JunkRabbit vs 1-800-GOT-JUNK in Milwaukee

The short answer

Both companies will take your junk away. The difference is the pricing model.

The traditional national model is an on-site estimate: you book a window, a crew comes to your house in Bay View or Wauwatosa, looks at the pile, and quotes you there on the driveway. You find out the price with two people standing in your living room.

JunkRabbit publishes the prices. A sofa is $126. A queen mattress is $103. A quarter truck is $241. A full truck is $732. The minimum is $75. You put your list into the online quote, see the total, and book at that total. Nobody quotes you on your own doorstep.

Why the on-site estimate exists

It is not a trick. Volume-based junk removal genuinely varies, and a crew standing in front of a pile can size it more accurately than a phone call can. For a chaotic, undefined job — a whole estate, a hoarding situation, a construction gut — an in-person look is reasonable.

The problem is that most jobs are not undefined. Most Milwaukee jobs are a known list: a couch, a mattress and box spring, a dead washer, the boxes in the basement. You already know what you have. When the list is knowable, making you wait for an in-person quote just moves the decision to the least comfortable moment — after you have taken the morning off, with the crew already parked in the alley.

Our position is simply that a known list should get a known price. That is the entire model.

What upfront pricing actually looks like

Here is the published Milwaukee price list for the things people most often call about. These are the real numbers, not a range and not a starting-at.

And by volume, if a list is not the right way to describe your pile:

What is not on the bill

This matters in Milwaukee more than in most cities, because of the housing.

• No stair charge. An upper flat in Riverwest, a third-floor walk-up on the Lower East Side, a basement with a low-headroom staircase in Sherman Park — same price as ground floor.
• No long-carry charge. Narrow lots mean long gangways and a garage at the back of the property off the alley. Still the same price.
• No disposal fee on top. Hauling and disposal are inside the number.
• No same-day surcharge. If a slot is open today, today costs what tomorrow costs.
• No winter surcharge. November through April is normal operating season here, not an exception.

How the two bookings actually feel

The estimate model: call or book a window. Take time off, or wait in. Crew arrives. Crew looks. Crew gives you a number. You are now deciding, in front of two people who drove out to you, whether to accept. If you say no, you have lost the morning. Most people say yes.

The upfront model: open the quote page. Tick Sofa / Couch, Mattress — Queen, Box Spring. See $126 + $103 + $92 = $321 on screen. Pick a slot. Done, in about two minutes, at 11pm from your couch — the couch in question, probably. The crew that arrives is there to carry, not to price.

Where the crew still has to look

We will be honest about the limits of publishing prices. There are jobs where nobody can give a real number without seeing it:

• A full estate in a Story Hill or Enderis Park house where three generations of furniture are still in the attic and the basement.
• A hoarding cleanup where the volume genuinely cannot be described.
• A hot tub on a raised deck with no gate access — the $322 is the removal, but getting a spa off a second-story deck is a conversation first.
• Anything with hazardous material mixed in.

For those we still want to talk before we quote. The difference is that this is the exception, and for the ordinary list of household items it is not how you should have to buy junk removal.

Coverage across the metro

We work the city and the surrounding communities: Bay View, Riverwest, the Lower East Side, Walker's Point, the Third Ward, Washington Heights, Sherman Park, Bronzeville, Harambee, Story Hill, Jackson Park, Tippecanoe, Lincoln Village and Silver City; plus Wauwatosa, West Allis, Greenfield, Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, Glendale, Fox Point, Cudahy, St. Francis, Oak Creek, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, New Berlin, Brookfield, Menomonee Falls and Mequon.

Same published prices in all of them. A couch in Oak Creek costs what a couch in Riverwest costs.

The one-line version

If you want a crew to come look at your pile and tell you what it costs, that model exists and it works. If you would rather know the number before anyone gets in a truck, that is what we built: put the list in, see the total, book the total. In a city where half the jobs involve a staircase, knowing the price in advance is worth something.

Frequently asked questions