Binding, Not-to-Exceed, Non-Binding: What You Are Signing

Two estimates can show the same number and mean entirely different things. The difference is one word near the top of the page, and it decides whether that number can change after your belongings are already on a truck.

Non-binding

An educated guess at what the move will weigh, priced at a rate per pound. The truck is weighed empty and again loaded, and the real weight sets the real price. If the estimate was low, you pay more.

This is legitimate and common, and it is the one that produces most of the unpleasant surprises — not through dishonesty but because a company competing on the quoted figure has every incentive to guess light.

Binding

A fixed price for a specific inventory. The truck may weigh more or less than expected and the price does not move. What does move it is the inventory: add items that were not on the list, or ask for a service that was not agreed, and the estimate is revised before loading.

The trade runs both ways. If your shipment comes in lighter than estimated, you do not get money back. You bought certainty.

Not-to-exceed

Also called a guaranteed-not-to-exceed or binding-not-to-exceed estimate. The quoted figure is a ceiling. Weigh in under it and you pay the lower actual cost; weigh in over and you still pay the ceiling.

What to check before signing

• Which of the three it is — it must say so on the document, not just in conversation.
• Whether packing materials and labour are inside the number or billed separately.
• What the accessorial charges are: long carry, stairs, shuttle, storage in transit.
• What happens if the inventory changes, and by how much before it triggers a revision.
• The valuation coverage. Released value is 60 cents per pound, which on a 40-pound television is 24 dollars.

That last line is the one people skip. Released-value protection is included at no charge and is not insurance in any meaningful sense. Full-value protection costs extra and is what most people assume they already have.

The accessorials are where estimates diverge

Two carriers quoting the same job often differ less on the base rate than on what they have assumed about access. A long carry from the door to where the truck can legally park, a shuttle because a semi cannot get down the street, a flight of stairs at the far end — each is a line item, and each is easy to leave out of a quote given over the phone.

This is the practical argument for a survey. Not because a company cannot price a move without seeing it, but because everything that turns a quoted number into a different final number is a thing somebody has to look at.