Does anyone charge for pickups?

Im thinking about doing a set price for printers, copiers, crts, and other odd and ends.
But in return ill buy computers and laptops. The costs will get offset if they have materials i buy and come off my buying of there items. Ive seen companies charge for pickups $8.50 each for laptops, $8.00 for desktops. $2.00 to shred a drive.

Or should we charge to pickup all? Just wondering others thoughts

Most of my pickups include multiple items...not 21 towers..so yea charge a decent fee to dispose..ask for a list of everything they have...consider dump fees..ive had numerous pickups where they have tried to make me take trash for free...straight garbage equals cash outa their pockets..i charge for everything but towers n straight scrap(close to home)

If you are only accepting electronics, offer a free pickup... They try n stick ya, CHARGE EM

Well here the thing its a balance.. If You've to pay to get the goodies then yes... but dont' stab them in the heart with a

heafty bill... yah know 10 buck or 15 bucks within so many miles.. be a bit.. you know.. easy.. they may have you come back

for some more. but if You're getting it for free.. Bite Your lips.. run git it.. and thank them up and down... Read My story on

Bling Bling ..

Originally Posted by Hypoman

My only "real" competition always charges for every pick-up. I have taken nearly all their customers in my town b/c I pick-up for free. I have have picked up 100's of computers and I have only started advertising just a couple months ago. I get so much business right now it is almost overwhelming! I have paid for ewaste only twice.... and I made sure I could at least double what I paid. I know alot of you pay for stuff and thats fine for you.... but to say that you need to pay to play..... or to be in the "big leagues".... just does not seem to make much sense to me...... Which should go w/o saying.... Know your territory. Learn your competition, what they are doing, learn to gauge how much your customers actually know about ewaste and make your plans based around that knowledge.


i also only charge for broken crt's or out of county pick-ups. But it's by load, not by product or by pounds. I like to keep it very simple.










Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.

Like a boss! Good way of putting it.

Im thinking about changing over to charging for all pickups. I currently pickup appliances, metal, ewaste, clothing/shoes for free and give quotes on trash removal. The free model has its benefits mainly that it gets your foot in the door, customers see you have the equipment/skills and do a good job so they call you again and hopefully pay you for a trash removal job. The drawback is that sometimes people get the wrong impression about your service and view it more as a charity. If you pick something up for free the customer feels that they are doing you a favor and dont value your labor, gas, time, etc.. Sometimes it is totally worth it to pick for free and other time it is not. Sometimes customers want a discount on trash removal because they are giving you recyclables.

I know if I start charging for everything I will loose many of one type of customer (the customers that are attracted to the free pickup) but, I might gain a new type of customer (a customer that wants to pay and get the job done professionally). I want to bump up my professional game by accepting credit card payments (just got setup today), revising my ads, upgrading uniform, insurance and build a website. My theory is that a lot of businesses and residential people that have money and want to spend on junk removal, dont go to the free pickup ads because perhaps they think the quality of the service isnt as good as the companies that charge. And its weird, when I charge people for additional services they seem to respect me more than if I just did it for free. Its weird you are respected and you get paid for the labor.

Has anyone gone from a partial free pricing model to a pricing model where you charge for everything? If so how did it work out for you?

I don't charge for pickups, mainly cause I don't take anything but metal and electronics. I pay for some things, like computers, cell phones, etc.

I don't blame anyone who does tho. I think 150 bucks is a tad much but hey..obviously people will pay it for that company Burly mentioned likely wouldn't be doing so well. I know down here it wouldn't fly unless you were moving a lot of trash/clean outs/etc. For normal scrap tho..I'll keep doing free pick ups. Plus I work with a lot of thrift stores, so its in my interest to help them out with free pick ups an the like.

Now if I ever showed up for a pick up an the option was there for a clean out or to haul things to the dump, then I would put a fee on it, as that costs me more then just time an gas. I do that on a case by case basis, I don't have a lot of clean ups an such things here on the sandbar.

Good luck with the accepting credit cards. I should put this in your thread, but hell I'm here. Keep us updated on how the company you chose works for you. I know you linked it, but I prefer first hand experiences then random ones from the internet..you been here long enough, I think I can take your word on how they treat ya. Oh an good luck with the new model if you go for it!

Good luck with it all Mr.Sam.

Sirscrapalot - Always do what you are afraid to do. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks Sirscrapalot, I have decided to at least try to put the free pickup on the back burner. Usually for my advertising I have been putting my free service up on most of the ad and the trash removal service on the bottom of the ad. Instead of completely eliminating the free pickup I might just advertise the trash removal on most of the page and a small section on the bottom that says "complimentary free pickup for appliances, metal, e-waste, and clothing/shoes". It seems that just about all of the free p/u recyclables have gone down in price: steal, e-waste, clothing, cardboard. I usually charge $200 to fill and haul my 5'x14'x4' trailer with trash but, if I fill the same trailer with scrap appliances and other tin it is only about $80 and thats a lot of tin to pickup. Although I know steal prices are low here in california, $100/ton (tin).

Ill keep you updated on the results and the review on the CC processing.

I don't charge schools or businesses. Individuals I charge $20.00 for crt's if that's all they got. I don't do single item pick ups much any more. Have not really paid for any scrap yet. However, I believe that's my next step in growing my biz. It's a difficult step for me cause I get such a kick out of free money.

We charge for all pickups. Normally $25-$150 per pickup. But then we also pay for some materials also.

I don't vharge a pickup fee. I charge for CRTs and TVs based on size, though.

Of course, my competition charges $.30/pound if you take it to them (And they charge more for pickups), so I have a little more pricing freedom than you may.

I use the Scrap Metal Removal Estimator tool to estimate how much the pickup will cost me in gas and time. I adjust it so that I would make about $15/hour of my time after gas expenses. Please note I do not include drive time as paid time. I then pay (up to $5 for an appliance) or charge the customer accordingly. It's really handy. Buying the scraproom membership is worth it just for that.

Update:
So, I have been advertising mainly trash removal and a small section of the ad is for "complimentary pickup for e-waste, metal, and appliances. Minimum quantities may apply" I have been getting a lot less call but, the calls that I get are usually pretty solid. With the old free ad I would get 4-15 calls per week and the new trash removal ad I get about 0-5 per week. So far this week I have gotten 0 calls. Last week I got about 3 and did all three jobs which were decent. I kind of miss the free pick up thing because it is mainly a great way to advertise in person to your customers. You pickup a couple items they see that you have the proper equipment, truck, trailer, good work ethic, show up on time, so, they decide to hire you for an additional trash removal job.

I am thinking about advertising the free pickup thing again but, being more picky about the pickups. Maybe require a pickup truck sized load minimum of recyclables. Also advertising more to schools, hospitals, business for the free pickup.

In my area all the cities have a bulky item pickup on trash day for free and or landfill for residents no charge to dump. So it would be pointless to charge to pick something up that they can put out on trash day for free (that's where I usually get it when I curbco). With that being said I would charge someone a small fee if I was doing the cleaning out or having to dismantle something to get it out. Good Luck