Junk removal priced by the load and billed at the curb

Pricing by the fraction of a truck

Most junk haulers price by volume: a minimum charge, then a quarter load, half, three-quarters, a full truck. Heavy material changes the math — a load of old shingles or broken concrete hits the weight limit long before it fills the bed — and some items carry their own charge, like mattresses, tires, refrigerators and old TVs. Workeey prices a quick estimate from your own rates, and you write the lines the way you charge: half a load, a mattress, two tires.

Plenty of quotes start with photos the customer texts you of the pile in the garage. Look at them, call the fraction honestly, and send a quote PDF back from your phone, telling the customer the final price is confirmed once you see it in person. On site, adjust the lines to what's actually there before you load a thing. The free plan covers 23 quick estimates a month.

• Minimum, quarter, half and full loads as lines
• Mattresses, tires and appliances priced on their own
• Quotes from the customer's own photos
• Adjust on site before you load

Same-day jobs that fit between the booked ones

Junk removal lives on short notice. Someone's closing on a house tomorrow, a landlord needs a unit cleared before the new tenant, a contractor wants the debris gone today. Open the schedule, see where today's gaps are, and drop the job into a time slot while they're still on the phone. Adding the job is also where the address and the notes go: the second-floor walk-up, the gate code, the things in the shed that stay.

When a day fills with four or five pickups, Workeey puts the stops in the best order and opens the drive to each one with a tap, using the address already on the job. That leaves room to think about the dump run: where the transfer station sits on the route, and whether you'll make it before it closes.

• See today's gaps and fill one while they're on the phone
• Address, access and keep-items noted on the job
• The day's pickups put in the best order
• One tap to drive to the next pickup

Dump fees and the invoice

Dump fees are a real cost, and customers accept them better when they can see them. Put the disposal fee on its own invoice line, separate from the labor and the load, along with any item surcharges, and add a no-charge line if part of the load went to donation or scrap instead of the landfill. That's an honest bill, and it's easier to stand behind than one big number.

When the truck is loaded, one tap turns the estimate or the finished job into an invoice with the client, the lines and the tax carried over. Add the dump fee once you know it, fix the load size if the pile grew, and send it by email from the app with a pay link. It's numbered for you, and its status reads draft, sent, paid or overdue.

• The dump fee as its own line
• Item surcharges listed separately
• Load size corrected before you send
• Invoice emailed from the app with a pay link

Photos before the truck leaves

A clean-out goes smoother when nobody argues about what was supposed to go. Take a photo of the pile before you start and of the empty room after, and both are saved to the job and the client. If a customer later asks where the box of old records went, the photos show what was there. If a landlord questions the bill, the before shot of a garage packed to the rafters usually answers it.

Notes on the client keep the rest: the property manager with six rentals who calls every month, the family's contact for an estate clear-out, the items they asked you to set aside. Repeat customers are the best ones in junk removal, and their history — every job, every invoice, every payment — sits under their name.

• Before and after photos saved to the job
• Set-aside items noted for the family
• Repeat property managers with full history
• Every payment under the customer's name

Paid at the curb

With your own Stripe connected, the invoice's pay link takes card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or US bank, so most customers pay on their own phone before you've pulled away. A small processing fee applies to online payments. Paid through the link, the invoice marks itself paid and the receipt emails itself. Paid in cash, mark the invoice paid and tap Send receipt.

Property managers and contractors don't always pay on the spot. Switch on reminder texts for those invoices and Workeey texts the pay link on a schedule until it's paid, eight texts at most. Reminder texts need a saved account; the free plan includes 10 a month, Pro 30 and Premium as many as you need. Connect your bank, and a check that clears against an invoice marks it paid.

Junk removal software for a one-truck business

Workeey is for one person running the business. No crew logins, no truck tracking, no online booking. It keeps the quotes, the schedule, the photos and the money in one place. The assistant helps with the typing between pickups: tell it to add a half-load garage job for three this afternoon, and it prepares the job for you to check and apply.

It runs in any phone's browser, iPhone included, and as an Android app. The free plan has no card and no end date. Pro at $5 a month adds Google Calendar sync, QuickBooks sync and 30 reminder texts. Doing small repairs after a clean-out? See handyman software. Cleaning the place once it's empty? See cleaning business software.

• One truck, one owner, no crew logins
• An assistant that adds jobs for you to check
• Runs in any phone's browser and on Android
• Free plan, or Pro at $5 a month

More for junk haulers: pages and free templates

• Junk removal invoice template — free, with a filled-in sample
• Junk removal estimate template — a free quote sample
• Free invoice template — every field a trade invoice needs
• Free estimate template — copy it, price it, send it
• Free receipt template — a paid-in-full receipt to copy
• Work order template — the job written down before you bill it
• Late payment reminder templates — texts, emails and a letter to copy and send
• All free templates and tools