A 3-bedroom local move comes to about $2,240 on MoveAdvisor's rough arithmetic for a four-person crew. A 3-bedroom move of 2,400 miles had a median full-service price of $9,255 in HireAHelper's 2026 data. The $7,000 gap between those two numbers comes from distance and weight, but a chunk of it is decisions you can still make, and a chunk is fees nobody mentions until move day.
Below: how movers actually price you, what the headline number includes, and where the real variance lives.
Two pricing models
Movers price one of two ways depending on distance.
Local moves (under ~50 miles) are billed hourly. You pay for crew time: MoveAdvisor's guide assumes about $80 an hour per mover. Ask whether the company sets a minimum number of hours, because a short move can still bill the minimum.
Long-distance moves (over ~50 miles, especially over 500) are billed per cubic foot or per pound, multiplied by distance. The volume of your stuff is the biggest factor; distance is a multiplier on top of it. Hourly billing doesn't apply, once the truck is on the highway, the meter doesn't run.
That single distinction explains why most mover-cost articles hand-wave their numbers. They mash hourly local rates and long-haul tariffs into the same average and produce a number that's wrong for everyone.
Local move costs by home size
For local moves, these figures come from MoveAdvisor's guide (updated September 5, 2025). It multiplies an assumed $80 an hour per mover by crew size and hours, and calls the results rough estimates, not booking data:
| Home size | Crew | Hours | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 2 movers | ~3 hrs | ~$480 |
| 1-bedroom | 2 movers | ~4 hrs | ~$640 |
| 2-bedroom | 3 movers | ~6 hrs | ~$1,440 |
| 3-bedroom | 4 movers | ~7 hrs | ~$2,240 |
| 4-bedroom | 4 movers | ~9 hrs | ~$2,880 |
These are base numbers, the truck pulls up at one apartment, your crew loads it, drives it across town, unloads it. Add-ons that show up in real bills:
- Travel fee, typically one extra hour billed at the same rate, to cover the crew driving from their depot to your origin and back from your destination.
- Stairs, charged per flight or per move.
- Long carry, when the truck can't park within a set distance of your door. Common in city apartments and gated communities.
- Specialty items, pianos, safes, large art, usually priced per item.
A "2BR move for $1,440" grows the moment the crew has to walk up two flights and shuttle a piano. Ask each company for its stair, long-carry and specialty-item charges in writing.
Long-distance costs by tier
For moves over a few hundred miles, three tiers exist. Each prices differently and serves a different customer. The figures are 2026 medians for a 3-bedroom move of about 2,400 miles from HireAHelper:
| Tier | 3BR / 2,400 miles | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Full-service mover | $9,255 | Crew loads, drives, unloads. Optionally packs. |
| Moving container | $4,662 | Container drops at your house, you load, they drive, you unload. |
| DIY truck rental | $2,949 (U-Haul) to $3,355 (Penske), before fuel | You drive the truck. Cheapest in dollars, expensive in time. |
MovingPlace reports the same order at 2,000 miles for a 2 to 3 bedroom home (October 2026): truck $2,485, container $4,004, full service $7,955. Smaller homes cost less and larger ones more. We have a full pricing teardown at How much does a long-distance move cost in 2026? if you're sizing up that path specifically.
What actually moves the number
Three variables, in rough order of impact.
Volume. Mover guides put a furnished 3-bedroom house at 7,000 to 10,000 pounds, depending on how long the family has lived there and what hobbies they have. On a weight-billed long-haul move, that spread is a large share of the bill. This is also why bedroom counts are bad pricing proxies, what you own matters more than the shape of the building you live in. More on cubic feet here.
Distance. Local moves bill by the hour, so the miles barely matter. Past about 50 miles a full-service move is priced by weight and the distance it travels. This Old House's 500 to 600 mile quotes for a 3-bedroom house ran $3,500 to $6,900 full service, against HireAHelper's $9,255 median at 2,400 miles. They are different publishers, so read that as direction, not a ratio.
Service tier. Same move, different tier, swings the price a lot: in HireAHelper's 2026 data for a 3-bedroom move of 2,400 miles, the median container cost about half the median full-service price ($4,662 against $9,255).
Timing. Peak season (May–September) costs more than winter: the Bureau of Labor Statistics' seasonal factors for moving, storage and freight put July about 6.6% above February. Mid-month and mid-week dates are easier to book than weekends and the end of the month, when apartment leases turn over and crews are busiest.
Hidden costs that don't show up in the headline
Things that happen on move day:
- Long-carry fees: charged when the truck can't park within a set distance of your door. Ask for the distance and the rate.
- Shuttle fees: charged when the long-distance truck can't physically reach your destination and goods have to be transferred to a smaller vehicle.
- Storage-in-transit: when your move-in date is days or weeks after move-out, the mover's tariff bills storage by weight and by day, plus a separate charge to haul your goods out of storage.
- Packing service: priced by labor and materials. HireAHelper's August 2026 guide puts professional packing for a 3-bedroom home at about $850 to $1,100, with packers often charging $25 to $40 per hour per worker and supplies sometimes billed extra. It is one marketplace's estimate, not an average.
- Valuation coverage: Full Value Protection, which repairs or replaces a damaged item, is the federal default and costs extra. The $0.60-per-pound option applies only if you waive Full Value in writing. One mover's published 2026 chart prices Full Value on a house-size shipment at $220 to $661. Most movers don't lead with this; ask.
Reading a moving estimate without getting fleeced covers the paperwork side: binding vs. non-binding, the 110% rule, and what to ask when a quote looks too low.
How to ballpark your specific number
Three steps that take 30 minutes total.
- Walk through your house with the calculator to get cubic feet. The number is yours; you can take it to any mover. Open the calculator.
- Pick your tier honestly. A small move with healthy adults rarely needs full-service. A complex cross-country move with specialty items rarely doesn't.
- Get three written quotes. FMCSA says to compare written estimates from several movers. If one comes in far below the rest, ask what survey it was based on; no regulator publishes how low is too low.
The ballpark you walk into the conversation with is what lets you spot a quote that doesn't add up.
A note on what we don't do
Most online "movers cost calculator" tools are sales lead forms with a calculator stapled on, you fill them out, your contact info goes to a network of movers, you get followed around the internet for three weeks. We don't do that. The number above is yours, the cubic-foot estimate is yours, and we don't sell either. You take both wherever you want.