Books low, linens high
Fill the bottom third with heavy items and top off with soft goods. An all-book 18-inch cube can pass 60 lb and burst; the mixed pack our quote used landed at a carriable 33.
Relocation parcels
Cheapest way to ship moving boxes
Shipping a move box by box is a legitimate alternative to a truck when the load is a few cartons rather than a household. The trick is to price each box on its own, and there is a system reason for that explained below.
A real move box, quotedNothing to sign up forEach box tracked separately
The 18-inch standard
A classic medium moving cube, filled with clothes and books, quoted live 2026-07-27 for the tables here.
One medium moving box, quoted 2026-07-27
We quoted the archetypal relocation carton, an 18 × 18 × 18 in cube packed with clothes and books to about 33 lb, on the Newark, NJ 07102 to Atlanta, GA 30303 lane. All five returned services follow.
| Carrier | Service | Price | Quoted transit |
|---|---|---|---|
| UPS | Ground | $36.03 lowest | 3-4 business days |
| FedEx | Ground Economy | $44.96 | 4-5 business days |
| FedEx | Ground | $55.72 | 3-4 business days |
| UPS | 3 Day Select | $56.98 | 3-4 business days |
| UPS | Ground Saver | $57.10 | 4 business days |
UPS Ground cleared the field at $36.03, with the next service back at $44.96. A worthwhile quirk from the same session: when we asked the calculator for three of these boxes in one quote, it declined to fire an instant label and routed the request to a freight review instead. That is by design, so price your move one box at a time and multiply.
Stagger the send
Boxes shipped a day apart arrive spread across a week, which matches an unpacking schedule anyway. You also spot any pricing oddity after the first label instead of after ten.
Label inside and out
Drop a card with the destination address inside each carton before sealing. If an outer label is torn in transit, that card is how the box finds you anyway.
Moving-by-parcel questions
How much does it cost to ship a moving box?
Our packed 18-inch cube, about 33 lb of clothes and books, quoted $36.03 with UPS Ground on 2026-07-27 from Newark to Atlanta, with the other services running $44.96 to $57.10.
Can I quote all my moving boxes at once?
Multi-box requests route to a freight review rather than an instant label; three of our test cube in one quote did exactly that. For instant pricing, quote a single box and scale the number yourself.
Is shipping boxes cheaper than a moving truck?
For a handful of cartons, often yes, especially one-way over long distances. Somewhere around a room’s worth of boxes, the freight review or a rental starts winning, so do the arithmetic with real quotes.
What should not go in a shipped moving box?
Aerosols, flammables, loose lithium batteries and anything irreplaceable. Documents and small valuables belong in your own bag, not the parcel stream.