DIY Packing vs Professional Packers: What Each Really Costs
What packing your own house really costs against paying packers, with our actual Auckland prices by bedroom count, and the split most people end up choosing.
Advice from crews who do this every day
Practical tips for Auckland and Waikato moves, from packing timelines to choosing the right crew size.
Updated: 3 August 2026
Richard Boote · Owner & General Manager
Richard founded Specialist Movers in 2023 and runs the Auckland and Waikato operations. He still quotes the difficult jobs himself, and the business now completes around 180 moves a month.
The honest answer: most people should do both
Packing your own house saves real money. Paying us to do it saves real time and takes the worst job off your list. Almost nobody needs all of one or none of the other.
What most of our customers land on is a split. They pack their own clothes, books, linen and the garage over a couple of weekends, and we come in the day before to do the kitchen, the glassware and anything breakable. That is the part that takes the longest, causes the most damage when it goes wrong, and is the least satisfying to do yourself at 11pm.
What packing your own house actually costs
Not nothing. Cartons, tape, bubble wrap and paper for a three-bedroom house runs to a couple of hundred dollars if you buy decent ones, and supermarket boxes will let you down under weight. Add two or three weekends of your own time.
The bigger cost is the one people do not budget for: the fridge that got packed last and had to be emptied on move morning, or the box of plates that went in with newspaper between them instead of paper and arrived as a bag of pieces. We see both most months.
What we charge to pack it for you
Three packers, labour and all materials, the day before your move:
One bedroom $1,700 plus GST. Two bedrooms $1,986. Three bedrooms $2,192. Four bedrooms $2,758.
That is the whole house, boxed and labelled by room, ready to load. Nothing left to do the night before except make the bed you are about to take apart.
Or just the parts you do not want to do
Partial packing is priced by room rather than by house, so if you only want the kitchen done, you only pay for the kitchen. If you want something more specific than that, our packers are $180 an hour for a team of three plus an $80 callout, and you point them at whatever you like.
The kitchen is the room to hand over if you only hand over one. It is the most breakable, the most fiddly, and the one that eats a whole evening.
Where DIY packing usually goes wrong
Boxes packed too heavy to lift. A full carton of books weighs more than you think, and a box that cannot be carried safely gets dragged, which is how corners split and floors get marked.
Plates packed flat. They travel on their edges, standing up like records, with paper between each one. Flat plates crack under the weight of the plates above them.
Nothing labelled. Every box that arrives unmarked is a box someone has to open to find the kettle. Write the room on the top and one side, because you will only see one of those when it is stacked.
Half-packed on the day. This is the one that costs money rather than crockery, because we are charged by the hour and a crew standing around while you finish the wardrobe is an hour on your invoice.
Things we would rather you did not pack yourself
Anything you would be upset to lose. Not because we do not trust you, but because breakables need the right paper, the right box and the right amount of it, and that is a skill rather than an effort.
Televisions and monitors, unless you kept the original box. They need corner protection and to travel upright.
Marble, glass tabletops and mirrors. These travel on their edges in a padded frame, never flat, and we bring the frame.
Paint, gas bottles, fuel and anything aerosol. We cannot carry those, so they need to go in your own car or be disposed of before the day. Worth checking the shed early rather than on move morning.
If you are packing yourself, do it in this order
Start with the rooms you barely use, four weeks out. The spare room, the linen cupboard, the garage. Nothing in those is needed before you move.
Do the books and the ornaments next, then clothes out of season. Keep the boxes small and heavy things low.
Leave the kitchen, the bathroom and one set of bedding until the last two days. Pack a single box that travels in your car with the kettle, mugs, teabags, phone chargers, toilet paper and a change of clothes. Label it so nobody puts it on the truck.
Get everything sealed and stacked by a wall the night before. Not because we mind, but because a crew that can start loading at 8am finishes earlier, and you are paying for the hours.
So which one should you pick?
Pack it yourself if you have three or four spare weekends, a straightforward household, and you would rather spend the money on the move than the packing.
Get us to do it if you are working full time, moving at the end of the month, downsizing after decades in one house, or you have a kitchen full of things you would not want to replace. Also if you simply do not want to, which is a perfectly good reason.
And if you are not sure, ask us for a viewing. We will walk the house with you, tell you what we would pack and what you could handle, and price both so you can see the difference rather than guess at it.