An interstate moving quote is really a volume estimate wearing a dollar sign. Everything hinges on one number — how much space your belongings take on the truck. Here is how that number gets built from a video, and why it matters more than most people expect.
Why the inventory is the price
Local moves are usually billed hourly. Interstate moves are not — they are priced on shipment size and distance. Size is measured in cubic feet, and cubic feet come from the inventory: every sofa, box, bike and bed frame has a typical volume. Add them up and you have the shipment. Multiply that against the distance and you have the price.
Which is why a missed room is not a small error. Forget a packed garage and the estimate can be off by hundreds of cubic feet — and that gap shows up as a surprise charge on delivery day, long after you have signed.
What happens to your video
- You record. A walkthrough on your phone, room by room, roughly 10 minutes for most homes. No app, no account.
- The AI identifies items. It works through the footage recognising furniture and household goods and tagging what it sees — a 3-seat sofa, a queen bed, a 4-door fridge, boxes stacked in a corner.
- Items become volume. Each identified item maps to a typical cubic-foot value. A dining chair is not a wardrobe; the model knows the difference. The result is an itemized list with a running cube total.
- A human checks it. Our team reviews every AI-built inventory before a quote goes out. The AI is fast and consistent; it is not the final word.
- You get a binding written estimate. Built from that reviewed inventory. The price you are quoted is the price you pay.
What AI is genuinely good at here — and what it is not
Good at: never getting bored. An estimator on their sixth walkthrough of the day and a customer listing furniture from memory both miss things. The model treats minute nine like minute one, and it does not round your shipment down to be agreeable.
Not good at: seeing what you did not film. This is the honest limitation, and it is the whole ballgame. The AI cannot infer a full attic from a closed hatch. It cannot value the antique dresser differently from the flat-pack one unless someone tells it. It does not know that half the garage is staying with the house.
That is why the review step exists, and why what you show the camera decides your accuracy. Our walkthrough guide is short and worth two minutes.
Things worth saying out loud while you film
- What is not coming. Selling the sectional? Say so. It comes straight off the cube.
- What needs special handling. A piano, a safe, a mounted TV, anything fragile or genuinely valuable.
- What is inside closed things. Full wardrobes, a packed crawlspace, a shed you have not opened since spring.
- Access. Third-floor walk-up, narrow street, gated complex, no truck parking — these affect the plan more than people realise.
Does a bigger cube always mean a bigger bill?
Yes — and that is exactly why an accurate inventory protects you rather than costs you. An under-counted shipment is not a discount, it is a bill you have not received yet. A correct cube is what makes a binding estimate binding. See real worked examples on any route page, for example NYC to Miami or Houston to Austin, where cost is broken out by home size.
Get your inventory built
Start a free video survey — about 10 minutes on your phone, an itemized inventory, and an accurate quote, often the same day. Prefer a person in the room? Ask for an video-survey quote instead, or read how the two compare.
Frequently asked questions
How does AI turn a video into a moving quote?
You record a walkthrough on your phone, roughly ten minutes for most homes. The AI works through the footage recognising furniture and household goods, then maps each identified item to a typical cubic-foot value to build a total volume.
Why does the inventory decide the price?
An interstate quote is really a volume estimate. Everything hinges on how much space your belongings take on the truck, so a missed room can shift the estimate by hundreds of cubic feet.
What happens if a room gets missed?
The gap shows up as a surprise charge on delivery day, long after you have signed. Recording every room, including the garage, is the best way to keep the estimate accurate.
Do I need to download an app?
No. You record the walkthrough on your own phone. There is no app and no account to create.