The short answer
Start from what one haul costs you: truck time, the landfill's charge for the tons you include, fuel and the wear on the can. Add the margin you need, then set what the base price includes (a number of days and a number of tons) and a clear price for each day and each ton over. Check the price against real jobs every few months, because landfill prices and fuel move.
By American Dumpster Software, the software built by American Roll-Offs, a roll-off company in Jacksonville, Florida. Updated .
Work out what one haul costs you
Before you look at anyone else's price, know your own cost. A roll-off rental is usually two or more trips (the drop off, maybe a swap, the pickup) and at least one landfill visit. For each one, add up:
- Truck time: what a truck and driver cost you per hour (wages, payroll costs, the truck payment, insurance, repairs), times the hours a typical trip takes, yard to yard.
- Disposal: the landfill or transfer station's price per ton for that material, times the tons you plan to include.
- Fuel: your fuel cost per trip, or per mile for the miles a typical job runs.
- The can: repairs, paint and replacements spread over the rentals a can does in a year.
- The office: the time it takes to book, dispatch and bill one job.
Use your own last few months of jobs for this, not a guess. The answer is your floor: the least a rental can be priced at without losing money.
Decide what the base price includes
A common way to price a roll-off rental is a flat base price that includes a set number of days and a set number of tons, with a price for each extra day and each extra ton. Customers understand it, and it protects you on the heavy and the long jobs.
Pick the included days and tons per size. A small can for a bathroom job and a big can for a roof tear-off weigh very differently, so one tonnage for every size usually loses money somewhere. Your own past landfill tickets per size tell you what a normal load weighs.
Write down what costs extra before the customer asks: extra days, tons over, mattresses and tires, a trip when the can is blocked, a cancellation after the truck has left. Put those words in your rental agreement, so the bill never surprises anyone.
Price by size, area and kind of job
One price for everything is simple, but it rarely fits. A drop off far from the yard costs more truck time. A dump and return costs a different amount from a swap. A contractor who rents every week may earn a better price than a one-time homeowner.
A good way to keep this sane is a general price list with a few more specific prices on top: a price for a size, a different one for a far-out area, and a special one for a single customer. The most specific price wins, and anything left blank falls back to the general one.
Keep the price honest over time
Landfills change their prices, often once a year, and fuel moves every week. A price that worked last spring can lose money today. Every few months, take a handful of finished jobs and compare what you billed with what the job cost. If the heavy loads or the far-out areas lose money, change those prices, not all of them.
In American Dumpster Software, each landfill's price is dated, so a ticket is billed at the price in force that day, and the price list can be per customer, size, area and kind of job. The Try a price window shows what a job would cost before you quote it, and the price list check finds sizes and jobs with no price. You can try it in the demo.