How to Price Junk Removal Jobs: Build Your Own 1/8-to-Full-Load Price Sheet

How do you price a junk removal job?

Quote by how much of the truck the job fills, and set each fraction's price from your own costs. Volume pricing is what customers understand; cost-based pricing is what keeps the volume prices profitable.

The top results for this question are forum threads and a few software pages quoting national price bands. Bands tell you where the market sits. They cannot tell you whether your truck, your dump and your crew make money at those prices. The method here can, and every figure on the page shows its working.

Each job has four cost lines:

1. Crew time: hours × workers × loaded rate (wage × (1 + burden %)).
2. Disposal: tons hauled × your facility's tipping fee, plus any per-item fees.
3. Truck cost per trip: fuel and wear for the round trip to the job and the dump.
4. Overhead share: hours × workers × (yearly overhead ÷ sellable hours).

Add them for break-even, then divide by (1 − margin). The junk removal pricing calculator does this per load, and the method is the same one used across trades in the how to price a job guide.

Junk removal pricing calculator (try your own numbers)

Enter the hours, crew size, wage and disposal cost for one job to see break-even and the price to quote. The starting values are the half-load example below.

Put disposal and truck cost in the materials box. Overhead goes in as a yearly total, because it is divided across the hours you can actually sell, not added as a percentage.

Junk removal price sheet: 1/8 to full truck load

Here is a complete price sheet built from one set of assumptions. Change any assumption and every row moves, which is the point: your sheet should be derived, not copied.

Assumptions (replace with yours): a 15 cubic yard truck; a 2-person crew at $22 an hour with 30% burden; 1 fixed hour per job for driving, the dump run and unloading; 12 minutes of loading per cubic yard for the pair (0.2 hours); 300 lb per cubic yard of mixed household junk and a $60-a-ton tipping fee, which is $9 per cubic yard; $40 of truck cost per trip; $29,040 of yearly overhead across 2 people × 220 days × 8 hours; 35% margin.

Read the last column. The full load prices at $48.18 per cubic yard; the 1/8 load at $129.81. Nothing is wrong with that. The 1/8 load still carries the whole fixed hour and the whole truck trip. That fixed cost is what your minimum charge exists to cover.

The full-load row, worked in full so you can check it: 4 hours for two people, $135 of disposal plus the $40 trip.

Weight matters as much as volume. A half load of shingles, dirt or concrete can weigh far more than a half load of furniture, and the dump charges by the ton. Price heavy debris by estimated weight, not by fraction of the truck.

Worked example: pricing a half load

A half load (7.5 cu yd) takes an assumed 2.5 hours for two people and $107.50 of disposal and truck cost. Break-even is $291.75 and the price at a 35% margin is $448.85.

Check the arithmetic yourself. Loaded rate: $22 × 1.3 = $28.60. Labour: 2.5 hours × 2 workers × $28.60 = $143.00. Overhead: 5 crew-hours × $8.25 = $41.25. Disposal: 7.5 yd × $9 = $67.50, plus the $40 trip. Break-even $291.75 ÷ 0.65 = $448.85.

The profit on the job is $157.10, and that is after both workers have been paid. If you are one of the two workers, your wage is already in the labour line.

What is the minimum charge for junk removal?

Your minimum is the price of the smallest load you will send a truck for. On the assumptions above, a 1/8 load (1.875 cu yd) prices at $243.40, because it still carries the full fixed hour and truck trip.

If that number is well above what customers in your area will pay for a single item, do not cut the margin. Cut the fixed cost. Stack several small pickups on one route and one dump run. If a 1/8 load only carries half an hour of fixed time and $20 of shared truck cost, its break-even drops to $101.36 and its price to $155.94 with the same wage, overhead and margin.

That is how single-item and low-minimum offers can make sense: they depend on routing, not on a cheaper labour rate.

How much money can you make doing junk removal?

Profit per job × jobs per week × 52. On the half-load example that is $157.10 × 6 jobs × 52 weeks = $49,015.20 a year of profit after wages and overhead, on these assumptions only.

Treat that as arithmetic, not a forecast. It assumes six half loads every week of the year at full price, which depends on your market, marketing and season. The useful part is running it backwards: decide the profit you need, divide by 52, divide by profit per job, and you get the jobs per week you have to book.

For break-even thinking at the business level (how many jobs a month cover your fixed costs), see the break-even calculator guide.

The mistakes that make junk removal quotes lose money

The three usual errors are pricing labour at the wage, guessing disposal weight, and adding margin as a markup. Each one is fixable with one number.

The markup error alone is $54.98 per half load and $17,154.90 a year at six jobs a week. The markup vs margin guide explains why 35% markup always keeps 25.93%.

Getting your own weight figure: take your last five dump tickets, add the pounds, divide by the cubic yards you hauled on those trips. That one number, measured from your truck and your facility, beats any published average.

Excel formulas for a junk removal price list

Layout: B2 = truck capacity (cu yd), B3 = load fraction (0.125 for 1/8), B4 = fixed hours per job, B5 = loading hours per cu yd, B6 = workers, B7 = wage, B8 = burden %, B9 = lb per cu yd, B10 = tipping fee per ton, B11 = truck cost per trip, B12 = yearly overhead, B13 = people in the field, B14 = billable days, B15 = margin %.

Fill the fraction column down (0.125, 0.25, 0.375 and so on) and you have your own junk removal price list. The paid junk removal price sheet template adds an "am I underpricing?" check that answers in dollars and a market check against published US price bands by load size.

Price sheet, calculator app or template?

Any tool works if it makes you enter disposal, crew time and overhead before it shows a price. Pick by what else you need it to do.

No template yet? The free Job Pricing Starter handles loaded labour, overhead, break-even and margin for any single job.

What to put on your junk removal price sheet

Your sheet needs the costs that make up every load, plus the rules that sit on top. Keep it to one page.

• Truck capacity in cubic yards, and the fractions you quote.
• Fixed hours per job (drive, dump run, unload) and loading time per cubic yard.
• Crew size and loaded rate.
• Your measured pounds per cubic yard and tipping fee per ton.
• Per-item fees your facility charges (mattresses, tires, appliances, electronics): pass them through as line items.
• Truck cost per trip, yearly overhead, and target margin.
• A minimum charge and a heavy-debris rule (price by weight).

Reprice the whole sheet whenever your dump raises its rate or you change wages. With formulas, that is one cell.

Step-by-step: How to Price Junk Removal Jobs: Build Your Own 1/8-to-Full-Load Price Sheet

1. Estimate the volume. Estimate how much of the truck the job fills (1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and so on) and convert it to cubic yards.
2. Estimate crew time. Add fixed time for driving, the dump run and unloading to loading time per cubic yard. Multiply by the number of workers.
3. Cost disposal and the truck. Cubic yards × your pounds per cubic yard ÷ 2,000 × tipping fee per ton, plus per-item fees, plus truck cost for the trip.
4. Add loaded labour and overhead. Price crew-hours at wage × (1 + burden %) and add crew-hours × overhead per sellable hour. The total is break-even.
5. Divide by one minus margin. Price = break-even ÷ (1 − margin). Quote the higher of that and your minimum charge.

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