April 9, 2024
Editorial GuidelinesErica is a freelance writer and proofreader. As the owner of Words with Erica, she helps indie fantasy authors polish their...
In the gig economy, there’s an app for everything. That means there are work opportunities everywhere, including in the moving industry.
In this review, we’ll look at what it’s like to work for Lugg, an app that will pay you to help people move (or deliver large items, such as furniture, to their houses).
How does Lugg compare to similar platforms, such as Bellhop? How much will it pay you, and is it worth working for? Read on to find out.
Lugg is an on-demand moving and delivery company that offers several services. In addition to performing traditional house moves, its workers pick up and deliver:
When you become a “Lugger”—what Lugg calls its workers—your main tasks will consist of loading heavy items into a truck, driving to the destination, and unloading them.
You may also be asked to assemble or disassemble items during small house moves, but you won’t be expected to pack, unpack, or organize the customer’s items.
As a Lugger, you’ll sign up for 8-hour shifts in advance. All shifts fall within the app’s operating hours, which are as follows:
Lugg will expect you to remain available for the duration of your entire shift, although you won’t be working for the whole time—and, in fact, on some shifts, Lugg might not assign you any work at all.
Most “Luggs” (moving or delivery jobs) are performed by two people: a driver and a helper. Customers can opt to hire just one Lugger for a job, but that usually means the customer intends to pitch in and help them load and unload the items.
After you complete each Lugg, your customers will be able to rate your performance (out of 5 stars) and give feedback. It’s important to maintain good reviews; if your ratings drop too low, Lugg will deactivate your account.
On its website, Lugg claims you can make up to $2,500 per week as a Lugger, but our research suggests that’s unlikely.
Our estimates put Lugg’s pay range at $20–$30 per hour for drivers and around $15 per hour for helpers. However, those rates are calculated based on the time you actually spend working. Most of each “shift” will be downtime, which Lugg will not pay you for (despite expecting you to remain available).
If you calculate your hourly pay on a per-shift basis instead of a per-job basis, you may end up making under minimum wage—potentially as little as $5 per hour. This is a major downside of the app, and it makes it hard or impossible to recommend it.
What’s more, you won’t get to pocket all of the money you earn as profit. Your expenses as a Lugger may be substantial, something that we’ll explain in more detail below
Your pay for each “Lugg” will depend on several factors, including:
Anecdotal reports suggest that the season, the current level of demand in your area, and your rating in the app may affect your rates as well. Lugg also sometimes offers bonuses to incentivize drivers to work during busy times, although they don’t describe this system on their site.
On each job, your earnings will come from a base fare that the customer will pay, plus added fees for mileage, driving time, and labor (by the minute). This money will then be split between Lugg, you, and your fellow Lugger. Third-party sources claim that Lugg will take a 20% cut of what you earn, although these date from 2015, and it’s possible they’ve changed this since then. 1
Customers can tip you, and if they do, you’ll keep 100% of what they give you, regardless of whether they pay you in cash or tip you in the app. Lugg claims that their workers earn more in tips than “any other on-demand service” (i.e., other gig apps), although they don’t offer any evidence for this claim.
As mentioned, as a Lugg gig worker—especially a driver—you’ll have significant overhead expenses.
You’ll be responsible for paying for your own gas, as well as vehicle maintenance (a major expense, given that you’ll be driving a lot and putting more wear and tear on your truck than you’re probably used to). You’ll also be responsible for your own taxes.
How much these expenses will chip into your earnings is hard to predict. It depends on several factors, including how fuel-efficient your truck is and how far afield Lugg sends you to complete jobs.
Many drivers report that Luggs require them to drive dozens (and, in extreme cases, hundreds) of miles away. If you have a significant number of gigs like that, you may find that you’re actually running your Lugg side hustle at a loss.
Lugg pays via direct deposit into your bank account. You’ll get paid at the end of each day, an unusual benefit for gig apps like this.
On Lugg’s website, they state that regardless of your chosen role (driver or helper), you’ll need to meet the following criteria:
Lugg also features additional criteria that they do not disclose on their site. We discovered this when we tested the company’s application process by attempting to register. Midway through, we were directed to a short questionnaire, which featured questions like “Do you have experience moving furniture?” and “Have you been convicted of a felony in the last 5 years?”
After completing it, we were summarily rejected because we indicated that we did not have 1+ years of customer service experience—a requirement that Lugg doesn’t seem to mention anywhere.
If you want to be a driver for Lugg, you’ll also need to meet several more criteria. First and foremost, you must own a truck or van, which needs to meet one of the following sets of criteria (which Lugg will use to classify your vehicle):
| Classification | Required dimensions |
|---|---|
| Lugg Pickup Truck | - 6 feet long - 4.5 feet wide |
| Lugg Van | - 8 feet long - 4 feet wide - 4.5 feet tall |
| Lugg XL | - 10 feet long - 5.5 feet wide - 6.4 feet tall |
| Lugg Box | - 12 feet long - 6 feet wide - 7 feet tall |
Additionally, as a driver, you must:
It’s very common for gig apps to conduct background checks on their applicants. Virtually all delivery apps (e.g., Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc.) do this, as well as Lugg’s main competitor, Bellhop.
Lugg promises customers that it also vets workers with initial and annual background checks. However, one driver’s Indeed review claims that this is false or at least overstated; they allege that Lugg allowed them to drive for 3 weeks before conducting a check, and that they might not actually run checks at all.
We’ve reached out to Lugg for comment. Although they haven’t clarified their policy, we recommend being prepared for a background check (which means being ready to provide your Social Security number).
If Lugg’s background check works like the ones that you have to undergo to sign up for other gig apps, it’ll be conducted by a third-party company, not by Lugg themselves. It will look into your criminal history and driving record. You’ll probably only have trouble if you’ve been convicted of a felony or if you have serious black marks on your driving record (i.e., a DUI, not one or two speeding tickets) from the past 7 years.
Lugg is only available in a handful of large cities and their metropolitan areas. You can view a list of locations they operate in on their website. If you don’t see your city listed, you can enter your zip code and send a request for your area to be added.
Note that, again, there are apparent discrepancies between how Lugg claims they operate and what their actual registration process suggests. The Lugg signup page (below) lists several cities that do not appear on the list above, including Minneapolis, MN.
Our hunch is that Lugg’s list of cities isn’t up to date and that the current list is the one on their registration page. If you’re based in one of the cities that Lugg claims they don’t operate in, the only way to find out for sure if you can drive is to attempt to sign up.
You can sign up to be a Lugger on the company’s website.
Head to the “Become a Lugger” page, scroll down, and fill out the form. It will ask for information like your name, phone number, email address, birth date, and location.
When you’re done, click “Send application.” You’ll receive an email directing you to a form with several questions. If you answer them to Lugg’s satisfaction, they’ll instruct you to watch a few short videos explaining how Lugg operates and ask you for your:
You’ll also need to provide your mailing address and shirt size (so that they can send you a Lugg-branded uniform) and bank information for direct deposit.
While you wait to hear back, you can download the Lugg app (for Android devices) using the button below.
Lugg also has an iOS app, although it doesn’t seem to be available on the App Store (the link on Lugg’s website directs to an app for customers, not for drivers). If you have an iPhone, you’ll have to wait until Lugg contacts you with instructions on how to download the app.
Lugg is a legitimate company, not an outright scam. The jobs they offer are real, and so is the money they pay.
That said, although Lugg has been around since at least 2015, it reportedly still functions much like a startup, which means their operation may not run as smoothly as more established apps.
This is borne out by the short list of cities they operate in and the several blips in their registration process that we found in just a few short minutes of testing, as well as the striking lack of information on their website—we’ve reviewed dozens of gig apps, and Lugg is one of the most sparsely documented we’ve seen.
Moreover, many of Lugg’s gig workers (both current and former) allege that their rates are unacceptably low given how far you have to drive on some jobs. We’ll summarize the complaints against Lugg in more detail below.
Unfortunately, Lugg doesn’t seem to be worth it. Our own experience poking around the site turned up several red flags, and few people have anything good to say about the app.
Because the information available on Lugg is relatively scanty, we’ve collected several reviews from platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor to give you a better idea of how this app actually functions in practice.
Here’s what Lugg’s drivers and helpers think about it:
One DC-based (former) driver has a litany of complaints about Lugg. While it’s best to take negative ratings on platforms like Indeed with a grain of salt, we’ve seen their claims echoed elsewhere, which makes them hard to dismiss.
The issues they cite include:
The reviewer claims that the only time that working for Lugg is even “feasible” is when they offer bonuses—but they also say that Lugg “tried to take” the first bonus they earned. When the support team was unwilling or unable to resolve the disagreement over their payment, they left the platform.
Another NYC-based Indeed reviewer is slightly less negative, although their praise for the app is still guarded and limited.
They say that in their experience, Lugg offers “good pay” during the busier seasons, “like spring and summer.” They immediately follow this by saying that Lugg offers low pay during the rest of the year and expects you to “stay on the app despite hours of no jobs.”
They single out jobs delivering IKEA furniture as being particularly low-paying, and note that as a gig worker, you have essentially no power to reject lowball offers because Lugg will suspend your account if you do. They also say that in their experience, Lugg’s support team is rude and unhelpful.
They conclude by saying that they “recommend building your own moving business” rather than being “exploited” by Lugg.
One Glassdoor reviewer blames most of Lugg’s downsides on poor management practices. They make the (rather astounding) claim that Lugg’s dispatchers once had them drive 100 miles “just to pick up a mattress,” and that when they arrived, “someone else had picked it up” without Lugg informing them.
They also echo the (recurring) claim that Lugg’s live support is “really rude,” and say that the company may cancel your shift if you’re late, even if you text them ahead of time to let them know.
A fourth and final reviewer also accuses Lugg of unethical behavior, alleging that they treat their drivers as “employees rather than independent contractors.”
They don’t elaborate on what this means, but may be referring to Lugg’s practice of requiring drivers to remain available and on call during the duration of their shift, and penalizing or deactivating drivers for rejecting assigned jobs.
The reviewer also says that in their experience, Lugg will sometimes try to assign you a job that will take longer than you have left in your shift (e.g., a 3-hour gig when you’re due to get off in an hour), and that they won’t pay you overtime if you accept the work.
To reiterate, it’s important not to take any one review on Indeed or Glassdoor as gospel. People tend to post on those sites when they’re unhappy, and their reviews are anonymous (and not fact-checked), so their allegations aren’t always accurate.
That said, Lugg is notable for its high ratio of negative to positive reviews. Very few drivers and helpers seem to have had a positive experience with the company, and given the consistency and specificity of the complaints, we’re inclined to believe them.
If you happen to live in one of the cities that Lugg operates in, you can certainly sign up for it and see if you have a better experience. However, our recommendation is to look elsewhere.
We suggest going with a larger, more established company, such as Bellhop, DoorDash, or Uber. Those platforms aren’t perfect—they have their own issues, as documented in the reviews we just linked—but we’re more confident that all of their operations are above board.
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