Price the dump ticket, not the truck.

Common questions

Why price by weight when customers ask for "a half truck"?

Because the landfill bills the weight, not the picture of the truck. Two cubic yards of concrete at roughly 4,000 lb per yard outweigh a whole trailer of couches at about 125. This tool estimates weight from the material you enter, converts it to tons, and prices the dump ticket from your own per-ton rate, minimum, and surcharge — then the truck-volume question is answered separately, because volume decides how many trips you make, not what the scale house charges.

Why enter each material as its own pile?

Because a blended "mixed load" rate hides the dump ticket. Mixed household junk starts around 200 lb per cubic yard, furniture 125, construction debris 400, drywall 420, yard waste 350, dirt 2,200, concrete 4,000, and shingles 2,500. One heavy pile inside an otherwise light load is what turns a fine-looking bid into a loss at the scale. Appliances, mattresses, and tires are entered per item instead, because they carry a fixed special fee as well as weight.

How are the number of dump runs worked out?

From volume, not weight: total cubic yards divided by your truck capacity, rounded up, with a minimum of one run whenever there is anything to haul. Each run adds its own clock time, so a job that fits in one load and a job that needs three are priced as the different days they are. Weight drives the ticket; volume drives the trips. Getting those two the wrong way round is the single most common error in this trade's pricing.

Does the calculator account for stairs and a long carry?

Yes, both as their own clock time on top of the on-site hours you enter: minutes per flight multiplied by the number of flights, plus a long-carry allowance for the walk from the pile to the truck. That time is then multiplied by crew size to get person-hours, which is what payroll actually costs. A third-floor walk-up with a hundred-foot carry is not the same job as a curbside pile of the same volume, and this is where that difference shows up.

Why does a small pickup still price at the minimum charge?

Because rolling a truck costs more than the pile. Round-trip drive time from your one-way minutes, the dump-run time, fuel, and the landfill's own minimum all land before a single item is lifted. When the margin price comes in under the floor you set, the floor is used instead and the result says so. That number is what a "can you just grab this one couch?" call actually costs you.

Why isn't a 20% margin the same as adding 20% to my cost?

Margin here is a share of the final price — price = job cost ÷ (1 − margin) — which is how the quote reads to the customer and how your books read it. Overhead is a separate markup on direct cost, applied before margin and never to itself or to profit. A $400 cost marked up 20% is $480, a 16.7% margin; a 20% target margin is $500. Nothing leaves your browser: no account, no upload, business details for the printed proposal are cleared by "Forget my business details", and the optional local counter records only which features were used and the day. A share link encodes only the job details you see on screen into the web address itself, so copying one and sending it does not upload anything either.

Hand the customer a proposal

The price above is for you. This is the page you print or save as a PDF and give to the customer — your details, their details, the scope, the deposit split, and a line for them to sign. Your business details are saved on this device so you only type them once; the customer’s details are never saved.

Everything on the printed page is text you typed or a number this calculator worked out. It contains no warranty, lien, or cancellation wording — those depend on your jurisdiction and your contract, and this tool is not the place to invent them.