Since the earliest days of SmartMoving, our team’s mission has been to help movers understand changes in the industry, so they can outperform it. And despite rising operational costs and price-sensitive customers, that is exactly what they’re doing.
As is our tradition, we partnered with some of the industry’s leading associations to collect insights from over 500 movers in the US and Canada. While it’s no surprise that market challenges continued last year, the majority of movers are excited about the future.
And they’re not waiting around for tailwinds to steer them to prosperity. They’re taking action to improve their sales and marketing, optimize their operations, and prioritize profitability as the #1 metric for success.
Today, we’re sharing the top 5 trends and opportunities for moving businesses that want to reach new revenue and profit milestones in 2025.
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It will come as a surprise to no one that 2024 was another tough year for movers. According to our data, less than half met their revenue goals last year. And yet, the vast majority of moving leaders remain unfazed.
Despite a slew of challenges—including lead flow, costs, and insurance rates—nearly 90% of movers are optimistic about the year ahead, a notable increase from 79% at the end of 2023.
With another challenging year in the rearview, movers are focused on finding new, more profitable ways to scale. They’re improving pricing, tightening up sales and marketing strategies, and getting clear on the KPIs that drive profitability forward.
According to the data, movers are focused on the following goals this year:
Last year we predicted that, as with any downmarket, clear winners and losers would emerge. And sure enough, when we looked at this year’s data we found a large gap between companies that manage their margins and those that don’t.
Most best-in-class companies (87%) know their net profit and more than half (59%) report net margins of above 10%. For non best-in-class companies, margins are tighter. Fewer (76%) know their profit margin and only 43% report a net margin above 10%.
To consistently reach above-average margins, movers need to know their profit margin down to the job level.
As part of a clear plan to bounce back stronger, moving company owners are building scalable sales and marketing processes.
More than half of moving companies said they plan to increase marketing budgets in 2025, with best-in-class companies spending anywhere from $500 to $10,000 on ads each month. To make sure they’re getting a healthy return, movers are tightening up their sales systems using clear metrics to track how quickly they’re responding to leads, how often they’re following up, and more.
Our research also revealed that almost 40% of moving companies don't offer sales commission—a missed opportunity, because hourly rates don’t do a great job motivating people to do their best work. But increased earning potential for team members translates to more dollars booked for moving companies. That’s a scenario where everyone wins.
If you don’t already, consider offering the standard 7% sales commission or tiered commission structure.
No matter how you go about it, success in the moving industry is all about having repeatable systems for generating, capturing, and converting leads to revenue. By investing in sales and marketing when the market is down, you can come back even harder when it recovers.
This year’s research revealed that 94% of moving companies plan to increase prices by 10% or less. To increase value in the eyes of price-conscious customers, they’ll need to provide stellar service in return.
The data found that best-in-class moving companies have nearly 2X as many Google reviews as non-best-in-class companies. For movers that don’t already have an online reputation management (ORM) strategy in place, this could be another major opportunity in 2025. It’s also a good time to delegate the administrative work to someone else, since currently, 45% of moving owners are managing reviews themselves.
With the majority of movers reporting less than 500 reviews, companies that build an active process for increasing review volume and velocity will come out ahead.
If this year’s data proved anything, it’s that movers are willing to adapt and overcome.
Going into 2025, 27% of moving companies are offering consumer financing to help meet clients’ needs in a tight housing market. By giving customers the option to pay over time, they can afford to not only hire a professional moving company, but also add services, like packing or moving insurance.
This is a great example of how change leads to opportunity. And it’s yet another area where movers with a streamlined operating system seem to have the edge.
By increasing win rates and the purchasing power of customers, consumer financing is a win-win for movers who have the systems and scalability to offer it.
For resourceful movers, AI isn’t just a shiny new tool. According to the data, 37% have adopted AI to offload a variety of tasks, from organizing notes to answering sales calls.
Here’s a glimpse of how movers are using AI in their daily tasks:
Marketing
Operations
Sales / Support
From brainstorming ideas to creating team training content, moving companies of all shapes and sizes are discovering new ways to save time, train their bots, and untap the full potential AI has to offer.
Modern movers aren’t just facing challenges; they’re taking charge of their success through proactive, profit-first strategies.
As we move into a new year, complete with its own challenges and opportunities, movers are ready to achieve big things. In 2025, they’re armed with a confident, forward-thinking approach that puts clear systems, metrics, and revenue targets at the forefront.
At SmartMoving, our mission is to help movers reach the next level in their business. And our annual industry benchmark report is one of many ways we strive to make that happen.
Download the report to uncover all the top trends, benchmarks, and growth opportunities for 2025, plus best-in-class strategies from movers that did over 1,000 moves and $2M+ revenue last year. Get your free copy today and start planning your best year yet!
What’s inside the 2025 State of Moving Report?
✅ 5 big opportunities to grow revenue and profit in 2025
✅ 10 simple tactics best-in-class companies use to get ahead
✅ 70 industry benchmarks — see how your company stacks up!