Moving resources
How much does it cost to move in Kansas City?
Real numbers from Kansas City movers, storage facilities and cleaners, not national averages. What a local move costs by home size, what the truck-it-yourself version saves, and the line items that turn a budgeted move into an over-budget one.
The short answer
Start with these numbers
A local move with professional movers costs most Kansas City households between $950 and $2,400. A studio comes in under $900. A four bedroom house runs $2,600 to $3,500. Rent a truck and do it yourself and the transport drops to a couple hundred dollars, paid for with a weekend and a favor or two.
Almost all of that is labor. Crew hours are the bill, which means the two things that actually move your total are how long the crew works and how much you got rid of before they arrived.
By home size
What a local move costs by home size
All-in means movers, packing supplies and a move-out clean. It excludes storage, deposits, and whatever you buy for the new place.
- Studio or 1 bedroom$500 to $900
- Hire movers$290 to $450
- Rent a truck$60 to $120
- $500 to $900
- 2 bedroom$950 to $1,800
- Hire movers$580 to $1,170
- Rent a truck$80 to $150
- $950 to $1,800
- 3 bedroom$1,600 to $2,400
- Hire movers$1,170 to $1,600
- Rent a truck$120 to $200
- $1,600 to $2,400
- 4+ bedroom$2,600 to $3,500
- Hire movers$1,960 to $2,450
- Rent a truck$150 to $250
- $2,600 to $3,500
These are Kansas City figures, taken from what local companies publish rather than a national average. A move across Overland Park is not priced like a move across Chicago, and a guide that averages the two is no use to either.
The big line
What movers cost in Kansas City
$145
per hour, two movers and a truck
$195
per hour, three movers
$250
per hour, four movers
Those are starting rates in the metro, and most Kansas City moves land on a three-person crew. Two companies publishing their own pricing agree within a few percent of each other, which is rare enough in this industry to be worth saying.
Watch the minimum as closely as the rate. It’s what sets the floor on a small job, and it varies more than the hourly does. A two-hour minimum at $145 puts a studio at $290. A three-hour minimum at $150 puts the same studio at $450. Same city, same work, 55 percent apart.
Ask about fuel and mileage before you book. Some local companies fold both into the hourly rate anywhere inside the metro. Others add a flat fuel charge per truck plus a per-mile rate once you pass the first 25 miles, which is easy to trip over on a Leawood to Olathe move.
A three bedroom lands at $1,170 to $1,600, and you can budget against that figure.
Straight answer
When you should just rent a truck
Against a crew, it isn’t a close contest on money. It’s a close contest on everything else.
$60–250
a truck for the day, all in
Rent it yourself when
You’re moving a one bedroom, nothing is precious or enormous, and you have two people who will genuinely show up. A small local move is a Saturday, not an ordeal, and paying a crew for it is paying for convenience rather than necessity.
A ten footer is around $20 a day, a fifteen $30, a twenty $40, plus roughly a dollar a mile and whatever you put in the tank.
$580–2,450
a crew, depending on home size
Hire movers when
There are stairs at either end, a piano or a gun safe, a bad back, a closing date you can’t miss, or a house big enough that a DIY move becomes two days and a second truck rental.
Movers carry insurance too, which feels abstract right up until something gets dropped.
The middle option people forget is hiring labor without the truck. You rent the vehicle, a crew loads and unloads it, and you drive. It costs a fraction of a full-service move and removes the part that actually hurts.
The rest of it
The costs nobody budgets for
None of these are large on their own. Together they are what turns a budgeted move into an over-budget one.
Storage between closings
A 10 by 10 unit in Overland Park runs about $70 to $145 a month, and almost all of that spread is climate control. Most units sit near $100. One month is easy to absorb. Three months while a closing slips is a different number.
The move-out clean
Between $250 and $700 across the metro, and $400 to $700 for a 2,000 to 3,000 square foot house. Landlords deduct it from a deposit if you skip it, so it gets paid either way. Book it early, because the last week of the month is when everyone wants a cleaner.
Two rents, or two mortgages
The most expensive line on this page is almost never on anyone's list. An overlap of a few weeks between places costs more than the movers do, and it's the one cost you can plan around by moving the dates rather than the boxes.
Utility transfers
Evergy, Kansas Gas Service and WaterOne each want a call, and Johnson County transfers are usually straightforward. Call rather than guess: published fee schedules cover new construction, not moving into an existing house. Start two weeks out so nothing lands cold.
Tips for the crew
Optional, and completely normal. Somewhere around $20 to $40 per mover for a half day, more if there are stairs or a piano. Bring cash on the day, because nobody wants to hunt for an ATM at 6pm.
What you buy on arrival
Shower curtain, trash cans, light bulbs, batteries, a shelf that fits the new closet. It's never one big purchase, which is exactly why it escapes the budget. Set aside a couple of hundred dollars and stop tracking it.
Where it goes
Two levers move the number, and boxes are not one of them
Look at the table again and almost everything on it is labor. Movers are billed by the hour, cleaners by the hour, and storage by the month you failed to avoid. The containers your things travel in are a rounding error by comparison.
So the first lever is hours. A crew that can park close, walk a clear path, and load boxes that are already stacked by the door finishes faster than one working around half-packed rooms.
An hour saved on a three-person crew is $200.
Being genuinely ready when they arrive is the highest-paid work you’ll do that week.
The second lever is volume. You’re paying to move every object you own, which means the sofa you don’t like is costing you money to keep. A carload to a donation center two weekends out is worth more than any amount of shopping around on hourly rates.
Everything else on this page is real, and none of it is where the money is.
How we help
What we actually do for the move
Hours are the bill. Everything below is aimed at the hour a crew spends working around a half-packed house.
They arrive before you pack
Totes are dropped off at the start of your rental, not the morning of the move. You pack on your own schedule instead of building boxes the night before, and the crew shows up to a house that is already done.
They stack, so the truck loads faster
Every tote is the same size with a lid that clips shut, so a stack goes on the truck as a unit and holds its shape on the drive. Mixed cardboard has to be sorted and re-stacked as it goes, and that time is billed by the hour.
Nothing to buy, build or break down
No store run before, no flattened pile after. We drop the totes off and we come back for them, which takes the last job of the move off your list entirely.
Numbered and labeled
Totes arrive clean and numbered with labels included, so telling a crew which room a stack belongs in takes a second rather than a conversation at the door.
None of that makes a moving company cheaper by the hour. It makes the hours shorter, which is the only part of the bill you control once the truck is booked.
Where we fit
What ReadyCrate costs, honestly
Our Standard package is $229 for 14 days and includes 50 totes, dollies and labels. Delivery and pickup together are $29 in Zone A, one fee covering both trips. That is $258 for the containers on a typical two or three bedroom move.
Set that against $1,170 to $1,600 for the movers on the same house and we are somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent of the labor bill. We’re not going to pretend that renting totes transforms the cost of your move, because it doesn’t. It replaces a cost you were going to pay anyway, at roughly what new boxes cost, and takes the store run and the flattened-cardboard pile out of your week.
Packages start at $149 for 30 totes if you’re moving a studio or a one bedroom. Our pricing page has all four sizes and the delivery zones.
Working out your own number?
Two of our guides do the parts of this that take the longest to figure out on your own.
- Moving box calculator
Room by room, for studios through five bedroom homes. - Cardboard versus plastic
What each really costs, and when cardboard is the better buy.
Questions
Common questions about moving costs
For a local move with professional movers, most Kansas City households land between $950 and $2,400 once you add packing supplies and a move-out clean. A studio or one bedroom comes in under $900. A four bedroom house runs $2,600 to $3,500. Renting a truck and doing it yourself takes the transport cost down to a couple hundred dollars, but you're paying for it with a weekend and whoever you can talk into helping.
Around $145 to $150 an hour for two movers and a truck, and about $195 to $200 for three. Four-person crews run near $250. Watch the minimum as closely as the rate, because it sets the floor on a small job: a two-hour minimum at $145 is $290, while a three-hour minimum at $150 is $450 for the same work. Ask about fuel and mileage too. Some KC movers include them inside the metro and some add a flat fuel charge plus a per-mile rate past the first 25 miles.
Plan on $1,170 to $1,600 for the movers themselves. That's typically a three-person crew for six to eight hours. Two Kansas City moving companies publishing their own rates land within a few percent of each other on that figure, which is unusual and makes it a number you can budget against. Add packing supplies and a move-out clean and the realistic all-in is $1,600 to $2,400.
Much cheaper, and for some moves it's the right call. A truck for a day is roughly $60 to $250 depending on size and mileage, against $580 to $2,450 for a crew. If you're moving a one bedroom, you're young enough to enjoy it, and two friends owe you a favor, rent the truck. The math changes with stairs, a piano, a bad back, or a closing date you can't miss. Movers carry insurance, which feels abstract until the day something gets dropped.
A 10 by 10 unit in Overland Park is advertised between $70 and $145 a month, with most facilities near $100. The spread is almost entirely climate control. Non-climate units average closer to $78 and start around $42. Check the promotional rate against the ongoing one before you sign, because first-month deals are common and the real cost is whatever month two looks like.
Roughly $20 to $40 per mover for a half day of work, and more for a long day, a lot of stairs, or anything genuinely heavy. It isn't required. It's common enough that a crew notices, and bringing cash on the day is easier than sorting it out afterward.
The one that hurts is overlapping rent or mortgage while you hold two places, which routinely costs more than the movers. After that it is storage if a closing slips, the move-out clean, utility transfers, tips, and the steady drip of small purchases for the new place. None of them are large on their own. Together they add several hundred dollars to a move that looked fully budgeted.
Around $125 to $150 for the roughly 50 boxes a two or three bedroom move takes, before tape, markers, and the wardrobe and dish boxes most people end up wanting. The big-box stores sell pre-built kits for two to four bedroom homes at $159 to $254. Renting totes lands in the same range and includes delivery and pickup. Our cardboard versus plastic comparison breaks that down properly.
More on rentals, damage and delivery windows on our FAQ page. We deliver across Johnson County and the Kansas City metro, including Overland Park, Leawood, and Olathe.
One line item you can settle today
Pick a package, enter your ZIP, and we'll have totes at your door before you start packing.