Moving cost calculator
Pick your route, home size and month. Get a cost range, transit time and the saving from moving off-peak: built from published industry cost ranges rather than a single national average.
How this calculator works
Three inputs drive almost all of a long-distance move's price: how far it goes, how much you are moving, and when you move.
Distance
Priced in bands rather than per mile. Rates rise with distance but not linearly, the fixed cost of loading a trailer is spread across a longer haul, so a 2,000-mile move does not cost twice a 1,000-mile one.
Volume
Long-distance moves are priced on volume, not hours. We map home size to typical cubic feet: 300 for a studio up to 1,700 for a four-bedroom. Larger shipments cost less per cubic foot.
Timing
A seasonal multiplier by month, peaking in summer. This is the input most calculators ignore entirely, and it moves the number more than most people expect.
Planning estimates built from published industry cost ranges, not from completed-move records.
What this cannot tell you
An estimate is a planning tool. Two things change the real number, and neither is visible to a calculator.
- Your actual inventory. Home size is a proxy. A sparsely furnished three-bedroom can ship less than a densely packed one-bedroom, and the estimate moves with it.
- Access at both ends. If a full-size trailer cannot park at either address, a shuttle truck is added. This is the single most common reason a final price differs from an estimate, and the reason any quote given without asking about access is not a real quote.
Put this calculator on your own site
Free to embed on any site, with attribution. No key, no signup, no script to install.
Built for relocation and HR pages, real-estate and brokerage sites, and property blogs: places that field the "what will my move cost" question constantly and have nothing concrete to answer it with. The embed renders the same numbers as this page and updates when the model does.
Moving cost calculator: common questions
How accurate is this moving cost calculator?
It gives a planning range, not a quote. The estimate is built from distance, shipment volume by home size, and the month you move, the three factors that drive most of the price. What it cannot see is your actual inventory and the access at both addresses, which is why every carrier surveys before giving a binding estimate.
What is included in the estimate?
Full-service moving: loading, transport and unloading by a professional crew. It excludes storage, auto shipping, specialty items such as pianos and safes, and full packing service: packing is shown separately as an add-on because roughly half of customers do their own.
Why is moving so much more expensive in summer?
Demand. Between May and September nearly every household with school-age children moves at once, and crew and trailer capacity is fixed. The gap between the cheapest and most expensive month is about 29% on most long-distance routes, on a typical move that is well over a thousand dollars.
Why do you only show certain routes?
Because we only publish numbers we have data for. Generating an estimate for a corridor we have never run would be a guess dressed up as a figure. If your route is not listed, the quote form will get you a real number from a dispatcher instead.
Can I put this calculator on my own site?
Yes. An embeddable version is available for relocation, real-estate and personal-finance sites to use with attribution. Get in touch and we will send the embed code.
Want the exact number?
A binding estimate from a licensed carrier, not a broker handing your move to whoever bids lowest.