Compare moving options
Side-by-side breakdowns of cost, effort and risk for every way to move. No spin, just the facts you need to choose the right option.
Compare moving options
Which type of move is right for you? Cost, speed and effort compared.
DIY Van Hire vs Man & Van
Rent a van yourself or book a crew? The real cost, effort and risk compared.
Man & Van vs Removals Company
When a man and van is enough, and when you need a full removals team.
Part-Load vs Dedicated Van
Share van space to save money, or go direct for speed and flexibility.
Self-Packing vs Professional Packing
Pack it yourself or pay the pros. What costs more and what breaks less.
Storage Options Compared
Self-storage, container storage and mobile pods. Prices, access and flexibility.
Compare with competitors
Honest, side-by-side reviews of Giant Van against other UK moving services.
Giant Van vs AnyVan
A fixed price and a vetted crew, against a marketplace that matches your job to independent providers.
Giant Van vs Shiply
One upfront price you can book now, against a reverse auction where hauliers bid for your job.
Giant Van vs Compare the Man and Van
Book and pay in one place, against a quote board where you settle up with the driver direct.
Giant Van vs Man With a Van
A fixed all-in figure, against hourly hire from an individual owner-operator driver.
Giant Van vs MoveIt
Two app-first services compared: an instant fixed quote against on-demand helper matching.
Giant Van vs Buzzmove
Buzzmove has closed. What the quote-comparison model offered, and how to replace it today.
Giant Van vs GetAMover
An instant confirmed booking, against a lead form that passes your details to removal firms.
Giant Van vs Fantastic Removals
One national service and one contract, against a franchise network of local operators.
Giant Van vs Kwikfit Removals
A budget hourly man and van, against a fixed all-inclusive price. Where each one lands.
Giant Van vs Pickfords
A modern challenger against the UK's oldest removals brand. Price, service and technology compared.
Giant Van vs Bishop's Move
A survey-and-quote heritage removals firm, against an instant online fixed price.
How these comparisons are made
Every comparison on this page is built the same way, so the pages can be read against each other rather than one at a time.
Each one takes a single decision, states the two or three realistic options, and scores them on the same four things: what it costs, how much of your own time it takes, what can go wrong, and who carries the risk when it does. Nothing is scored out of ten.
A number would suggest a precision that does not exist, and it would hide the fact that the right answer changes with the move. A studio flat moving three streets and a four-bedroom house moving two hundred miles are not the same decision wearing different clothes.
What each comparison covers
- Cost, with the hidden parts included Fuel, mileage, materials and your own unpaid hours all count. A cheap option that costs you two days of annual leave is not cheap.
- Effort, stated honestly Who lifts, who drives, who packs and who is responsible for finding a parking space at the far end.
- Risk, and where it lands What happens to a damaged item, a late arrival or a cancelled completion under each option, and who is out of pocket.
- The case against Each comparison names the moves where the option we recommend is the wrong choice. A page that recommends the same thing to everyone is an advert.
Two kinds of comparison on one page
The first group compares ways of moving.
Hiring a van and doing it yourself, booking a driver and a van with a crew, using a full removals firm, sharing van space with someone else's load: these are different products, not different prices for the same product, and the gap between them is mostly a gap in how much of the work is yours.
The second group compares us against other companies. Those pages are written to a stricter rule, because a comparison written by one of the two parties is only worth reading if it is checkable.
We describe how the other company's model works rather than how well they do it, we say plainly where their model suits a move better than ours, and we do not publish a competitor price we cannot point at. Marketplace and auction platforms in particular price differently by design, and pretending otherwise would make the comparison useless.
When a comparison gets rewritten
A comparison is only as good as the day it was written, and the things being compared do change. Each page is reviewed when the thing it describes moves rather than on a calendar: a company changing how it charges, a service being withdrawn, a pricing model switching from quotes to bidding.
That is the trigger, because a fixed review date would leave a page wrong for months and then correct it for no reason. Where a page states something about another company, it describes their published model rather than a private experience of it, so it can be checked against their own site by anyone who wants to.
If you find something on one of these pages that no longer matches what a company actually does, that is a defect and we would rather fix it than defend it. The date on each comparison tells you when it was last reviewed.
When your move does not fit the comparison
Comparisons work on typical moves. Some moves are not typical, and it is worth knowing early if yours is one of them. A single very heavy item, a piano or a safe or a full gym, changes the answer completely, because the question stops being how much space you need and starts being how the item leaves the building.
A move with two dates, where you complete on one day and get keys on another, turns into a storage question. A move where nobody can be present at one end turns into an access question, and access problems are the most common reason a cheap option becomes an expensive one.
If any of those describe your move, read the closest comparison for the shape of the decision, then get a quote rather than relying on the ranges. The ranges are honest about ordinary jobs and unreliable about unusual ones.