San Antonio is the cheapest full-service market we cover, at a $96/hour average and a $920 customer median. We triangulate the 2026 numbers and show why most moves still don't need the truck-and-overhead operation.
Wondering how much it costs to move in San Antonio? So are we. We can tell you how much it costs to move with Undergrads (read on to learn), but everyone else has different answers, though San Antonio is the rare big city where they almost agree, and still manage to spread by double. Extra Space Storage's calculator puts a two-bedroom at $700 to $1,400. moveBuddha, which tracks thirty licensed San Antonio movers, says the typical two-bedroom is $720. Great Guys Moving's 597 customer cost reports show a median move of $920. MoveAdvisor rounds the hourly rate to $95–$120 per mover. Instead of picking one, we compared them against each other and against the consumer protections Texas actually gives you, then show what the same move costs when you split the truck from the labor.
That last part is an obvious nod to us. We're Undergrads Moving, and our bread and butter is saving people money by making labor-only moving easy: you handle the truck, our background-checked university-student crews handle every box and stair. San Antonio full-service is already cheap by national standards, and we'll show our pricing next to the full-service ranges at every home size as a shameless self-promotional tactic, plus the math on why most moves still don't need full-service, even here.
What San Antonio movers charge per hour
Full-service movers price local San Antonio moves by the hour, and this is one of the cheapest hourly markets in the country: moveBuddha's tracked average is $96/hour for a standard crew (31% below the $140 national average), with Extra Space quoting as low as ~$75/hour and two-hour minimums standard (about $192 to get a crew to your door). Typical jobs finish in about three hours per the customer-report data.
The Texas rules are the same statewide and worth using: every intrastate mover must hold an active TxDMV license (check any company in TxDMV's motor carrier lookup), must give you a written proposal before loading that states the maximum price, binding or not-to-exceed, and cannot add charges afterward unless you agree in writing. Rates aren't capped; the paperwork is the protection. A mover who won't put a maximum on paper is out of compliance, not just annoying.
Triangulated, a realistic 2026 planning number for a two-mover, one-truck crew in San Antonio is $75–$120 per hour, with the data-driven average right around $96.
The Undergrads comparison: our San Antonio crews work on an hourly rate locked before the move starts, with no stair fees, fuel surcharges, or travel-fee surprises, and our university-athlete crews are staffed to finish in the 3–4 hour window where crews perform best. Most San Antonio moves land at $200–$500 total.
Average moving cost in San Antonio by home size
Local, full-service. The triangulated range weights moveBuddha's San Antonio-specific tracking most heavily.
| Home size | Extra Space | moveBuddha (typical) | Triangulated 2026 range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | $200–$400 | ~$311 (2 movers, 3 hrs) | $200–$450 (typical ~$300) |
| 1 bedroom | $300–$600 | ~$439 (2 movers, 4 hrs) | $300–$600 (typical ~$450) |
| 2 bedroom | $700–$1,400 | ~$720 (3 movers, 5 hrs) | $700–$1,400 (typical ~$720–$1,000) |
| 3 bedroom | $1,000–$2,000 | ~$1,686 (4 movers, 8 hrs) | $1,000–$2,000 (typical ~$1,500) |
| 4+ bedroom | $1,500–$3,000+ | ~$1,936 (4 movers, 9 hrs) | $1,500–$3,000 |
The customer-report data lands in the middle: Great Guys' 597 San Antonio reports show a median move of $920, with the middle half of customers paying $569–$1,272.
Studio and 1-bedroom moves
The triangulated full-service number for a San Antonio studio is around $300, and around $450 for a one-bedroom, the cheapest full-service small-move numbers of any city we've covered. Even so, the two-hour minimum means a genuinely small move (a Pearl-area studio, a UTSA apartment) pays for time it doesn't use.
Labor-only moving with Undergrads: studio and 1-bedroom moves with our crews typically run $200–$450. Rent the truck yourself (moveBuddha puts San Antonio truck bases at just $18–$64/day, so a cross-town 10- or 15-footer usually adds $50–$100 with mileage) and the all-in lands around $250–$550. In the cheapest full-service market we serve, the labor-only savings are narrower in dollars but real in percentage: you're still skipping the truck-and-overhead markup on a move two students and three hours can finish.
2-bedroom moves
San Antonio's sources converge tightly here: moveBuddha's $720 typical, Great Guys' $920 median, and Extra Space's $700–$1,400 band all point at roughly $700–$1,000 for a full-service two-bedroom.
Labor-only moving with Undergrads: 2–3 bedroom moves with our crews typically run $450–$700. Add a 20-foot rental truck (roughly $80–$150 for a local day with mileage) and the all-in lands around $550–$850. Against a $700–$1,400 full-service range, that's a 20–50% saving in the tightest market and the full 40–60% against the top of the band. Where the gap narrows, the other differences carry more of the argument: locked rate, no stair or fuel fees, and a $50 Show-Up Guarantee.
3-bedroom and larger moves
Full-service pricing steps up: moveBuddha's typical three-bedroom is $1,686 with a four-person crew on a full day, and add-ons (piano $137–$455, shuttle fees up to $2,184 where a big truck can't reach the door) stack from there. This is the tier where full-service earns its price for many families.
Labor-only moving with Undergrads: larger homes sit at the edge of the labor-only sweet spot. Our crews handle 3-bedroom moves at the top of the $450–$700 band, plus your 26-foot truck at roughly $100–$180 local. Remember that 26 feet is the largest truck you can rent without a commercial license. For a big household that won't fit in one load, plan multiple trips or get a full-service quote and compare the two numbers.
Long-distance moving costs from San Antonio
Past the local threshold, pricing shifts to weight-and-distance:
| Route / distance | Typical range | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| In-Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas) | $288–$5,118 by size | Extra Space |
| Long-distance overall (100+ mi) | $1,365–$7,735+; $3,100–$4,100 typical for 2–3BR | moveBuddha |
| Cross-country (LA, DC, NYC) | $3,751–$12,848 by size and coast | Extra Space |
The Undergrads comparison: who wants to take a road trip? Austin is eighty minutes up I-35 (the shortest big-city pair in Texas) and Houston is three hours down I-10. That's exactly the distance where driving a rental yourself makes sense, and our model puts a crew on each end: one loads at your San Antonio door, a second unloads at the destination. For a 1-bedroom in-state move, labor on both ends plus a one-way truck typically totals well under half the full-service quote. Past a day's drive, be honest about whether you want to pilot a big truck. That's where full-service carriers earn their premium.
The costs that don't show up in the headline number
The 60-cents-per-pound problem. Default liability on a Texas move is 60 cents per pound per item; a lost 50-pound TV pays out $30. Full-value protection runs up to 2% of declared value; price it during diligence if your household carries real value.
Peak-season premiums. May–September, weekends, and the last three days of the month run 20–30% higher per moveBuddha. Military PCS season compounds it here: the bases turn over in summer, and crews book out.
Stairs and access. Companies that itemize charge $50–$75 per flight and $50–$100 for elevators; shuttle fees run $273–$2,184 when a full-size truck can't reach the door. (Undergrads charges no stair fees; stairs are just part of the hours.)
Packing and storage. Full packing runs $455–$4,550 by home size; storage $182–$1,092/month. Packing your own non-fragile items is the biggest controllable line item.
Summer heat. San Antonio Junes are brutal on afternoon moves. Morning slots finish faster, which on hourly billing means they cost less.
Tips. Customary at $20–$50 per mover for a local job, or the $5–$10/hour math. Same whichever model you book.
How to keep your San Antonio move cheap
The levers, in order of impact: move less stuff (declutter before quoting), split the labor from the truck (the percentage lever that works even in a cheap market), pack your own boxes, avoid summer weekends and month-end (and PCS-season crunch weeks), source free boxes from liquor stores, Nextdoor, and San Antonio Buy Nothing groups instead of paying for new cardboard, and demand the written not-to-exceed proposal Texas law entitles you to before anyone loads a box.
The bottom line
Compared across four sources, a full-service local move in San Antonio in 2026 costs roughly $300 for a studio, $450 for a one-bedroom, $720–$1,000 for a two-bedroom, and $1,500 for a three-bedroom, at crew rates averaging $96/hour, one of the cheapest full-service markets in the country, with a $920 customer-reported median.
The same moves with Undergrads' San Antonio movers (locked hourly rate, background-checked university-student crews, $50 Show-Up Guarantee) typically run $200–$450 for a studio or 1-bedroom and $450–$700 for a 2–3 bedroom, plus a rental truck if your move needs one. Even in the cheapest full-service city we cover, that's $200–$500 back in your pocket on a typical move. Get a San Antonio quote and check it against the table above. The math is the argument.
