Budget vs. U-Haul 2021

If you’re planning a DIY move in a rental truck, U-Haul is probably the first company that comes to mind when you’re deciding where to get your truck. Admittedly, the company’s low prices and wide availability make it one of the best moving truck rental companies around.

However, Budget—one of U-Haul’s biggest competitors—does outclass U-Haul in one important way. The two companies are about equal in overall service quality, but Budget is the most affordable option for local moves. And while U-Haul’s long-distance prices can be lower than Budget’s, they aren’t as low as Penske’s.

Because Budget’s local moving prices are the best in the industry while U-Haul’s prices aren’t the lowest for any move category, we’re calling this race for Budget.

• Similarities
• Pricing
• Services
• Truck sizes
• Availability
• Our pick: Budget

Like we’ve said, Budget and U-Haul have a lot of similarities. To bring you up to speed, we’ll quickly detail these similarities before talking about what differentiates the two companies.

Typically, a long-distance move is any move over 100 miles, and a local move is any move under 100 miles.

Truck rental companies sometimes call long-distance moves “one-way” moves because you return your rental truck at a different location than where you got it. Similarly, companies often call local moves “round-trip” moves because you return your truck to your initial rental location.

Both Budget and U-Haul offer rental trucks for both types of moves. This makes both companies stand out above competitors like Enterprise and Home Depot, which only rent trucks for local moves (though some Home Depot locations partner with Penske to provide long-distance Penske trucks).

Across customer review forums like Google Reviews and Yelp, both Budget and U-Haul receive abysmal reviews. We checked star ratings across five different review platforms, and we found that the average star rating for both companies comes out to 1.3.

Since the companies’ star ratings are in a dead heat, we can conclude that the two provide similar customer satisfaction. However, customers do tend to complain about different things depending on which company they rented their truck from.

While neither company guarantees reservations, we’ve found that U-Haul customers complain about broken reservations far more often than Budget customers. Conversely, Budget customers report unclean trucks with malfunctioning parts far more often than U-Haul customers.

So, based on customer reviews, you’re more likely to get your reserved truck with Budget, but that truck probably won’t be as clean or reliable as a U-Haul truck.

Another important difference that we noticed is that Budget responds to customer complaints and is proactive about solving problems—U-Haul is not. We’re impressed by the way Budget goes the extra mile to address concerns.

Renting a moving truck for your move traditionally means doing all the packing, loading, and unloading yourself. However, you don’t have to go full DIY. Both Budget and U-Haul offer move help services to assist you with everything except driving.

As you’d expect, these services cost extra, and exact prices depend on factors like location and how long you need help. That said, many hands make light work, and when some of those hands belong to professionals, it can greatly speed up your move. Your wallet may be a little lighter afterward, but your back will certainly hurt less than if you’d done all the work yourself.

U-Haul uses an online marketplace to provide moving assistance. In this marketplace, local labor companies compete to get hired for your job and you can handpick which company shows up to help you. Budget, on the other hand, provides moving assistance through a partnership with HireAHelper, our very favorite moving labor company.

While moving coverage is optional, you should always purchase as much as you can to safeguard your stuff, your truck, and yourself. That’s why we like that both Budget and U-Haul have comprehensive coverage options.

Keep in mind that all of these coverage options have various exclusions and limitations, and you should refer to your rental agreement for complete information regarding coverage.

Budget has five coverage options to protect you in case of unfortunate circumstances ranging from locking your keys in the truck to getting in an accident.

Damage Waivers: These coverage plans cover the cost of damage to your Budget truck and any towing equipment you rent. Budget offers two different damage waiver plans:

• Physical Damage Waiver (PDW), which covers all damage costs.
• Limited Damage Waiver (LDW), which only covers damage after the first $500, so the repair/replacement costs for the first $500 of damage will come out of your own wallet.

Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI): This coverage plan protects you against injury claims made by third-parties against you while you’re driving your Budget truck. There are some exclusions, though. For example, SLI doesn’t cover you if you drive in a way that violates your rental agreement.

Personal and Cargo (PAC): PAC covers bodily injury for you and your passengers and damage to your household goods in case of a collision. PAC won’t cover certain types of belongings—such as jewelry—or collisions that result from improper driving, though.

Roadside SafetyNet (RSN): Paying for RSN gives you access to Budget’s 24/7 roadside assistance hotline that can help you in case of flat tires, lock outs, dead truck batteries, etc.

Auto Tow Protection (ATP): ATP covers any vehicle you tow using a Budget tow dolly or car carrier as long as you tow it behind your Budget truck.

U-Haul has four coverage options to protect you in the event of water damage, burglary, or accidents.

Safemove®: With Safemove, you get a damage waiver for rental equipment like your truck, cargo protection for your belongings, and medical/life protection for you and your passengers.

Safemove Plus®: This coverage option gives you everything included in the base Safemove plan, but it adds $1 million in supplemental liability coverage and additional inclusions for your damage waiver.

Safetow®: Think of Safetow as Safemove for towing. It gives you a damage waiver for your towing equipment, protection for towed cargo, and medical/life protection for you and your passengers.

Safetrip®: While all U-Haul rentals come with basic 24/7 roadside assistance in case your truck breaks down, you can purchase Safetrip to gain access to more deluxe roadside protections like lockout services and fuel services.

Now that we’ve talked about qualities that Budget and U-Haul share, let’s discuss the things that differentiate them.

On average, Budget’s local prices are about $10 lower than U-Haul’s. In fact, Budget’s local prices are the absolute lowest in the truck rental industry. Additionally, Budget charges less than half of what U-Haul does for mileage, so you can drive farther and make more trips back and forth in a Budget truck while still saving money.

This means that if you’re moving locally and you’ve got money on your mind, Budget is your best option.

As you can see in the table above, Budget lags behind U-Haul price-wise in just about every use case except for local moves. Keep in mind that these are just averages based on about 50 quotes we gathered in October 2020, though, and moving truck prices vary based on location and time of year.

In fact, we have seen Budget’s prices for long-distance moves be significantly lower than U-Haul’s. In one case, Budget offered a rate that was roughly $600 cheaper than U-Haul’s for a move from Iowa to Texas. Similarly, for a move from Iowa to Washington DC, Budget’s rate was around $200 lower than U-Haul’s.

Here’s the takeaway: get a quote from both companies no matter how far you’re moving. Both companies give customers free quotes, and they don’t take long to get, so there’s really no reason not to. While you’re at it, get a quote from Penske as well since it typically offers the best rates in the industry for long-distance moves.

While Budget and U-Haul are about neck and neck price-wise, Budget is the clear winner in the discount arena. Here’s a list of discounts the company offers:

• US military discount—20% off truck rental
  
• AARP member discount—20% off Sunday through Thursday and 10% off Friday through Saturday
  
• Police, fire, and EMT personnel discounts—20% off for local moves and 15% off for one-way moves
  
• Motor Club member discounts—20% off for local moves and 15% off for one-way moves
  
• Bar Association member discounts—20% off for local moves and 15% off for one-way moves
  
• Student discounts—20% off for local moves and 15% off for one-way moves⁵

For comparison, the discounts U-Haul lists online are much sparser, and it doesn’t list specific discount rates for its moving trucks. This leaves customers unsure of what to expect price-wise, whereas you can bank on receiving a specific percentage discount from Budget if you’re in one of the listed groups.

In fact, since U-Haul’s prices are often around 20% cheaper than Budget’s, snagging one of these discounts can actually bring your Budget price down to U-Haul’s price or lower.

Both Budget and U-Haul offer just about every service you could need for a typical moving truck move. However, U-Haul does provide a few extra services that Budget doesn’t.

As with its total number of services, U-Haul has a few truck sizes that Budget doesn’t.

Despite the difference in total sizes, both companies have a similar range of truck sizes with cargo vans and pickup trucks on the small end of the scale and 26-foot box trucks on the large end.

This means that you can probably find the right truck for your home size at either company. U-Haul’s options will just be a little more on the nose.

While U-Haul’s extra services and extra truck sizes don’t make it a significantly better option than Budget for most moves, U-Haul is the clear winner in terms of availability. U-Haul has over 13 times more locations than Budget.

U-Haul operates a staggering 21,000 locations between the US and Canada, whereas Budget has a more modest 1,600 locations in the US.

Budget’s numbers are certainly nothing to sneeze at, but U-Haul’s nationwide availability all but guarantees that you’ll have a nearby U-Haul location or two no matter where you live or where you’re moving to.

With Budget, pickup and dropoff location options are more limited, and you’ll probably have to drive a little farther to get and return your truck. No matter which company you go with, though, you should do a little research to ensure you’ll have locations near your old and new homes.

Budget is slightly outclassed by U-Haul in terms of availability and extra services. However, the two companies are just about tied when it comes to customer satisfaction, so U-Haul doesn’t seem to leverage these strengths effectively. And while it’s long-distance prices can be lower than Budget’s, they aren’t the lowest in the industry, whereas Budget’s local prices are.

Because of all this, we think Budget is a slightly better place to rent a truck than U-Haul.

Ready to get your Budget quote?

For our pricing data, we gathered 28 online quotes from both Budget and U-Haul. To get a complete picture of each company’s pricing, we got quotes for 4 home sizes across 7 different distances ranging from 50 to 2,000 miles. To ensure quotes could be fairly compared between the two companies, we gathered them all within the same week and for the exact same zip codes.

To compare services, we dug into each company’s online offerings, read all the fine print, and called customer service whenever questions arose. We also assessed factors like moving coverage, reservation reliability, roadside assistance, and availability.

Finally, to make sure our rankings accurately reflected customer experiences, we also incorporated star rankings and patterns of feedback left by customers on platforms like Google Reviews and Yelp.

Now that you know how Budget and U-Haul compare, check out these reviews to see how both companies stack up against their other competitors:

• Penske Truck Rental
• Enterprise Truck Rental
• Home Depot Truck Rental

Get yourself ready for moving day by reading over these helpful resources:

• The Only Moving Checklist You’ll Ever Need
• How to Pack a Moving Truck Like the Pros
• How to Plan Your Moving Road Trip
• What’s the Right Moving Truck Size for Your Move?

It’s trickier than driving a regular car, but U-Haul trucks are designed to be driven by ordinary people. If you’re stressed about the driving, U-Haul has put together some tips for driving U-Haul moving trucks.

Yes. U-Haul and Budget require driver’s licenses to rent moving trucks.

Yes. Both companies provide cargo vans, which are a good option for small, in-town jobs like transporting washers, dryers, and furniture.

Budget requires a deposit for all round-trip moves (in addition to your quote) but waives the deposit for one-way trips if you pay with a credit or debit card. Deposits are refundable, but it can take three to five business days after returning the truck before you see the money.

You should also be aware that while Budget’s advertised deposit rate is $150, our research found the average deposit is closer to $200 for round-trip moves.

U-Haul takes a deposit of $100 or the full rental cost (whichever is higher)—but only if you are paying with cash. Using a credit card or a debit card? No deposit required.

1. Budget Truck Rental, “Company Overview.” Accessed July 7, 2021.
2. AMERCO, “Company History.” Accessed July 7, 2021.
3. Budget Truck Rental, “Budget Truck Protection Coverages.” Accessed July 8, 2021.
4. U-Haul Truck Rental, “For Your Protection and Peace of Mind, Safemove Has You Covered.” Accessed June 16, 2021.
5. Budget Truck Rental, “Current Truck Rental Deals.” Accessed July 8, 2021.