The short answer
Both services show up in a truck and take your stuff away. The model is where they part company.
The traditional national franchise model is estimate-on-site: you book a window, a crew drives out, looks at the pile, and quotes you there. The price depends on what the crew sees and how much of the truck your load fills.
Ours is published-before-you-book. A sofa is $126. A queen mattress is $103. A quarter truck is $241, a half truck $431, a full truck $732. The visit minimum is $75. You build the list online, you see the total, and the total is the total.
Neither model is dishonest. One of them just means you know the number on Tuesday instead of Saturday.
Why the timing of the price matters in San Diego
In a lot of cities the on-site estimate is a formality. Here it interacts badly with the housing stock.
San Diego homes have no basements, so the accumulation lives in the garage, the side yard and the attic - and a garage in Clairemont or Allied Gardens that you have not fully looked at in six years is genuinely hard to size from memory. You describe it on the phone as half a garage. The crew arrives, sees a full one, and the estimate lands where it lands. You are now standing in your driveway deciding whether to say yes with three people waiting.
With a published list you do the sizing yourself, in advance, with nobody in the driveway. If it turns out to be more than you thought, you add items or move up the truck ladder - but you do it reading a price sheet, not negotiating.
Access is the other reason
The on-site model prices what the crew finds, and in this county what the crew finds is frequently stairs.
- Canyon-lot houses in Mission Hills, Del Cerro, Bay Park and Rolando where the front door sits two flights below the street.
- Three-story walk-ups in Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach with exterior stairwells and no elevator.
- Alley-only access in Mission Beach and on the old North Park and Golden Hill blocks.
- Hillside driveways in Point Loma and La Jolla too steep and too narrow for a truck to back down.
Our answer to all four is the same: it does not change the price. There is no stair charge, no long-carry charge, no walk-up fee. The $126 sofa is $126 forty steps down a canyon staircase in Normal Heights.
Side by side, on model
| On-site estimate model | JunkRabbit | |
|---|---|---|
| When you learn the price | When the crew arrives | Before you book |
| How it is calculated | Truck space used, assessed on site | Published per-item prices, or a published truck-fill tier |
| Single-item jobs | Usually priced as a minimum load | Priced as the item - sofa $126, recliner $98, TV $68 |
| Stairs and long carries | Can factor into the on-site quote | Included, always |
| Disposal fees | Folded into the quote | Included in the published price |
| Visit minimum | Varies | $75 |
We are not going to put invented numbers in a competitor's column. Their price is theirs to quote. The contrast we are making is that ours is on the page.
Where per-item pricing wins outright
Small jobs. This is the clearest gap in the two models.
If all you have is one recliner in a Hillcrest condo, the volume model still has to send a truck and a crew, so it prices like a minimum load. Per-item, that recliner is $98. A single microwave is $30. A computer monitor is $58. A bicycle is $37.
Common small San Diego jobs, priced from the list:
- Queen mattress and box spring set: $143
- Washer and dryer: $133 + $128 = $261
- Patio table and four patio chairs: $89 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 = $209
- 65-inch TV and the stand under it: $73 + $96 = $169
Every one of those is an addition you can check.
Where truck-fill pricing wins
Volume. When the load stops being a list of objects and becomes a wall of stuff - a full estate garage in Rancho Bernardo, a hoarding-condition unit in City Heights, a whole-house clear before an escrow closes in Point Loma - counting items is slower than measuring the truck.
So we publish that ladder too: quarter $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732. Same principle - the tiers are on the page, and you pick the one your pile lands in.
Booking, and the summer problem
San Diego has a real seasonal crunch. Military PCS moves cluster in the summer around Coronado, Point Loma and Miramar. SDSU and UCSD empty out in May and June. Beach leases in PB and OB turn over on the same handful of dates. Every one of those pushes into the same weeks.
Booking against a published price is faster in that window because there is no quoting step - you pick the items, pick the day, done. If your inspection is Thursday, that matters more than anything else on this page.
The honest summary
If you like having a crew size up the job in person and you are flexible on the outcome, the on-site model is a perfectly normal way to buy junk removal.
If you want to know the number before anyone drives to Chula Vista, if you have exactly three things rather than a truckload, or if your house has a staircase that makes every quote a negotiation - the published list is built for you. Sofa $126. Fridge $164. Hot tub $322. $75 minimum. Stairs included.
Frequently asked questions
Do you actually hold the online price when the crew arrives?
Yes, for the items you listed. If you add things on the day, the added items are charged at their published prices - a dresser you forgot is $126, not a renegotiation of the whole job.
What if my pile is between two truck tiers?
You pay the tier it fills. The ladder is deliberately fine-grained - quarter $241, three-eighths $338, half $431 - so you are not jumping from a quarter to a full.
Is the $75 minimum a booking fee on top of items?
No. It is a floor. If your items add up to less than $75, you pay $75. If they add up to more - a single sofa at $126, say - you just pay the item prices.
Do you charge more for La Jolla or Coronado than for City Heights?
No. Prices are the same across the San Diego market regardless of neighborhood or driveway.
Can you do same-day in summer?
Often, but June through August is the tightest window of the year here between PCS season and student move-out. Book early in that stretch.