JunkRabbit vs 1-800-GOT-JUNK: how the pricing models differ in Charlotte

The short answer

Both services send a truck and two people and take your stuff away. The models differ in one place: when the price is set.

The traditional national franchise model quotes on site. A truck comes to your Myers Park house or your South End apartment, someone looks at the pile, and you get a number in your driveway or your hallway. You can decline, but the truck is already there and the day is already half gone.

Our model publishes the number first. A sofa is $126. A queen mattress is $103. A refrigerator is $164. A full truck is $732. You see it on screen, you book it, and it does not change when the crew walks in.

Why on-site estimating exists

It is not a scam, it is an artifact of how the industry was built. When pricing is by truck volume, nobody can tell you what a pile costs until they see the pile. So the visit has to happen before the quote does.

That works fine when you are home, flexible, and have one thing to remove. It works badly in Charlotte for three reasons:

• This metro is spread across three counties and two states. An estimate visit to Waxhaw or Davidson costs you a window you cannot get back if you decline.
• A large share of Charlotte's growth is renters and recent arrivals in Uptown and South End buildings, and those buildings need dock reservations booked days ahead. You cannot reserve a dock around a price you do not know yet.
• Corporate relocations run on deadlines. When the lease ends Friday, a maybe-price on Thursday is not useful.

What a published price does to the job

Knowing the number first changes how you plan. You can decide whether the bonus-room sectional is worth removing before you take a morning off work. You can send the total to a landlord or an estate co-executor for approval. You can compare it honestly against renting a truck.

It also removes the awkward part. Nobody negotiates in a hallway in front of a crew who already drove out to Mint Hill.

Our Charlotte price list, in public

And when it is a pile rather than a list of items, the truck-fill ladder is published too: quarter truck $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732.

Carry-out is in the number, not added to it

Charlotte housing stock makes this matter more than it would elsewhere. There are very few basements in the Piedmont — the red clay pushed the region toward slab and crawlspace builds — so the heavy, unwanted things ended up upstairs. Bonus rooms over garages in Highland Creek, Steele Creek, Waxhaw and Indian Trail. Second-floor bedrooms in the 1920s bungalows of Elizabeth, Dilworth and Wilmore. Fifth-floor units in the five-over-ones along the Rail Trail.

Our price includes carrying it down from wherever it is. No stair fee, no walk-up fee, no long-carry fee, no charge for the crew breaking a sectional apart to get it around the turn at the top of the stairs.

Building access and the COI question

If you are in a tower in Third Ward, Fourth Ward, or along South Boulevard, the building will ask for a certificate of insurance naming the property before any crew is allowed on the freight elevator. Property managers in Charlotte's newer buildings are consistent about this.

We issue COIs and handle the dock and freight reservations as part of the booking, before the truck is scheduled. It does not add anything to your price. Tell us the building name when you book and it gets sorted in the background.

Which one should you call

Call anyone you like — this is not a monopoly and Charlotte has plenty of trucks. But be clear about what you are buying.

• If you want a person to look at a mystery pile and tell you a number in person, the on-site estimate model does exactly that.
• If you want the number before you spend a window, a published flat price does exactly that.

We built the second one because this metro runs on schedules — lease ends, closing dates, relocation start dates, HOA letters with deadlines on them — and a price you can plan around is worth more here than a price you receive in your own driveway.

What is included either way

Disposal and recycling are inside the item price. Loading is inside the item price. Sweeping up after is inside the item price. What you are quoted for the sofa, $126, is what the sofa costs — in Ballantyne, in NoDa, in Cornelius, in Matthews, in Fort Mill.

Frequently asked questions