Dedicated: it's your truck for the day
You book the whole vehicle. The crew shows up at your house, loads only your stuff, drives directly to your new place, and unloads. No other stops. The truck's whole cost — fuel, driver wages, fleet amortisation — gets billed to one customer: you.
That's the difference: with a dedicated truck you're paying for an entire truck's day on the road — driver, fuel, tolls and the trip home, billed to one customer.
Backloading: you share an already-running truck
The truck is already going Sydney → Melbourne tomorrow whether you booked or not — it just had empty space. Your stuff fills some of that space alongside one or two other customers' loads. You pay only for the cubic metres you use.
Same SYD→MEL 2-bedroom move backloaded: about $2,969 inc GST. Driver-assisted loading still happens; the trip still takes one day; the difference is that you're paying for a slice instead of the whole pie.
When dedicated is the right call
- You need a guaranteed 4-hour pickup window. Backloading slots you into a wider window because the driver may have other stops.
- Your move is enormous. If you fill more than 80% of a truck (45m³+), the saving from sharing disappears — you're taking the whole truck regardless.
- Your stuff is unusually fragile or valuable. Things like grand pianos, large art collections, and live plants sometimes warrant a no-other-stops trip.
- You need same-day delivery. Dedicated trucks can do interstate next-day with a relay driver. Backloads can't.
When backloading is obvious
- You're moving a 1–4 bedroom home (8m³ to ~50m³).
- You can give us 2–7 days of pickup-window flexibility.
- Your stuff is normal stuff: furniture, boxes, white goods.
- You'd rather pay for the space your goods take than for a whole truck.
What each one costs, in dollars
The published backloading price for the three busiest corridors, at the two most common home sizes, beside the per-m³ card rate. Hold them against whatever dedicated quote you have in your inbox.
| Route | 2-bed (26 m³) | 3-bed (35 m³) | Card rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney → MelbournePublished | $2,969 | $3,700 | $106/m³ |
| Melbourne → Adelaide | $2,969 | $3,700 | $106/m³ |
| Melbourne → Brisbane | $3,877 | $4,830 | $138/m³ |
Melbourne–Adelaide and the Hume price the same, which surprises people: both corridors sit in the same distance band and both run often enough to fill, so the per-cubic-metre rate lands in the same place. Distance alone doesn't set the price — how full the truck already is does.
Two things worth noticing. The backloaded numbers are the actual price, not a “from” — you can put your own move through the quote tool and get the same figure in about a minute.
What changes about the experience
Honestly, very little. The same kind of pantech truck shows up. The same kind of driver gets out of it. They wrap your furniture in moving blankets and tie it down with the same straps. The only practical difference is that on a 22m³ load they might have another 7m³ on the truck for someone else heading the same direction.
On the customer-service side, the big change is that you book online, get an instant estimate in 60 seconds, and pay through one channel instead of negotiating over phone or email. That's the deliberate trade-off: less hand-holding for less money.
The real risk to know about
Backloading is a young industry in Australia, which means standards vary. Look for three things in any backloading provider:
- Who carries the risk in transit. The carrier's cover, your contents policy, or nobody — a serious operator says which.
- A real price for your move, not "from $X". If the price can climb on the day for reasons you didn't cause, you're not really getting a quote.
- Real reviews on a platform you can verify. Google, ProductReview, Facebook. Not screenshots on a website.
Where Pea stands on each: Your goods travel under our Terms of Carriage. Pea does not currently provide goods-in-transit insurance; most home and contents policies can add transit cover for an interstate move, so ask your insurer before moving day. Anything lost or damaged is handled under the Terms of Carriage — tell us within 7 days of delivery. Accept an estimate and the price is fixed for the move you described — it only changes if the volume, access or add-ons differ from what you told us. And our reviews are on Google. We're new, and we'll say so.