no signup — Moving Cost Calculator by ToolWise Digital.
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