Memorial Day weekend 2026 is in the books. Here’s what happened — and what tier pricing did differently.
The Weekend in Numbers
May 23–25, 2026. Memorial Day Saturday. The demand model assigned Tier 5 across nearly every MoveRight market for Saturday and Tier 2 for the following Tuesday.
Volume comparison vs. the previous Tuesday: 2.3x more jobs requested on Saturday than on Tuesday. That’s not unusual — Saturdays in late May always run hot. What’s different is what happened to the pricing.
What Flat-Rate Movers Experienced
Flat-rate operators — the ones charging the same hourly rate on Memorial Day Saturday that they charge on a random Tuesday in February — dealt with three predictable problems:
Overbooking. Same rate, more demand. The phone rings off the hook, the dispatcher books everything that moves, and then spends Saturday morning scrambling to find trucks that don’t exist.
Crew overtime burn. Higher volume means longer days. Longer days on a holiday weekend means crew fatigue, which means slower work, which means customer complaints, which means bad reviews — the gift that keeps on giving.
Customer complaints from overpromised arrival windows. When you book every job at the same rate, you can’t afford to turn anyone down. So you over-promise arrival times, fall behind schedule, and the customer who was told “9–10 AM” gets a crew at noon. On a holiday weekend. When they have plans.
What Tier-Priced Movers Experienced
MoveRight operators running demand tiers had a different weekend:
Memorial Day Saturday ran at Tier 5. Rates reflected peak demand. Customers who booked Saturday paid Saturday’s price — which is what the market will bear on the highest-demand Saturday of the quarter.
The following Tuesday ran at Tier 2. Customers who were flexible got the discount. The “Ask for Discount” button appeared on Tier 2 days. Customers who shifted from Saturday to Tuesday saved 6–12%. The operator filled a Tuesday truck that would have run empty.
Margin was protected by design. No manual override needed. No dispatcher staying up until midnight adjusting rates. The model assigned the tiers. The pricing engine applied the rates. The sales agents quoted with confidence because the system told them what to charge.
Three Numbers from the Holiday Weekend
These are generalized observations from MoveRight operators running demand tiers:
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Pacing vs. Last Year: Operators running demand tiers tracked ahead of last year’s Memorial Day revenue by 12–18%. This isn’t all pricing — volume was up year-over-year too — but the tier system captured margin that flat-rate pricing would have left on the table.
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Average price-per-truck-hour delta: Tier-priced Saturday jobs averaged 18–22% higher price-per-truck-hour than the previous Tuesday’s jobs. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the system working.
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Off-peak occupancy: Tuesday and Wednesday after Memorial Day showed higher occupancy at Tier 2 rates than flat-rate comparators. The discount button drove flex-schedule customers to slower days, filling trucks that would have sat idle.
What June Looks Like
June 30 is the single highest-demand moving day of the year per moveBuddha’s peak season analysis. It’s a Tuesday this year, which means the Monday and Wednesday flanking it will also be hot. July 31 and August 1 round out the top three.
Flat-rate movers will charge their Tuesday rate — the same rate they charged the previous Tuesday — on the busiest day of the year. Tier-priced movers will run it at Tier 5 and capture every dollar the market will bear.
Pulling rates for July? Run them through MoveRight first. We’ll show you what the model says about your specific zip codes.
References:
- moveBuddha — Peak Moving Season — https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/peak-moving-season/
- Allied Van Lines — Why Summer is Peak — https://www.allied.com/blog/view/all-blogs/2017/06/20/why-summer-is-the-peak-moving-season