How Junk Removal Pricing Works
Four variables decide every quote. Understand them and you can place your own job within a load size before speaking to anybody — which is more useful than the invented dollar figure you will not find anywhere on this page.
Call (972) 093-0938- Volume, weight, labor and handling — nothing else
- Photo quotes are free and commit you to nothing
- Stairs and long carries priced in, never bolted on
- The figure comes from the platform against your real load
The honest version
Why we do not publish a rate card
Plenty of companies in this trade lead with a headline figure. Read the conditions and it describes one light item, already at the kerb, a short drive from their yard. It is a truthful number about a situation almost nobody is actually in.
Putting one on this page would leave two options, both bad. Quote low and revise it in your driveway, which is the oldest complaint in this industry. Or quote high enough to cover a third-floor walk-up with a cast iron tub in it, and price out every straightforward job on the site.
The alternative is to explain the mechanism properly and let you do the arithmetic. What moves the number, which of the four variables will lead on your particular job, and what each load size actually looks like. Then photographs, and a real figure against your real load.
The formula
Four variables, weighted to your job
Volume
How much of the truck bed your load fills. It leads on almost all household work, which is why this trade talks in fractions of a load rather than in item counts.
Weight
Transfer stations bill by the ton. Tile, stone countertop, plaster and carpet with pad can put a truck at its limit while the bed still looks half full.
Labor
Floor level, stairwell turns, carry distance and whether a piece has to come apart to leave the building. In this territory it moves the number more than most people expect.
Handling
A short list of materials carry their own legal route: refrigerant recovery, electronics recycling, mattress processing. Real costs rather than invented surcharges.
Load sizes
Placing your own load on the scale
This trade measures in fractions of a truck rather than in items. This is what each fraction looks like in a real Arlington home or apartment.
| Load size | What that looks like |
|---|---|
| Single item | One mattress, one sectional, one refrigerator. Charged at the minimum. |
| Minimum load | A bed set, or whatever a household stacks at a curb over one weekend. |
| 1/8 load | A studio apartment stripped of its furniture, or one wall of a garage. |
| 1/4 load | A furnished bedroom including the closet, or a single garage bay. |
| 1/3 load | The contents of a one-bedroom unit, or a bathroom strip-out by weight. |
| 1/2 load | A two-bedroom apartment turnover, or a two-car garage you can still walk through. |
| 3/4 load | A garage packed to the door, or a three-bedroom unit left furnished. |
| Full load | A three-bay Mansfield garage, an office suite, or most of a small house. |
No asterisks
What the number includes
- The crew, and the carrying — from the room it is in, not from the kerb
- Loading, and the run to whichever facility the material actually belongs at
- Tipping and disposal fees across everything on the agreed load
- Sorting for donation and recycling before anything reaches disposal
- A sweep of the cleared space before the truck pulls away
- Stairs, landings, long carries and dismantling, all inside the quote
- No fuel surcharge, no weekend rate, and no charge for the quote
The exceptions are materials with a legally required route of their own — sealed refrigeration, display electronics, mattresses where a recycler is taking them. Each carries the cost of the route it has to take, and each appears in the quote before you accept it rather than on the invoice afterwards.
Where the number comes from
The figure is generated by the platform, not written on this page
Quoting, scheduling, payment and your account all sit on the central Junk Koala platform. This site is the Arlington front door to it, which is the reason your figure is generated against the job you described today rather than read off a table somebody typed months ago.
The side effect is a single account across every Junk Koala branch, and one place your job history is kept if you move house or manage property in more than one territory.
There is a longer breakdown in the cost guide, plus dedicated guides for garage cleanouts and apartment cleanouts.
FAQ
Pricing questions
- Where is the price list?
- Because a figure that fits one narrow case and not yours does more harm than no figure at all. "Take away a sofa" is a fifteen-minute job from a driveway in Grand Prairie and most of an hour from a third-floor walk-up off Cooper Street. Photographs settle it in about the time it takes to read this answer.
- Is there a minimum charge?
- Yes, expressed as a minimum load — which is how a single-item pickup is priced. A truck and a crew leaving the yard costs the same whether they collect one mattress or six, so there is a floor beneath which the arithmetic stops working.
- Do you charge extra for stairs?
- Not as a separate line. Stairs consume time, time is one of the four inputs, and a walk-up job therefore prices above the same items sitting at a curb — but it is built into the quote you accept rather than appearing on the invoice afterwards. In a territory with this much apartment stock, a surprise stair fee would be most of our bookings.
- Can the figure move once the crew is standing in front of it?
- Only where the job in front of the crew is materially different from the one that was quoted — which in practice nearly always means the photographs did not show everything. When that happens you are told before anything goes on the truck, and you decide. Nothing is loaded at a figure you have not agreed to.
- Why did a little pile of tile cost more than a room of furniture?
- Because disposal is billed by the ton, and tile still bonded to thinset and backer board is among the densest material any renovation produces. A truck can reach its weight limit with the bed looking two-thirds empty, which is exactly why a bathroom strip-out can price above a furnished bedroom.
- Is curbside cheaper?
- For an identical set of items, generally yes — labor is one of the four inputs and a load already at the kerb removes most of it. Whether it is worth doing yourself depends on the item; nobody should wrestle a sleeper sofa down two flights to save a modest amount.
- How do I actually get a price?
- Send photographs through the quote form, or call (972) 093-0938 and talk it through. Either way the figure comes back free, with nothing attached and no obligation to book it.
Ready when you are
Asking is free, and nothing follows from it.
Send photographs and a figure comes back against your actual load — not a range read off an article about somebody else's job.
Or call (972) 093-0938
The Arlington branch
Junk Koala Arlington
1140 W Pioneer Pkwy, Ste 1144E
Arlington, TX 76013