Four calculators. Local moves priced by home size and crew hours, long-distance by weight and mileage, truck rentals by day and distance, packing supplies by room count. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Know the number before the first quote lands in your inbox. It changes the conversation.
Enter your home size and crew count. Get an hourly cost estimate for a local move.
Crunch it →Priced by shipment weight and total mileage, for interstate or cross-country moves.
Crunch it →Renting the truck yourself: daily rate by truck size, plus mileage and fuel.
Crunch it →Boxes, tape, bubble wrap, and packing labor if you want someone else to do it.
Crunch it →Two quotes for the same move, same date, same address, can differ by $2,000. That is not a typo. Mover, month, and whether there is a freight elevator all shift the number. These calculators give you a working baseline before you start collecting quotes: local moves priced by the hour, long-distance by weight and miles, DIY by truck. A mover who quotes $900 and lands at $1,600 on move day is harder to miss when you already know what $900 should buy.
The four tools above cover different situations, and picking the wrong one just gives you a number for a move you are not making. Staying in the same metro area, even across town? Start with the local calculator: local crews bill by the hour, so home size and crew count drive the price, not distance. Crossing state lines or going coast to coast? The long-distance calculator prices by shipment weight and total mileage instead, which is how interstate movers actually quote. Doing the driving and lifting yourself? The truck rental calculator works out a daily rate plus mileage and fuel, no labor line at all. Not sure which truck length to rent in the first place? The truck size calculator answers that by bedroom count and furnishing level before you price anything. And if the only thing left undecided is whether to pack it yourself or pay someone, the packing calculator isolates just that cost so it does not get lost inside a bigger estimate.
Some moves need two tools. A cross-country relocation where you are also paying for packing help means running the long-distance calculator for the shipment, then the packing calculator separately for materials and labor. Nothing here stops you from stacking them.
Open the local calculator and the defaults already reflect a common case: a 2 to 3 bedroom home, a 3-person crew, 8 hours on the clock, at $55 per mover per hour, plus a $150 travel fee for the truck. Multiply it out and the math is not hidden. Three movers times eight hours is 24 mover-hours. Twenty-four mover-hours times $55 is $1,320 in labor. Add the $150 travel fee and the total lands at $1,470.
Change any one input and the number moves with it. A four-bedroom home usually needs a fourth mover and runs closer to 11 hours, which pushes labor well past $2,000 before the travel fee is even added. A studio with two movers for five hours comes in far lower. The calculator does not guess at your situation. It applies the same hourly math a real crew uses, using the numbers you give it.
Every number on this site comes from the formula in the calculator itself, not from a database of mover quotes. The local tool assumes a standard hourly rate per mover and a flat travel fee, both of which you can edit before you calculate anything. It does not know about a fourth-floor walkup with no elevator, a piano, or a move date that falls on the one weekend in June every local company is already booked. Those add real dollars that no calculator sees until you tell it to.
Treat every result here as a starting number, not a quote. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires licensed movers to give you a written estimate before the job, and that written estimate is the number that matters once you are actually booking. Use the calculator to know roughly what to expect walking in, then compare it against what a licensed mover puts on paper.
U.S. government sources for additional reading and to check figures on this page:
Distance, home size, total shipment weight, and add-ons like packing and storage all feed into the final number. Local movers charge by the hour per crew member. Long-distance movers price by weight and miles. Get at least three written quotes from licensed movers, and run the numbers through a moving cost calculator first so you have a baseline before anyone gives you a figure.
A local move inside the same city runs $300 to $1,500 for a studio or small apartment. The moment you add a second flight of stairs or a piano, that ceiling goes up. A long-distance move for a two or three bedroom home can run $2,000 to $7,000 or more. Add 10 to 15 percent on top for packing supplies, tips, and the things that always cost more than expected. Prices shift a lot by region and time of year, so collect multiple quotes early.
Most companies charge $25 to $50 per mover per hour, though the rate moves around by city and season. One mover for 3 hours works out to roughly $75 to $150, before travel fees or minimums. In practice, most companies will not send fewer than 2 movers or schedule under 2 to 3 hours. Confirm the hourly rate, the minimum charge, and any extra fees in writing before you book.
A rental truck like a U-Haul is usually cheaper on paper, but that paper does not include fuel, mileage fees, lodging on an overnight haul, or the day you take off work to drive. Hiring movers costs more upfront and saves your back. For a long-distance move heavy on furniture, full-service movers can come out cheaper once you add everything up. Get actual quotes for both, then decide.