Spatchr for Junk Removal
Priced by volume, which nothing here measures for you
Junk removal bills by the load — a unit Spatchr does not ship, so you define it. Here is exactly how that works and what the app does and does not do for you.
Unit economics
How a junk removal job gets priced
This trade does not fit the measurement model the rest of this site is built on, and it is worth saying that plainly rather than dressing it up. Junk removal is priced by volume — a quarter load, a half load, a full truck — and volume is judged by eye rather than drawn on a map. There is no polygon to trace. Spatchr's built-in units are square feet, linear feet, each and hour, none of which describes a truck bed, so you create a custom unit called load and price against that. In practice most operators build a small ladder of fixed prices — minimum pickup, quarter, half, three-quarter, full — and quote by picking the closest one. The estimate is a judgement made standing in a garage, and it is either right or it is a lesson. What the app is genuinely good at here is the other half of the arithmetic: the disposal cost. Tipping fees vary by material and by weight, and they are the single largest variable expense in this trade. Recording them against the job that generated them is what turns a load price from a guess into a margin you can actually see.
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Volume
Fraction of a truck load
The primary unit, judged on sight. Most operators price in quarters because finer gradations imply a precision the estimate does not have and invite argument at the kerb.
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Material type
Disposal surcharge
General household waste, construction debris, green waste, appliances and mattresses all go to different places at different rates. Some carry per-item fees that dwarf their volume.
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Labour and access
Carry adjustment
A pile in an open driveway and the identical pile in a third-floor flat with no lift are the same volume and completely different jobs. Carry distance and stairs are where the hours actually go.
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Weight
Tip fee driver
Tipping is usually charged by weight while you are selling by volume, so dense loads — soil, tile, plaster, concrete — can be profitable on volume and unprofitable at the scale.
Minimum charge
Set a minimum pickup price when you build the catalog and treat it as the floor for any callout. A single mattress and a full truck take the same drive, the same fuel and the same tip visit, so a job priced purely on its tiny volume loses money before you arrive.
Cadence and routing
Getting back there at the right time
Junk removal has no recurrence to speak of. A customer clears a garage, a house is emptied after a bereavement, a landlord turns over a flat — and then you do not hear from them again, often ever. There is no plan to generate and no round to protect. So the scheduling surface is the job itself, and the operational rhythm is same-day or next-day rather than a diary booked weeks out. Much of the value you offer is speed; the customer decided this morning that the sofa is going today. That makes the day reactive rather than routed. You are not sequencing twelve planned stops, you are fitting two or three jobs around the tip's opening hours, which is the real constraint — a full truck at four in the afternoon with the transfer station closing at four thirty is a wasted evening and a truck you cannot use tomorrow morning. Where recurring work does exist it is commercial: property managers, letting agents, small builders and estate clearers who call repeatedly. Those are contacts worth keeping close, because in a trade with no natural repeat business they are the closest thing to a round.
Your service catalog
What you start with
Spatchr does not ship a starter catalog for junk removal — the one bundled template covers exterior cleaning. You build yours, which takes about ten minutes and is worth doing properly once. Here is the shape most operators land on.
- Minimum pickupcustom
A single item or a very small volume. The floor price that makes a short-notice callout viable rather than charitable.
- Quarter loadcustom
The most common residential job — a garage corner, a shed clearance, a few pieces of furniture.
- Half loadcustom
A full room or a substantial garage. Usually the point at which the job needs two people rather than one.
- Full loadcustom
A complete truck. Worth pricing carefully against your tip fees, since a dense full load can cost more to dispose of than a light one earns.
- Appliance or mattress disposaleach
Per item, because these carry specific disposal fees regardless of the volume they occupy. Mattresses in particular are often charged individually at the transfer station.
- Labour surchargehour
For stairs, long carries and dismantling. Volume pricing assumes a reasonable carry, and this is how you cover the jobs that are not.
Proof and paperwork
Showing the customer what they paid for
Two photographs matter, and neither is decorative. The first is the pile before it is touched, taken at the moment you quote. Volume disputes are the characteristic argument of this trade — the customer described a few boxes and it is a garage — and a dated image of what was actually there settles it without anybody raising their voice. It also protects you the other way, when someone adds to the pile between the quote and the collection. The second is the cleared space. It closes the job, it is what the customer wanted, and it is the only evidence that the work was completed properly rather than partially. Beyond photographs, the record that earns its keep is the disposal receipt attached to the job as an expense. It is a tax document, it is proof of lawful disposal if anyone ever asks, and it is the number that tells you whether that load actually made money. Fly-tipping enforcement takes a dim view of operators who cannot show where material went.
The trade that does not fit, described honestly
Everything else on this site is built around measuring something. Junk removal is not, and rather than bend the story to fit the software, this page states where the fit is loose.
You cannot draw a truck load on a map. Volume is estimated by looking at a pile and comparing it to a vehicle you know well, and that skill lives in the operator rather than in any application. The built-in units — square feet, linear feet, each, hour — do not include anything resembling a cubic yard or a load, so you create a custom unit and price against it.
The catalog handles that perfectly well. What it cannot do is calculate for you, because there is nothing to calculate. If you were told otherwise you would find out on your first job.
Where software genuinely helps
The half of this trade that is not judgement is arithmetic, and the arithmetic is where the money hides.
Disposal is the largest variable cost, it changes with material and weight, and it is charged after you have already agreed a price based on volume. That mismatch — selling by space, paying by weight — is the structural trap. A truck of pillows and a truck of broken tile are the same sale and wildly different costs.
Recording the tipping fee against the job that caused it turns that from a vague sense that some loads are worse than others into a number per job. Twenty jobs in, you know that construction debris priced at your standard half-load rate is losing money, and you adjust the rate rather than the mood.
Photograph before you touch anything
The characteristic dispute in junk removal is about volume, and it is usually sincere.
A customer phones and describes “a few boxes and an old sofa”. You arrive to a garage. Neither party is lying — they were describing it from memory, and piles are consistently underestimated by people who have stopped seeing them. But the conversation at the kerb, where you explain the price is higher than the phone estimate, is where jobs are lost.
A photograph taken at the quote, attached to the job with a date on it, changes that conversation entirely. It also covers the reverse case, which is more common than you would expect: the pile grows between the quote and the collection, because once someone decides to clear out they keep finding things.
The tip closes at four thirty
The scheduling constraint here is unlike anything else in this list.
Other trades optimise for driving less between stops. This one optimises around the transfer station’s opening hours, because a full truck cannot start tomorrow’s work. A job accepted at three in the afternoon that fills the vehicle means either a rushed run to the tip or a loaded truck overnight and a late start.
That is why the day holds two or three jobs rather than twelve, why the routing on this page is marked as not routed at all, and why the most useful thing on the schedule is not a sequence but the answer to a single question: is there room in the truck.
Where it connects to the rest
Junk removal sits naturally beside the outdoor trades that generate material. A landscaping project produces spoil, old turf and broken slabs. An autumn cleanup produces green waste by the trailer load. Operators who already run those have both the vehicle and the disposal relationships, and the haul-away is a service they are effectively already performing without charging for it separately.
Questions people actually ask
- Spatchr has no unit for a truck load. Is that a problem?
- It is a limitation and it is worth being straight about it. The built-in units are square feet, linear feet, each and hour, so you create a custom unit — a load — and price against it. The service catalog handles that without complaint. What you do not get is any calculation help, because unlike an area there is nothing to compute; a load is a judgement, not a measurement.
- How do I stop volume arguments at the kerb?
- Photograph the pile when you quote and attach it to the job. Almost every dispute in this trade is a genuine disagreement about how much there was, frequently because the customer described it from memory and the reality is larger. A dated picture ends the conversation in seconds and preserves the relationship.
- How do I know whether a load actually made money?
- Record the tipping fee as an expense on the job. Disposal is the biggest variable cost here and it moves with weight and material rather than with the volume you sold, so a heavy load can look profitable and lose money. Only the per-job comparison shows it.
- Is there any repeat business to build on?
- Not from householders, who typically call once. The repeatable work is commercial — letting agents, property managers, builders and estate clearers — so those contacts are worth treating as relationships rather than transactions. In a trade with no natural round they are the closest substitute for one.
- Why is scheduling so different from the other trades here?
- Because there is nothing to route. The other trades plan a sequence of stops in a tight area; this one takes two or three jobs a day and fits them around the transfer station's hours. Arriving at a closed tip with a full truck costs you the next morning as well as this afternoon.
Neighbouring trades
Curated by real overlap — shared routes, shared ladders, shared customers — not by an alphabetical list of everything else.
Put your junk removal pricing on the phone
Before you download
Android and the browser do different jobs
Sign in once. After that the Android app runs on the phone's own database — measure, photograph and price a job in a basement or a dead zone, and it syncs the moment you have signal again.
The web app is a live connection to your data, so it needs a signal and a sign-in.
| Capability | Android app | Web browser |
|---|---|---|
| Works with no signal | Yes — after your first sign-in | No — needs a connection |
| Sign-in required | Yes, once | Yes, every session |
| Measure on site, camera, GPS | Yes | Limited |
| Invoices, estimates, reports | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | The truck, the roof, the yard | The office desk |