Junk removal
Junk Removal Pricing Calculator
Prices junk removal from cost upward, where the truck and the tipping fees are the overhead.
Result
Overhead and margin are taken as shares of the selling price, which is why the cost is divided rather than multiplied. Adding 15% to cost does not produce a 15% margin. Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Direct cost divided by one minus overhead and margin together, so the price carries both rather than layering one on the other. The overhead in this trade is concentrated in the truck: financing, insurance, registration, maintenance and depreciation accrue monthly whether or not it works, and commercial auto and liability cover on a vehicle doing residential pickups is not cheap. Disposal is a per-job cost that behaves like a variable, and the trap is forgetting that it varies by material while the price was quoted by volume.
What moves the number
- Truck ownership cost across the jobs actually completed in a year.
- Disposal fees by material, which have to be recovered per job.
- Utilisation, since a truck doing three jobs a day recovers overhead differently from one doing one.
- Travel between jobs and to facilities, which is paid and unbillable.
Where this one goes wrong
Markup and margin are not the same number, and dividing by one minus the margin is what makes the price carry it; multiplying by one plus it underprices. Beyond that, the specific risk here is quoting by volume and paying by weight. A price list built on truck fractions works for furniture and loses money on debris, so either price dense material separately or carry a weight condition in the quote. Travel is the other quiet cost: time driving between jobs and out to the transfer station is paid and does not appear on an invoice, so an overhead rate built without it is short.
Before you quote
- Build the overhead rate from truck ownership across realistic annual volume.
- Price dense material by weight rather than by truck fraction.
- Include travel and facility runs in the overhead rather than absorbing them.
Questions
About this calculator
How should junk removal be priced?
By volume for light bulky material, which is what customers can describe, with dense material priced separately by weight. A single volume-based list loses money on concrete, soil and debris, because the facility charges by the ton regardless of how little of the truck is full.
What is the biggest overhead in this trade?
The truck. Financing, insurance, registration, maintenance and depreciation accrue every month whether it works or not, and commercial cover for residential pickup work is substantial. That has to be recovered across the jobs you actually complete, not across a full calendar.
Should travel time be billed?
Either explicitly or through a properly calculated overhead rate, but it has to be recovered somewhere. Driving between jobs and out to the transfer station is paid time that generates no invoice line, and a rate built on loading hours alone quietly funds it out of margin.
The formula
price = direct cost / (1 - overhead% - margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Labour cost ($). Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $0.
- Other direct costs ($). Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%). Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 15%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price to quote, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Labour cost | $110 |
| Materials cost | $0 |
| Other direct costs | $0 |
| Overhead rate | 22% |
| Target net margin | 15% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price to quote main result | $174.60 |
| Direct cost | $110 |
| Overhead recovered | $38.41 |
| Net profit | $26.19 |
| Gross margin | 37.0% |
| Markup on direct cost | 58.7% |
Quote $174.60 to cover $110 of direct cost, recover $38.41 of overhead and leave $26.19 of net profit. That is a 58.7% markup on cost.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only labour cost, this is what happens to price to quote. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Labour cost ($) | Price to quote |
|---|---|
| $55 | $87.30 |
| $83 | $131.75 |
| $110 example above | $174.60 |
| $165 | $261.90 |
| $220 | $349.21 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour cost ($)
- Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $0.
- Other direct costs ($)
- Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%)
- Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 15%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price to quote | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Direct cost | A money figure. |
| Overhead recovered | A money figure. |
| Net profit | A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Markup on direct cost | A percentage. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.