Moving resources
Kansas City movers worth considering
A short list of Kansas City moving companies we checked against the public record, with who each one suits and what it publishes. Below it, how to run the same checks yourself in about ten minutes, and what an hourly rate leaves out.
The list
Movers we would send a neighbor to
There is no single best mover for every move, so each card says who the company suits, what the public record shows, and the rate it publishes if it publishes one. Whatever the hourly figure, ask for the total in writing.
Moving within Johnson County
Hourly crews. The rate they lead with is the start of the bill, and the card says what else is on it.
Mike Hammer Moving
Lenexa
4.9 on Google, 1,909 reviews
$145/hr
Two movers and a truck. Two-hour minimum, $25 fuel, $1.50 a mile past 25.
- Kansas licensed, tariff on file
- Interstate authority
- 14 trucks on the federal record
The default pick for a Johnson County house. Biggest local fleet of the companies that publish a rate.
Before you book: Trip time is real: the drive from their Lenexa yard to you and back is billed at the hourly rate, on top of the fuel charge. Ask for it in the estimate.
This list is short on purpose and getting longer. A company is named here only after its licensing and rates have been read from the public record and confirmed with the company, and several are in that process now.
Whoever you hire
An hour saved on a three-person crew is $200.
Every company on this page bills by the hour, and loading is the hours you control. 50 clean, numbered totes arrive at your door before the move, stack with the lids on, and go on the truck in one pass. Forty mismatched boxes do not. We collect the totes after you unpack. From $258 delivered, anywhere in Johnson County.
Check it yourself
Four lookups, about ten minutes
Every one of these is free and public. You do not need our list to use them, which is the point.
01
Kansas moves: the KCC tariff list
Kansas regulates moving inside the state. A company that moves your furniture across Johnson County needs a certificate from the Kansas Corporation Commission and has to file its rates. The KCC publishes every filed tariff as a PDF, so you can read the rate the company is supposed to charge you.
02
Missouri moves: the MoDOT list
Missouri keeps its own list of companies authorized to move household goods inside the state, and it has a status column. Active is what you want. Suspended is a company still taking bookings while its authority is not in good standing, and that happens more than you would expect.
03
Any move: the federal record
Search the company on SAFER and you get its USDOT number, how many trucks it actually runs, and its safety record. A one-truck company is not a problem. A one-truck company describing itself as a fleet is worth a second question.
04
Leaving the state: the MC number
Crossing a state line needs separate federal authority. On the SAFER record, look for an MC number and for Household Goods under what the company is authorized to carry. Plenty of good local crews do not have this, which is fine until you ask them to drive to Denver.
What a bad estimate looks like
These are the federal regulator’s own warning signs, not ours. Any one of them on its own might be nothing. Two of them together is a reason to call someone else.
- A quote given without anyone looking at your stuff, in person or on video.
- No written estimate, or an estimate you are asked to sign while it is blank.
- A large deposit up front, or a company that wants cash.
- A phone answered with a generic greeting instead of a company name.
- No local address you can find, or an address that turns out to be a mailbox.
- A rental truck on moving day from a company that told you it owns a fleet.
The honest part
The hourly rate is not the bill
The number a moving company leads with is almost never what you pay. Local crews here bill by the hour, and four other lines sit around that hour. Two companies quoting the same hourly rate can finish hundreds of dollars apart. We put the real Kansas City figures, and what a three-bedroom move tends to land at, in the cost guide.
A minimum
Two or three hours, billed either way.
Trip time
The crew driving to you and back, on the clock.
A fuel charge
A flat add-on on most local quotes.
Mileage
Past a set radius, often 25 miles, at a per-mile rate.
Here is the part that does not help us. Boxes are a small share of what a move costs, and switching to our totes will not make a crew cheaper per hour. Nobody should book a moving company differently because of what they pack in.
What packing does change is how long the crew works. A house packed into stackable totes with the lids on loads faster than a house packed into forty mismatched boxes, some of them open. On an hourly job that shows up on the invoice. That is the only claim we make about movers and it is the one we can stand behind.
How this list works
Nobody paid to be on this page
We are not a moving company and we take no fee for sending anyone work, so the only thing a name on this page costs us is our own credibility.
We are not a moving company
ReadyCrate rents reusable moving totes in Johnson County. We deliver them before your move and collect them after. We do not carry furniture and we do not employ movers, so we have nothing to gain from steering you to one crew over another.
No fees, either direction
No company on this page pays us to be here and we take nothing for sending anyone work. This is not a directory that sells placement, and there is no order to the list that means anything.
Names come off
A license lapses, a company gets suspended, a pattern shows up in the reviews, and the name comes off this page. We check the public records against every name here, and we would rather have a short list than a stale one.
What a name here means
Three checks, and a company clears all three or it is not here
01Licensed for the moves it advertises
Kansas requires a moving company to hold a certificate from the Kansas Corporation Commission and to file its rates publicly. Missouri keeps its own list with a status column, and companies do turn up on it marked suspended. We read the KCC tariff index and the MoDOT list ourselves. A company missing from the list that covers its moves is not named here.
02Insured, and willing to show it
This is the coverage a mover carries on your belongings, and it is almost always thinner than people assume. The free option pays 60 cents per pound per item. That is the industry default, not a criticism of anyone. A named company shows a certificate of insurance on request, and we ask which coverage its written estimate includes.
03A review history long enough to mean something
A high average across thirty reviews and a high average across three thousand are not the same claim. Reviews are the softest of the three checks, so we weight them that way and say how many sit behind each rating. Every rating on this page is read from the Google listing itself, never from a snippet or a directory.
Packing before the crew arrives is the part we can help with. We drop clean, numbered totes at your door and pick them up after you unpack, anywhere in Johnson County.
Run a moving company?
We would rather hear from you than about you.
If you move homes in Johnson County and want to be checked for this list, send your USDOT number and your KCC or MoDOT record and we will read it against the public lists, the same way a customer would. Clearing the standard is the whole listing: a followed link to your site, next to the checks you passed. If you want something to put in a bid besides a discount, that is a separate conversation.
Questions
Choosing a mover in Kansas City
It is public and it takes about ten minutes. For a move inside Kansas, the Kansas Corporation Commission publishes every household-goods tariff on file, so the company should appear there. For a move inside Missouri, MoDOT publishes a list of authorized transporters with an active or suspended status. For any move, the federal SAFER database shows the company's USDOT number, its truck count and its safety record. If a company is missing from the list that covers the move you are making, ask them why before you book.
No. That claim circulates and it is wrong. Kansas statute still requires a household-goods carrier to hold a certificate from the Kansas Corporation Commission and to file a tariff, and the KCC still publishes those tariffs. If a mover tells you Kansas no longer regulates the industry, that is a reason to check rather than a reason to relax.
Local crews here generally bill by the hour with a minimum, and the hourly figure is rarely the whole bill. Trip charges, fuel and mileage past a set radius are usually separate lines. We break the real numbers down in our Kansas City moving cost guide, including what a three-bedroom move tends to land at once the extras are counted.
Usually four things. A minimum number of hours, which sets the floor no matter how small the job is. Trip or travel time, which is the crew getting to you and back. A fuel charge. And mileage past a radius, often 25 miles. Two companies with the same hourly rate can be a few hundred dollars apart once those land, so ask for the total in writing.
By default, far less than people assume. The free coverage is called released value and it pays 60 cents per pound per item. A television that weighs 40 pounds is covered for 24 dollars. Full value protection costs extra and is a separate decision you have to make on purpose. Ask which one your estimate includes, because the default is the cheap one.
No. We rent the packing totes. Clean, numbered totes arrive at your door before the move, you pack, the crew you hired loads them, and we collect the empties after you unpack. Any mover on this page can load them; stackable totes with lids go on a truck faster than mismatched boxes, which on an hourly job is money. See how it works and pricing.
Not necessarily, but check the paperwork. A move between Kansas and Missouri crosses a state line, which is federal territory, so the company needs interstate authority and an MC number rather than just a state certificate. A crew licensed only for moves inside Kansas is not the right hire for a move from Overland Park to a house in Missouri.
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