How we build our junk removal price ranges
JunkerClub shows three kinds of prices, and they are not the same thing. Here is where each one comes from, how old it is, and what it cannot tell you.
1. The typical range on each cost guide
Each of our 30 cost guides opens with a typical range, like "$250–$550" for a garage cleanout. That range is national: it is the same in every city, and it is not a quote and not a local price.
The bands began as the ranges our earlier site published. We correct them when a measurement disagrees: in September 2026 we priced common single items on a flat-rate national hauler's own published breakdown and moved floors and ceilings that did not match.
What it cannot tell you: a real pile. On the jobs we have put out to bid, most quotes landed outside the typical band — mostly above it — because a real job is rarely one clean item, and stairs, distance and disposal fees add up. Treat the range as a starting point, not a price.
2. Measured item prices
The cost calculator prices single items — a couch, a queen mattress, a washer — from a flat-rate national hauler's own published price breakdown, read item by item in Mission Viejo, CA (Orange County) and Philadelphia, PA. The formula is written out on the page: a trip fee, plus each item's share of the truck, minus a volume discount. Every figure carries the date it was checked.
Those are that company's prices, not ours. JunkerClub does not set prices: independent local pros bid on your job.
3. Real quotes on real jobs
Our bid ledger publishes every quote local pros placed on jobs posted here: 16 quotes on 2 jobs in 2 metro areas so far. Amounts are unrounded, nothing is filtered, and company names stay private. It is a small sample, and we say so on the page.
Local rules and fees
What your city collects for free, its limits and its fees come from the city's own official pages — 64 cities so far, each line linked to its source and dated. When a city does not publish a fee, we say it is not published; we never write $0 for a number we could not read.
City facts such as population and housing type come from U.S. Census Bureau files.
What we never do
- Invent a local price where we have no local data.
- Round, edit or hide a quote a pro placed.
- Publish a measured price or a city rule without the date it was checked.
- Charge customers: you pay your pro directly, and pros pay a small fee only when they win a job.
How often it changes
Whenever we measure something new. There is no fixed schedule, which is why every measured price and city rule shows its own date — if it looks old when you read it, that date is how you will know.
Cost guides · Cost calculator · Bid ledger · Bulk trash rules by city