Packing Services Across Canada
Packers are booked by the hour, per packer, and usually work the day before the truck. Full house, one difficult room, or the unpacking at the other end.
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Packing is booked separately from the move and billed per packer per hour, which means you decide how much of it you want. A full pack is a team through the house the day before loading. A partial pack is the rooms nobody wants to face, and in practice that is the kitchen, the garage and the china cabinet. Some people book packers for a single afternoon to finish what they started.
Packers work to the crate rather than the clock: dishes wrapped individually and stood on edge, glassware in dish barrels, books in small cartons that a person can actually lift, wardrobe boxes for hanging clothes, and every carton labelled with the room it belongs to so unloading has somewhere to put it. Materials come with the team, and unpacking is the same booking in reverse, boxes flattened and taken away.
- Full house packs, usually the day before the truck arrives
- Partial packs for the kitchen, the garage or a single fragile collection
- Dish barrels, wardrobe boxes, wrap and tape supplied with the team
- Every carton labelled by room so the unload lands in the right place
- Unpacking, including flattening and removing the empty boxes
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Packing teams by city
Packers are scheduled separately from moving crews, so availability sits with the branch. The card opens the city page and its office number.
Call us or get a quote online. Either works.
How packing is priced
Per packer, per hour, with a minimum, and the hourly figure is on each branch's rate card beside the moving rates. Two packers get through an average two bedroom home in most of a day; a full house with a garage and a workshop takes a team or two days. The estimate says which, so the number is agreed before anybody starts wrapping.
Materials are quoted with the work rather than hidden inside the hourly rate, and there is no fuel charge, no mileage and no travel time charge within city limits. If you would rather pack yourself, the same boxes, wrap and tape can be bought or rented instead; the materials page in the list below has the range.
Packing rates by city
Each branch publishes its packing rate per packer alongside its moving rates and minimums.
Mississauga has 7 local moves on record, and this table publishes a price at 30 or more, so that row carries its count and no figures. A spread taken from that many jobs would look like a measurement and read like a guess. What is firm at any sample size is the hourly rate card, and every city page below publishes it.
Totals are what Cactus invoiced, in Canadian dollars with tax in, for moves whose pickup and at least one drop-off were both inside the city. Medians and quartiles, never averages, winsorised at the 5th and 95th percentile so one unusual job cannot move a band. Storage and packing materials are billed on their own agreements and are outside these totals. Measured August 30, 2026.
| City | Middle move | Middle half fell between | Local moves measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calgary | Middle move $768 | Middle half fell between $469 to $1,213 | Local moves measured 3,685 |
| Edmonton | Middle move $745 | Middle half fell between $473 to $1,188 | Local moves measured 605 |
| Toronto | Middle move $709 | Middle half fell between $519 to $1,145 | Local moves measured 206 |
| Mississauga | Local moves measured 7 | ||
| Vancouver | Middle move $822 | Middle half fell between $633 to $1,208 | Local moves measured 75 |
| Ottawa | Middle move $683 | Middle half fell between $446 to $1,067 | Local moves measured 64 |
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Packing service questions
What people ask before handing the kitchen to somebody else.
How long does it take to pack a house?
Two packers usually get an average two bedroom home done in most of a working day. Three bedrooms with a garage or a workshop is a longer day or a bigger team, and the estimate states which before you book so the number is not a surprise.
Can I have just the kitchen packed?
Yes, and it is the most common partial booking there is. The kitchen and the garage are the two rooms that take people three times longer than they expect, so packers are often booked for those alone while the household does the rest.
Do packers come on the same day as the truck?
Usually the day before. Packing and loading on one morning turns a straightforward move into a long day and pushes the truck late, so the standard arrangement is packers one day and the crew the next.
Are the boxes included?
Materials are quoted with the packing rather than folded into the hourly rate, so you can see what the cartons, the wrap and the tape actually cost. Anything unused and unopened is not charged for.
Will you unpack at the other end?
Yes. Unpacking is booked the same way, per packer per hour: cartons emptied, contents put where you point, and the empty boxes flattened and taken away so the new place is not a wall of cardboard.
What should I pack myself?
Documents, medication, jewellery, keys and anything you will want in the first night. Pack that as a box you carry in your own car. Everything else is easier and safer in a packer's hands than in a borrowed liquor carton.
Other Cactus services
The rest of the catalogue, including the materials themselves if you would rather pack yourself.
Book packers for the day before
Tell us the size of the home and how much you want done. You get a written estimate for the packing and the move together, with no travel time charge within city limits.