Pricing jobs and the dump fee pass-through

Quoting is the skill this business actually pays for. The carrying can be hired. The number in the driveway cannot. This lesson gives you the ladder, the method, and the script.

Build your ladder before the phone rings

Do not invent prices per job. Build a card, keep it in the truck, and quote from it. A defensible starting ladder for a mid-market town, assembled from published pricing and operator consensus:

| Load | Fraction of truck | Price range | |---|---|---| | Minimum charge (single item, small pile) | up to 1/8 | $100 to $200 minimum | | Small load | up to 1/4 | $150 to $300 | | Half load | up to 1/2 | $396 to $600 | | Full load | full truck or trailer | $600 to $1,099; independents near $800 for a full 7x14 trailer | | Heavy debris (shingles, drywall, concrete, dirt) | by weight | disposal estimate times two or three plus labor |

Sanity-check your ladder against your market the same way you check any price: call three competitors as a customer, note their quotes, and slot yourself where your service level justifies. In an average-income area, operators consider $250 to $400 per load reasonable.

The pass-through rule

Disposal is not something you absorb and hope. It is a named line on the quote. When you estimate a job, you estimate its tonnage, multiply that tonnage by your facility's rate, apply the two-or-three-times multiplier from the table, and show the result as "disposal" on the estimate. The multiplier is not padding; it covers the weight you lowballed, the surcharge you missed, and the second trip. Customers accept a disposal line item because it is honest and because every competitor has the same cost.

Add surcharge items by count. One mattress, one TV, two tires: each gets its line at your facility's actual rate, rounded up to include your handling. Before you quote a single job, you should have your transfer station's current fee schedule in your glovebox, collected during setup.

Estimating volume by eye

You estimate volume against your own truck, which is why the price card lives in the vehicle. Stand at the pile and answer one question: what fraction of my bed or trailer does this fill? Practice with known quantities, your own furniture, a friend's garage, until the fractions come naturally. Photograph every pile before loading. The photo settles the "you said it would be less" conversation before it starts, and it protects you when the garage turns out to have a second layer behind the first.

The driveway script

Quote in person whenever the job allows. Walk the pile, take photos, then say this, adjusted to your numbers:

"So this is about half my trailer. That's my half-load rate, three hundred fifty. The mattress is thirty extra at the transfer station, so disposal is a separate line at forty, and with the two tires we're looking at four hundred forty total, and I can take it today or Thursday morning. The trailer gets swept before I leave. Want me to send that as a text so you have it in writing?"

That is the whole quote. Volume number, disposal pass-through, surcharges by count, total, two scheduling options, and a written record. If the pile is bigger in person than the photos suggested, say so immediately and re-quote in the same breath. The alternative is eating the difference or arguing mid-job, and both cost more than the awkward ten seconds.

Heavy debris gets priced by weight, not volume

Shingles, drywall, concrete, dirt, tile, and brick are a different product. A load that looks small can weigh two tons, and your $62-per-ton average facility rate becomes a real bill that volume pricing never anticipated. For these jobs quote as: your estimated tonnage times facility rate, doubled or tripled, plus your labor time. Some operators run heavy debris to facilities with lower C&D rates, worth checking in your county. And recall the payload rules from The truck question before you accept the tonnage.

Payment at completion, on the spot, card or cash, invoice only for commercial regulars. Never leave with "I'll send something."

The quote is accepted and the trailer is backed in. Every item in that pile has one of four destinations, and choosing correctly is where the margin hides.