Key takeaways
- Price follows scope: number of pages, who writes them, the estimate form and its link to your moving software, and real photography.
- Ongoing costs are small if you own the accounts. They grow when a vendor holds the domain, the site or the phone numbers.
- Never print a tracking number you do not own on a truck wrap.
- Judge a quote by how the vendor will show booked moves from the site, not by the page count.
How much a website costs for a moving company depends less on design than on what it has to do: an estimate form that feeds your moving software, pages for local moves, long-distance moves, packing and storage, and tracking that ties visits to booked moves. The bigger cost question is what you own when the project ends.
What a website costs a moving company
A moving company website costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a template you fill in yourself to five figures for a custom build with integrations. The price you pay is mostly the price of scope. Three levels cover most quotes:
| Level | What you get | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Template site | A handful of pages on a site builder, a contact form, your own copy and photos | A new mover with one truck and mostly referral work |
| Conversion site | Service pages for each kind of move, an estimate path built for movers, real photos, tracking | An established local mover that needs the site to bring in estimate requests |
| Full build | All of the above, plus pages for each area moves start from, integration with SmartMoving or Supermove, storage pages and a migration plan | A multi-truck operation running ads and long-distance work |
The FAQ below gives typical ranges. The important part is matching the level to what the site must earn back.
Owned site vs rented site
| Question | Owned site | Rented site |
|---|---|---|
| The domain | In your name | Often in the provider's |
| Content and photos | Yours to move | Can stay with the provider |
| If you leave | The site goes with you | You may start over |
| What you pay for | The build, then hosting and care | A fee for as long as it runs |
What changes the price
The price moves with the work, and a mover's site has a few cost drivers that a generic small business site does not:
- The estimate form. A plain contact form is cheap. A stepped form that collects the date, both addresses and the size of the home, then posts the lead into your moving software with its source, takes real build and testing time.
- Area pages. Each page for an area your moves start from needs its own writing. Copy-pasted town pages are cheap and do not rank.
- Who writes. If the vendor writes service pages that explain how local and long-distance moves are priced, you pay for it. If you write them, you pay in your own evenings.
- Photography. A day photographing your trucks, crews and warehouse costs money once and pays off on every page. Stock photos are cheap and cost you trust.
- Migration. If your current site ranks for anything, a rebuild needs redirects so those pages keep their place.
Ongoing costs
Ongoing costs are modest when you hold the accounts and grow quickly when you do not.
| Cost | What it covers | Whose name it should be in |
|---|---|---|
| Domain renewal | Your web address, renewed yearly | Yours |
| Hosting | The server the site runs on | Yours, with the vendor as a user |
| Updates and security | Patches, backups, fixes | Anyone, under a written scope |
| Call tracking numbers | Counting calls by source (call tracking) | Yours, ported or kept if you leave |
| Content and SEO | New pages and updates over time | Optional, scoped as projects |
Phone numbers deserve a warning of their own. Movers print their number on trucks, estimate sheets and boxes. If that number is a tracking line in a vendor's account, leaving the vendor can mean repainting a fleet.
Ownership and contract terms
Ask these questions before you sign anything, and get the answers in writing.
- Who registers the domain? It should be registered in your business name, with you holding the login.
- Whose hosting account is it? Yours, with the builder added as a user you can remove.
- Do I keep the code, copy and photos if I leave? If the answer is "the design is licensed", you are renting.
- Who owns the phone numbers on the site? Any number you will print on a truck must be yours.
- Where do leads go? Straight into your moving software, not only into the vendor's dashboard.
- Is there a minimum term or a buyout? A low monthly fee with a long term is a loan on someone else's asset.
- What is the launch date, and what is delivered by then? A date before your summer quote season, with the pages listed.
- How will I see booked moves from the site? If the vendor can only report visits, you will be paying for activity.
Example, with made-up numbers. Say a new site books three more local moves a month than the old one did through the season. Add up what those moves earn and compare it with the build price, and you know roughly when the site pays for itself. A vendor who cannot help you count those moves cannot tell you whether the site worked.
For what a moving company site should include, see website design for moving companies. To check your current site before you replace it, use the conversion checklist.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We quote websites as fixed-price projects with a written list of deliverables and a launch date, and everything we build is registered in your name, phone numbers included. Once the site is live, the report shows which pages produced estimate requests and how many became moves. Book a growth consultation and bring any quotes you already have; we will tell you what each one actually includes.
Sources
- SEO Starter Guide, Google Search Central
- Set up tracking calls to a phone number on a website, Google Ads Help
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results, Google Search Central