Piano Movers Across Canada
An upright and a baby grand are two different jobs with one thing in common: the route is measured before anybody lifts. Dollies, boards, padding and straps come as standard.
Call Cactus Moving now!
Licensed, insured & bonded · 8,956 moves on record since April 2024 
1,132 · written five-star Google reviews
Get your free estimate
No obligation. No deposit for local moves.
Thanks. We've got it.
A Calgary move coordinator will call you shortly to confirm the details and your quote.
Or call (403) 805-5855 nowHow a piano is moved
An upright travels standing, padded and strapped to a piano dolly, and the work is the doorways, the turn at the bottom of the stairs and the threshold at the truck. A grand is dismantled first: the lid and the music desk come off, the legs and the pedal lyre are removed, and the case goes onto a padded board on its side so the weight sits where the instrument is strongest. Both are secured against the truck wall rather than left to find their own place.
The house gets protected as carefully as the instrument. Blankets go over the case, runners go down along the whole path, and door frames and banisters are padded at the points a piano actually touches. The crew brings equipment rated for the load, works to a route it has measured, and sets the piano where you want it before the job is closed.
- Uprights, consoles, spinets, baby grands and full grands
- Grands dismantled and reassembled: lid, legs and pedal lyre
- Padded piano dollies, boards and strapping instead of household equipment
- Floor runners and padding on frames, banisters and corners
- Same building moves, including room to room and floor to floor
Questions about your move? Talk to our team.
Piano movers in six cities
Piano equipment travels with a particular truck, so availability is set branch by branch. The card opens the city page and the number rings that office.
Call us or get a quote online. Either works.
How piano moving is priced
Local piano work is hourly at the same published rates, with the rate following the crew and the truck and a two hour minimum. What decides the crew is the instrument and the stairs: an upright on one level is a different booking from a grand that has to come down a turned staircase, and the office prices from the make, the model and the stair count.
One operations fee covers the coordination around the job. There is no fuel surcharge, no mileage and no travel time charge within city limits. A piano moved as part of a house move is quoted inside that job, and it is worth saying at the estimate so the crew and the equipment are set for it.
Piano moving costs by city
Each branch publishes its hourly rates and its minimum, which is what a local piano move is priced against.
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 |
Ask us out loud, or send the details and we will come back to you.
Piano moving questions
What owners ask before letting anyone near the instrument.
What do you need to know before you can quote?
The make and model, whether it is an upright or a grand, and the stairs at each end including any turn on the run. A photograph of the piano and one of the route answers nearly everything else.
Do you take a grand piano apart?
Yes. The lid, the music desk, the legs and the pedal lyre come off, the case is padded onto a board and moved on its side, and everything is refitted at the other end. Uprights travel standing on a piano dolly.
Will my piano need tuning afterwards?
Expect it to. Moving changes the temperature and humidity the instrument sits in, and most technicians suggest waiting a couple of weeks in the new room before tuning so it has settled. Tuning is a technician's work, not ours.
Can you move a piano up or down stairs?
In most cases yes, and the answer comes from the stair rather than the piano: the width, the run and whether there is a landing turn. The office asks for that detail up front so the crew arrives with the right equipment and the right number of people.
Can you move the piano to another room in the same house?
Yes, and it is a common booking. The crew brings the same dolly, padding and floor protection, works out the route through the doorways and sets the instrument in the new spot.
Is the piano protected while it is on the truck?
It is blanketed, strapped and secured against the wall of the truck so it cannot shift in transit, and it is loaded where nothing else can be stacked against it. Say it is coming when you book so that space is planned for.
Other services
The rest of the catalogue, with a page in each city.
Send the model and the staircase
The make, the model and a photograph of the route are enough to price a piano move properly. Written estimate, and no travel time charge within city limits.