This is the question we get more than any other, usually late at night, usually from someone standing in a living room they suddenly do not recognize. The honest answer is that most people underestimate by about 30%. Not because they own more than they think — because packing eats space in ways you cannot picture until you start.
So here is how we count it. No formulas, just what we have seen across Brickell studios, Kendall townhouses and Coral Gables houses with a garage nobody has opened since 2019.
Start with the chart
If you want the short version, this is it. These are the numbers our packages are built around, and they assume you are packing everything except furniture.
| Home size | Crates you need | BOXA package |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 20 | Studio Move |
| 1 bedroom | 30 | 1 Bedroom Move |
| 2 bedroom | 40 | 2 Bedroom Move |
| 3 bedroom | 55 | 3 Bedroom Move |
| 4 bedroom or more | 75+ | 4 Bedroom Move |
Now the room-by-room reality
Kitchens are the surprise. A normal Miami kitchen — nothing fancy, no restaurant ambitions — usually needs 8 to 12 crates once you count plates, glassware, pantry, small appliances and the drawer of things that have no category. Plates go flat and vertical, like records, not stacked like a tower.
Bedrooms are gentler. A bedroom is roughly 5 to 8 crates: closet, dresser, nightstands, shoes. Clothes on hangers are their own conversation, and a wardrobe solution beats folding everything into a crate you will have to iron your way out of.
Living rooms run 6 to 10. Books are heavy, so keep them in smaller loads even if the crate could technically hold more — your back is the real limit, not the plastic.
Bathrooms, closets and the miscellaneous pile: add 4 to 6. That pile always exists. It is never smaller than you hoped.
Three things that change the number
- How long you have lived there. Five years in the same apartment easily adds 10 crates over someone who moved in last year.
- Whether you are decluttering first. Deciding as you pack slows you down and, oddly, usually increases the count — it is easier to keep than to choose.
- Elevators and reserved windows. In a high-rise with a two-hour freight elevator booking, you want everything packed and stacked before the window opens, so having a few extra crates is worth much more than being exactly right.
If you are between two sizes, take the bigger one. Nobody has ever regretted having four crates left over. Plenty of people have regretted a 9pm run for cardboard.
Why crates change the math
Cardboard boxes come in different sizes, which sounds flexible and is actually the problem: mixed sizes do not stack, so you lose truck space and end up doing more trips. Every BOXA crate is the same 27-gallon footprint, which means they stack into clean columns, roll on a dolly six at a time, and load into a truck like a wall instead of a puzzle.
They also do not need tape, and they do not collapse when it rains on the way from the lobby to the truck — which in Miami, between June and October, is not a hypothetical.
Still not sure?
Pick the package that matches your home size and add extra crates if you need them. We would rather bring a few too many than have you improvising with garbage bags at midnight.