What a $99 junk removal ad in Portland really covers

The short answer

A $99 headline is a teaser for the smallest possible load, usually one item, usually curbside, usually with conditions attached at the bottom of the ad. It is not a quote for clearing a Sellwood basement.

Here is what we publish instead. The visit minimum is $75 — that is the floor for sending a truck and two people to your address anywhere in the metro. Above that, each item has its own flat price: sofa $126, queen mattress $103, refrigerator $164, washer $133. Volume jobs run on a published ladder from a quarter load at $241 to a full load at $732.

There is no mystery tier below $75 and we are not going to advertise one.

How the $99 number is built

Teaser pricing in this industry usually works one of a few ways:

• It is a fraction rate. $99 buys a very small slice of truck volume — think a couple of bags. The moment your pile is a couch, you are on a different line of the price sheet.
• It is curbside only. The rate assumes the item is already on the parking strip. Which, in Portland, means you have already done the basement stairs yourself, in the rain, which was the hard part.
• It excludes disposal. Some quotes are labor-only and the transfer station fee is added after the scale. Our prices include disposal.
• It excludes the awkward categories. Mattresses, appliances with refrigerant, tube TVs, hot tubs — the exact things people are trying to get rid of.

None of that is fraud. It is advertising. The problem is that it is not a number you can plan around.

What the real Portland floor looks like

Below is the actual bottom end of our price list — the things that genuinely do cost less than a hundred dollars once the visit minimum is met:

Read that table honestly: a single $30 microwave does not cost $30 to have picked up, because the visit minimum is $75. One microwave alone is a $75 visit. Two dining chairs at $45 each is $90, which clears the minimum on its own. That is how a floor works, and we would rather tell you than let you find out at the door.

The Portland-specific catch: curbside pricing assumes flat ground

Most cheap teaser rates are written for a suburb with a driveway and a garage at grade. Large parts of this city are not that.

A Craftsman in Woodstock or a foursquare in Irvington sits four to six feet above the sidewalk with a flight of front steps. Half the inner eastside has a basement reached by a steep, narrow stairwell with a turn at the bottom. Portions of Northwest and the west hills are on a slope with a long walk from any legal parking spot. Alberta and Division have permit zones and a truck cannot just sit there.

If a price is only good curbside, in Portland that price is quietly asking you to do the carry. Our flat rates include the carry from wherever the item sits — basement, attic, third-floor walk-up, detached garage at the back of the lot — and there is no stair charge attached to any of it.

Work out your own number in two minutes

Add the items. The arithmetic is yours to check:

• Couch $126 + coffee table $67 = $193
• Queen mattress $103 + box spring $92 = $195, or take the set price at $143
• Washer $133 + dryer $128 = $261
• Refrigerator $164 + stove, electric $134 + dishwasher $109 = $407
• Two patio chairs $30 + $30 + patio table $89 = $149

If your list is longer than about six things, price the truck-fill ladder instead: $241 for a quarter, $338 for three-eighths, $431 for a half, $732 for a full load. Take whichever is lower.

Things that are never surcharged

To be explicit, because the teaser-ad world has made people suspicious:

• No stair charge. Not for a basement, not for a third-floor Buckman walk-up.
• No fee for a long carry from where the truck could legally park on a narrow eastside street.
• No same-day surcharge.
• No disposal add-on at the end — the transfer station cost is already inside the flat price.
• No sales tax, because Oregon does not have one.

So what should you compare on?

Compare on the total for your actual list, not on the headline. Write down the four or five items you want gone, get a published number for that list, and hold any advertised rate against it. If an ad will not produce a total for your list before a truck is dispatched, the headline number is decoration.

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