How much is a moving company worth?

Short answer: moving companies sell near 2.5× owner earnings in realized deals — a working-class multiple for a business with real trucks, real labor risk, and revenue a buyer can verify load by load. The floor under the price is the fleet; the ceiling is set by how much of the booking flow is yours rather than rented from lead brokers. See Moving Companies, then run your fleet's numbers in the valuation calculator.

The number

Realized data: BizBuySell's industry multiples (closed sales, trailing five years through Q2 2026) put Moving and Shipping Businesses at 2.52× SDE and 0.63× revenue, median sale price $350,000. The IBBA Market Pulse (Q2 2026) size ladder runs across all small businesses: 2.0× SDE under $500K, 2.8× at $500K–$1M, 3.1× at $1M–$2M, then EBITDA multiples — 4.8× at $2–5M and 5.8× at $5–50M. For scale context only: public companies in Damodaran Online's Transportation bucket (January 2026) trade at 12.55× EV/EBITDA. That is a proxy ceiling for large, liquid companies — not your price. A small private business sells at a steep discount for size, illiquidity, and owner risk.

Worked example, math shown:

• Revenue (assumption — a multi-truck local mover with some storage): $1,000,000
• SDE margin (assumption): 20% → SDE = $1,000,000 × 0.20 = $200,000
• Price at the realized multiple: $200,000 × 2.52 = $504,000
• Revenue cross-check: $1,000,000 × 0.63 = $630,000

One moving-specific wrinkle: deals are often quoted as a multiple plus a separate accounting for the trucks, or with the fleet's value inside the price — get the structure in writing before comparing offers. A $504,000 price that includes $250,000 of trucks is a very different earnings multiple than one where the fleet leases come on top.

How buyers actually value a moving company

Buyers rebuild the business truck by truck and lead by lead. Lead flow is the first audit. Jobs booked from your own Google profile, reviews, repeat clients, and realtor/storage referrals are an asset. Jobs bought from lead brokers at $80–$150 a lead are a variable expense with no loyalty — the day the buyer stops paying, the calendar empties, so they price that revenue near zero as goodwill. Authority and compliance come next: the USDOT number and safety record for interstate work, state household-goods licensing, insurance in force, and claims history. Damage claims and hostage-load complaints aren't just PR problems; a bad FMCSA or state record transfers, and buyers discount or walk. The fleet gets valued like a fleet: age, mileage, owned vs. leased, branded or plain. Old trucks aren't savings — they're a capex bill handed to the buyer, and it comes off the price. Labor is the quiet one: movers are hard to hire and harder to keep, so a trained crew and a working foreman bench are worth money in a way the P&L doesn't show, while a company crewed by whoever answers the ad each Monday is a risk the buyer prices. Seasonality gets modeled too — a company earning 60% of its year in summer needs winter storage or commercial work to deserve a full multiple.

What raises the price — and what kills it

Raises it:

• Owned lead flow: a top-rated Google profile, realtor partnerships, and repeat/referral share documented by source
• Storage revenue — warehouse and container storage is the closest thing moving has to rent: monthly, contracted, sticky
• Clean safety and claims record, USDOT and state authority in good standing, transferable
• A foreman bench and a dispatcher who run Saturdays without the owner on a truck

Kills it:

• Bought leads as the majority of bookings — you're renting your own revenue
• Claims, complaints, and review patterns showing damaged goods and day-of price changes; buyers read every review
• A worn fleet with deferred maintenance — the 'savings' were borrowed from the buyer
• Cash jobs off the books: unverifiable revenue is valued at exactly what it can be proven to be — nothing

Move your number

Three levers:

• Own more of the booking flow. Estimate follow-up that answers in minutes, past-client and realtor touches on a schedule, and review requests after every clean move — the ClaroPro team builds that sales operation so more of your calendar books from sources you own instead of lead brokers you rent.
• Take deposits and storage payments like a system. Booking deposits on stored cards, storage billed monthly by ACH, balances collected before the truck unloads — every point of leakage and card cost protected is margin the buyer multiplies. That's the Finix payments team's lane.
• Put dispatch and the fleet on real systems. Scheduling, crew assignment, truck maintenance logs, and claims documentation in software a buyer can audit — a Nova engineering team can integrate the stack so diligence is a data pull, not an excavation.

Run your numbers in the calculator, prefilled for moving companies — then split your revenue by lead source and look again.

This is an educational framework with shown math, not an appraisal. A real price is set by a real buyer on a specific day, after they've inspected the trucks, the safety record, and the lead sources behind your revenue. The caveats are on the owner's side: they keep you from overpaying for rented lead flow and borrowed fleets, underselling owned storage revenue, or signing a deal where the fleet liability quietly eats the headline price. Never invent. Show the math. We're on the side of the business owner.