Junk removal prices look vague from the outside because most companies only publish a range. The reason is real: two jobs that sound the same — "a garage" — can differ by a factor of four once someone sees them.
But the price is not a mystery. It comes from a small number of things that can each be described in advance, and once you know what they are you can estimate your own job to within a load size before anybody visits.
The main driver is how much of the truck you fill
Most household and office jobs are priced by volume — the share of the truck the load takes up — rather than per item. A truck has a fixed cost to send whether it leaves half empty or full, so the fair measure of a job is how much of that truck it uses.
These are our starting prices by load size. They are the floor for each size, not an average, and the price for your address is shown before you book.
- Single item — from $119: one piece that needs two people, such as a sofa, a mattress or one appliance
- Minimum load — from $149: roughly an eighth of the truck, such as a bedroom set or a few boxes and a chair
- Quarter load — from $249: one space cleared, such as a single-car garage tidy or a small shed
- Half truck — from $419: the most common cleanout, such as a packed two-car garage or a basement
- Full truck — from $699: a whole property's worth, such as a whole-home or estate cleanout
Every job has a minimum
Sending a crew and a truck costs the same whether there is one chair or ten, so every job carries a minimum charge. Ours is $119 in Houston and $129 in our other markets.
A single item is priced as a single item, not as a share of a load, so one sofa does not cost what a quarter of a truck costs.
What pushes the price above the starting figure
Volume sets the starting point. Four other things move it, and each one is worth mentioning when you ask for a quote.
- Heavy material: concrete, tile, soil, sod, plaster and roofing reach a truck's legal weight limit long before it looks full, so they are priced by weight instead
- Items with their own fee: mattresses, refrigerators and freezers, televisions and tires carry a per-unit charge from the facility that takes them, passed through as it is
- Access: a garage the truck can back up to is a different job from a fourth-floor walk-up or a back yard reachable only through the house
- Your market: landfill fees, recycling rates and labour costs differ between metros, so the same load genuinely costs different amounts in different cities
What is not in the price
Sales tax is added at your state's rate, and it is shown with the total before you pay rather than appearing afterwards.
You do not need to carry anything to the curb. The crew removes items from wherever they are — upstairs, the basement, the back yard — and moving things outside yourself does not change the price.
How to get a number that holds on the day
The quote is only as good as the description behind it, and volume is far easier to show than to describe. A few photos — a wide shot of the whole space, close-ups of anything large, and the route out to where a truck can park — do more for accuracy than any amount of written detail.
If the job turns out bigger than booked, the crew tells you on site and re-prices before loading, rather than adding to the bill afterwards. You approve any change first, and you can reduce the job or not go ahead.
When it is cheaper not to book a truck
Junk removal is not always the cheapest route, and it is worth knowing when it is not. A retailer delivering a replacement mattress or appliance will often take the old one away. Many cities collect bulky items through a scheduled bulk pickup. Good furniture can sometimes be sold or donated.
Removal earns its price when those routes run out of time or capacity: when the items are heavy, numerous, upstairs, or need to be gone on a particular day.
