What £450 covers
- Two crew where the stairs need them, one where they do not
- The van, the fuel and the mileage
- Blanket wrapping for the mattress, the sofa bed and anything wooden
- The Congestion Charge at £18 and ULEZ at £12.50 where they apply
- Taking the bed frame apart and putting it back together
- Goods in transit and public liability cover
Jobs we have priced
Four real studio move jobs with the access at both ends, so you can find the one that looks like yours.
Pimlico to Kennington
First floor with a lift at both ends, resident bay free outside on Tachbrook Street, one run on a Tuesday morning.
£370
Soho to Bermondsey
Fourth floor walk-up on Berwick Street with no lift and a fifty metre carry to the nearest legal stop, second floor with a lift at the other end.
£540
Barbican to Islington
Goods lift booked with the estate office, eighty metre carry across the podium, straightforward loading on the Islington end.
£450
What the access does to the price
| Situation | Price |
|---|---|
| Lift or ground floor at both endsThe cheapest studio move there is. One crew member and a trolley cover most of it. | £340 to £420 |
| One flight of stairs at one endStill a single run. The stairs add time rather than a second van. | £380 to £470 |
| Third floor walk-up or higherA two person job. A mattress and a sofa bed down four flights is not a one person carry. | £470 to £620 |
| A long carry from where the van can stopEstate podiums, pedestrian zones and red route frontages all mean walking the load. | £440 to £570 |
What moves the figure
- The floor, and whether there is a lift+£60 to £170
- The largest single variable. Four flights turns a one person job into a two person job, and that is the step that costs money rather than the extra minutes.
- How far the van is from the door+£40 to £115
- A bay outside costs nothing. A hundred metre carry from a side street because Marylebone Road or Euston Road has no legal stopping adds an hour of walking.
- A suspended bay, where one is worth having£45 to £120 at cost
- Charged by the council, not by us, and shown as its own line in the quote. On a studio it is usually cheaper to carry a bit further than to suspend a bay.
- Saturday, or the last Friday of the month+10% to 15%
- Demand, not cost. A Tuesday or Wednesday move is the cheapest slot in the week and it is the same crew and the same van.
- A storage unit or a second address on the way+£75 to £150
- Common when a tenancy ends before the next one starts. Tell us at the quote stage and it stays inside the fixed figure.
What £450 actually buys
The middle of the band is a weekday studio move with one flight of stairs somewhere in it, a bay or a legal stop within thirty metres, and a van that arrives packed with blankets rather than empty. Two crew, one run, done inside three hours including the drive.
That figure does not move if the job runs long. A shared goods lift that gives you one trip every fifteen minutes will cost an hourly firm an extra hour and cost us nothing, because we quoted for the lift when you told us the building had one.
Where a studio move goes wrong on price
The studio that ends up at the top of the band is almost always a walk-up nobody mentioned. A fourth floor on Berwick Street or Rupert Street reads the same as a fourth floor with a lift on a booking form, and it is a completely different afternoon. We ask about it up front for that reason.
The other one is volume creeping past what a studio implies. A studio with two years of boxes stacked to the ceiling, a bike, and a wardrobe bought for a bigger flat is a one bedroom job wearing a studio label. If that sounds like yours, price it as a one bedroom and be pleasantly surprised.
How this compares with hiring a van yourself
A self-drive transit for a day runs somewhere near £80 to £120 once you have added insurance and fuel, which looks like a saving until you count the rest. You pay the Congestion Charge separately, you park it yourself, you carry everything yourself, and you take on the damage risk on a mattress going down a Georgian staircase.
For a ground floor studio moving half a mile with a friend helping, self-drive genuinely wins. For anything with stairs at either end, the gap between £100 of van hire and £450 of man and van buys two people who do this every day and insurance that covers your things.
How to bring the number down
Every one of these is something you can do rather than something we can discount.
- Book a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday rather than a Saturday or the end of the month
- Have everything boxed and sealed before we arrive, so the crew carries rather than packs
- Book the goods lift yourself if your building lets residents do it, which saves us the notice period
- Move mid-morning rather than at nine, when Central London traffic has thinned out
- Take the small awkward items in a car yourself if you have one, so the van run stays single
Studio flat move costs: common questions
How much does it cost to move a studio flat in Central London?
Between £340 and £620 including VAT, and most studio moves land near £450. The bottom of that band is a lift or ground floor at both ends with somewhere legal to stop outside. The top is a third or fourth floor walk-up, or a long carry from wherever the van can park. The figure covers the crew, the van, the wrapping, the fuel and the Congestion Charge.
Is a studio move cheaper than a one bedroom?
Usually by a hundred and thirty pounds or so, though not always. A studio on the fourth floor of a walk-up costs more than a one bedroom on the ground floor with a bay outside, because in Central London the access decides the crew size and the crew size decides the price. Volume only takes over once you are past what one van holds.
Do you charge by the hour for a studio move?
No. We quote one figure for the job before we start and it does not change because the lift was slow or the traffic on Euston Road was worse than usual. Hourly billing moves all of that risk onto you, which is exactly backwards given we are the ones who chose the route.
How long does a studio move take?
Two to four hours door to door for most of them, including the drive. A ground floor studio with a bay outside can be done in under two. A fourth floor walk-up at both ends is a solid half day, which is why it sits at the top of the price band.
Will one van be enough?
For a genuine studio, yes. A long wheelbase transit takes a studio with room to spare and a Luton is usually more than you need. Where it stops being true is a studio with a lot of boxes, a bike and a piece of furniture bought for a larger flat, and we would rather establish that on the phone than on the morning.
Do I need to pay for a parking suspension?
Rarely on a studio. A suspension costs £45 to £120 a day depending on the borough and it needs several working days of notice, so for a small load it is usually cheaper to carry thirty metres further. Where the street genuinely has no legal stop, we will say so and put the council's charge in the quote at cost.
How we do the job itself
This page is about the money. The flat and apartment removals page covers the method: the crew, the wrapping, the access planning and what tends to go wrong.
Prices by area
The band above holds across all 37 Central London areas we cover. What changes between them is the parking and the housing stock, which is what decides where in the band you land.