How Do Moving Company Owners Send Estimates? Survey First

Short answer: How do moving company owners send estimates? Only after a survey — walked in person or run over video — never off a phone description. An interstate estimate is a written document stating binding or non-binding on its face, and a non-binding one caps what you may collect at delivery to 110 percent of the estimate, with the balance payable over the next 30 days. Local moves quote crew hours with every assumption named. Additions get a new estimate signed before anything loads.

Almost no other trade sends estimates under a federal rulebook. For interstate work the document is not a sales sheet with a number on it, it is a regulated instrument that decides how much you may collect on delivery day — and by then the truck is loaded and the customer is standing in a driveway two states away. The collection side is covered in moving customer won’t pay; this is the half that happens before a box moves.

Why can the number not go out before a survey?

Because profit in this business lives entirely in the gap between estimated hours and actual hours, and nothing about that gap is visible over the phone. A customer counting “three bedrooms” is not counting the basement, the garage shelving, the treadmill, the piano, or the fact that the truck cannot get closer than 180 feet to the door.

For interstate household goods moves the survey is not optional judgment, it is the rule. Federal regulations require the written estimate to be based on a survey of the goods, either in person or by an equivalent virtual survey, and a shipper who wants to skip it has to waive it in writing, signed before the shipment is loaded, with the waiver kept as an addendum to the bill of lading. The text lives at 49 CFR 375.401.

A virtual survey is a legitimate tool and it is faster, but it hides the same three things every time: attic and crawlspace contents, what is behind closed closet doors, and the walk from the parking spot to the door. Ask about all three out loud, on camera, and write the answers into the estimate.

Local or interstate — which rulebook is this estimate under?

The answer changes the pricing unit, the paperwork, and how much of the risk you are carrying.

	Local move	Interstate move
Priced on	Crew hours × crew size, plus travel time	Weight or volume, distance, and accessorial services
Governed by	State licensing and tariff rules, which vary widely	Federal household goods regulations
Estimate form	Written proposal with named assumptions	Written estimate marked binding or non-binding on its face
Who carries the overrun	The mover, if the hours were guessed	Depends entirely on which estimate type you issued
Settles at	End of the job, off the clock	Delivery, against the estimate ceiling

Running both out of one office is normal, and mixing the two templates is where owners get hurt. An hourly proposal handed to an interstate customer is not a compliant estimate, and a weight-based estimate handed to a local customer is a number you cannot verify without a certified scale ticket.

What has to be printed on the face of an interstate estimate?

Element	Why it is there
”Binding” or “non-binding,” stated plainly	The customer has to know which one they hold
The inventory the estimate was built from	A binding estimate guarantees the price for those quantities and services, not for a different shipment
Every accessorial by name	Long carry, shuttle, stairs, elevator, bulky article, storage-in-transit, packing
The valuation election	Released value at the federal minimum, or full value protection, chosen and signed
Pickup and delivery spread	Not a single date unless you can guarantee one
Your USDOT number and company identity	It is what the customer checks you with

The 110 percent rule is the one owners underestimate. On a non-binding estimate you may collect no more than 110 percent of the estimated charges at delivery, and the shipper gets to pay whatever remains over the following 30 days. That is not a penalty; it is a cash flow structure. An estimate that is 40 percent light means you deliver, collect 110, and then chase the rest as an ordinary receivable — which is exactly the position the survey exists to prevent.

Valuation deserves a conversation rather than a checkbox. The default released-value level is quoted per pound per article, which settles a 40-pound television at a fraction of what the customer paid for it. Say that during the survey, print both levels with prices, and have them initial the one they picked.

What does a local hourly estimate have to assume out loud?

An hourly estimate is really a set of assumptions with a time range attached. Any assumption you do not write down is one you have silently agreed to eat.

Assumption	What it has to say
Crew size and truck	”Three movers and one 26-foot truck,” not “a crew”
Clock start and stop	Portal to portal, yard to yard, or arrival to completion — pick one and define it
Carry distance	The estimated walk from the parking spot to the door, both ends
Stairs	Flights at origin and at destination, counted
Elevator	Reserved or not, and whose job it is to reserve it
Building requirements	Certificate of insurance to management, protection of common areas, loading dock hours
Disassembly	Which items, named — bed frames, sectionals, wall units, treadmills
Packing materials	Priced per item used, not bundled into the hourly rate
Specialty items	Piano, safe, gun cabinet, aquarium, marble tops — each with its own line

The elevator line is where local moves quietly bleed. A freight elevator that was never reserved, or a building that will not release the dock until a certificate of insurance is on file, turns a four-hour job into a seven-hour job with three men standing on the clock. Both the reservation and the certificate need a named owner and a deadline in the estimate, usually one to two weeks before the move date.

How fast does the estimate go out, and how long does it hold?

Lead	Survey within	Estimate out	Validity
Local residential, four weeks out	48 hours	Same day as the survey	Until the date fills
Local, moving in under a week	Same day, video if needed	Within hours	The date, not a duration
Interstate residential	2 to 4 days	Within 24 hours of the survey	Tied to the pickup spread
Office or commercial	A scheduled walkthrough	3 to 5 days, itemized	30 days
Realtor or relocation referral	Same day contact	Same day, formatted for a file	30 days

Write validity as a calendar date and pair it with the real constraint, which is not price — it is the date. Peak season runs late spring through early fall, and the last and first few days of any month fill first. “This estimate holds through August 12, and the July 31 slot is currently open” is a truer sentence than a thirty-day expiry, and it moves faster.

Interstate estimates go as a PDF, always, alongside the consumer booklets federal rules require you to furnish. Local estimates can go by email or text as long as they are the same document and not a number typed into a message thread.

How many options belong in front of a customer?

Three, separated by how much of the work you do — and one election that is not an option at all.

Option	What it changes
Full pack	You pack everything, materials included, and the labor day before is priced separately
Partial pack	You pack the fragile and the awkward — kitchen, art, electronics, wardrobes
Self-pack, load and haul	They box it, you move it, and the estimate says boxes must be sealed and stacked by 8 a.m.

Add a fourth conversation about the date: mid-month, mid-week moves cost less to run than the last Saturday in July, and offering that difference wins price-sensitive jobs without cutting the rate. The valuation election sits outside all three — a separate signed choice, on its own line, priced both ways.

What happens when they add three rooms on move day?

You stop, you reprice, and you get a signature before anything else goes on the truck. On interstate work this is not a customer service preference. If the shipper tenders additional goods or requests services not on the estimate, a new written estimate has to be prepared and signed before loading; a revision signed after the truck is loaded does not fix the problem, and the original ceiling still governs what you can collect.

Practically, that means the crew lead needs authority and a script. Walk the added items, write them into a revised estimate on the tablet or on paper, have the customer sign it at the curb, photograph the signature, then load. Ninety seconds at the door replaces a delivery-day argument in another time zone.

When do I follow up, and how does the yes get recorded?

Follow the date, not a generic cadence. Movers are hired against a closing or a lease end, and those two dates create the urgency. Day 1, send the estimate and name the open slot. Day 3, one message asking if the date still works. Then go quiet until roughly two weeks before their move date and check in once — that is when the customer whose first mover ghosted them starts calling around, and it is the highest-yield touch in the sequence.

The yes gets recorded three ways at once: the signed estimate, the order for service naming the dates and the crew, and the deposit if you take one. Deposit rules differ by state and by move type, so set a policy you can state in one sentence and apply it identically to everyone. The routing habits in how to get clients to pay matter far less here than the signature collected before the tailgate drops.

How do I price crew hours from my own numbers?

Build up from a loaded crew hour, never from a competitor’s advertised rate.

1. Cost one crew hour. Wages plus payroll burden for each mover, the truck payment, fuel, insurance including cargo and auto liability, maintenance, and the dispatcher.
2. Divide overhead by billable crew hours, not clock hours. Drive time between jobs, fueling, yard time, and the survey you drove to and lost are all paid and none of them bill. Using clock hours as the denominator is why a fully booked summer can end flat.
3. Estimate hours from your own move history, sorted by type: two-bedroom apartment with an elevator, three-bedroom house with a full basement, senior downsize. Your averages beat any rule of thumb.
4. Price materials separately at real landed cost per item consumed, and count what actually came off the truck.
5. Add profit as a margin, not a markup. A 25 percent markup on $800 of cost bills $1,000 and keeps $200, which is a 20 percent margin. To hold 25 percent you divide by 0.75 and bill $1,067. Repeat that error across two hundred moves and it is a truck.

Published per-hour or per-pound ranges are a sanity check only. They swing by region, season, building type, and crew wage. What decides whether a move was worth running is your own estimated-versus-actual hours, tracked per job until the estimate stops being a guess.

What has to be kept once the estimate becomes a move?

The signed estimate and every signed revision, the inventory, the bill of lading, scale tickets on a weight-based move, the certificate of insurance the building demanded, before-and-after photos of existing damage at both ends, and the invoice built against the same line items.

Keel handles the after-the-yes half of that from the phone, entirely on the device: no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label reading Data Not Collected. When the job closes, the invoice takes about a minute and carries your own numbering, logo, and brand color, with the payment link rendered as a QR code the customer scans at the tailgate. Fuel stops, tolls, and box purchases get photographed and read on-device by Apple Intelligence, so a materials line has paper behind it instead of a glovebox full of curl — the habit is in contractor receipt organizer. Runs to surveys and between jobs log as mileage, with the substantiation rules in how to track mileage for taxes. Year end exports as one file, or as the Accountant Pack: a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF, on an append-only hash-chained ledger. Free is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

Can I give a moving customer a price over the phone?

Give a range with the assumptions stated, and make clear that the real estimate follows a survey. For interstate household goods moves the written estimate has to be based on a survey, in person or virtual, unless the shipper signs a waiver before loading. Phone numbers quoted without a survey are how a three-bedroom becomes a five-bedroom on move day.

What is the difference between a binding and a non-binding moving estimate?

A binding estimate guarantees the total for the inventory and services shown on it. A non-binding estimate is an approximation, and at delivery you may collect no more than 110 percent of it, with the balance payable by the shipper over the following 30 days. Binding protects the customer from surprises; non-binding shifts the shortfall risk onto you.

What happens if the customer adds items on move day?

Stop before loading, write a new estimate covering the added goods or services, and have the shipper sign it at the curb. A revision signed after the truck is loaded does not restore your ability to collect above the original ceiling on an interstate move. Photograph the signed revision, then load.

How long should a moving estimate stay valid?

Tie it to the date rather than a duration. Thirty days is a reasonable outer limit for commercial and relocation work, but residential moves are really competing for a slot on your calendar. Print a calendar expiry and name the specific date you are holding, since peak season and month-end slots fill before any price objection ever surfaces.

Should the estimate include valuation coverage?

It should include the election, priced both ways and initialed. Released value at the federal minimum settles claims per pound per article, which is far less than replacement cost on anything light and expensive. Full value protection costs more and behaves the way customers assume coverage works. Explaining the difference during the survey prevents the worst conversation in this business.

How do I estimate crew hours accurately?

From your own completed jobs, grouped by move type, comparing estimated hours to actual hours every single time. Track carry distance, stair flights, elevator availability, and disassembly separately, because those four explain most overruns. After thirty or forty jobs your averages will beat any published rule of thumb, and the gap between estimate and actual is the only real measure of whether you priced the work.

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This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.