What a Charleston local move actually costs
Most callers guess low on a Charleston move, usually because a phone quote never accounted for the actual alley south of Calhoun Street, the actual tidal driveway on James Island, or the actual HOA move-in window on Daniel Island. For a move that stays inside the peninsula and the greater Lowcountry, what you owe is the crew, the truck, and everything in between, set as one number after we’ve seen the place.
- 2-mover rate$125/hr, crew & truck
- 3-mover rate$170/hr, crew & truck
- What runs the clockAccess and stairs, not the mileage
Access sets the number here more than distance
A historic single house south of Calhoun Street with a shared alley a full-size truck can’t reach, a James Island lot with a soft tidal driveway, a Mount Pleasant townhome with an HOA loading window, all of it eats a different number of hours than the job down the street. Mara builds those hours into the quote up front instead of pricing every Charleston home the same way.
Local rate ranges
Once we’ve walked the rooms and asked about stairs, alley access, or a marsh-front lot, the hourly math turns into one number on paper. These ranges reflect a typical job across the peninsula and the Lowcountry, from Mount Pleasant and Summerville to West Ashley, James Island, and Daniel Island.
| Home size | Crew & truck | Typical rate |
|---|---|---|
| Studio apartment | 2 movers, 1 truck | $420 – $690 |
| 1-bedroom home or condo | 2 movers, 1 truck | $690 – $1,120 |
| 2-bedroom home or condo | 2-3 movers, 1 truck | $1,120 – $1,950 |
| 3-bedroom house | 3 movers, 1 truck | $1,950 – $3,200 |
| 4+ bedroom house | 3-4 movers, 1-2 trucks | $3,000 – $4,750 |
No hidden add-ons in Charleston
The number is the whole number. There’s no separate fuel charge, no bridge-timing fee, and no early-start fee for a local move anywhere on the peninsula or in the greater Lowcountry.
| What people expect to be charged | What we charge |
|---|---|
| Fuel surcharge | $0, built into the rate |
| Ravenel Bridge timing fee | $0, included |
| Marsh-front shuttle vehicle | $0, brought when your lot calls for it |
Where the hours actually pile up
A handful of things swing the total, and each is already priced into the figure you sign, so move day never springs a fresh charge.
- The alley. A single house south of Calhoun Street with no truck access at the door takes more planning than a move that stays inside one neighborhood, and we build a shuttle vehicle and the parking permit into the crew size.
- The tide. A James Island or Johns Island lot with a soft, tidal driveway moves slower than a flat Summerville or West Ashley yard, and a shuttle sometimes bridges the last stretch by hand.
- The packing. A house that’s mostly boxed up before we arrive moves fast; it’s the closets nobody got to the night before that turn a four-hour job into six.
- The heavy pieces. A piano, a gun safe, or a boat’s worth of dock gear wants trained hands and the right rigging, quoted up front, sometimes with a 4-mover crew at $220/hr when the job calls for it.
Crew and coverage, plain
Wade Calhoun started Momentum Movers in 2013 out of a yard in North Charleston, and it now runs several trucks, with Mara Bennett writing the quotes and scheduling, Tobias Kern on dispatch, and Silas Vance leading the crews.
By federal rule your goods default to released-value protection at $0.60 per pound; full-value protection, which pays toward replacing a broken item, runs 1 to 3 percent against the value you declare, backed by $1M in cargo coverage and a nine-month window to file. Have Mara walk the rooms with you, and the figure she writes down is the one you’ll sign.
