You're not really choosing between brands in Miami — you're choosing between six business models, and each has a characteristic way it goes wrong. Learn to spot which one you're being quoted by and you can predict the problem before you book it.
Sofa $126 · quarter truck $241 · full truck $732 · $75 minimum · COI included
Upload Photos & Get Quote →We're a junk removal company writing about the alternatives, which is a conflict worth naming at the top.
So: we won't tell you what LoadUp charges, or what any other company charges. We can't verify another business's current prices, terms, coverage or guarantees, they change without telling us, and a stale number presented confidently is worse than no number at all.
We also won't tell you that anyone else is unreliable, or characterise their crews, or quote review scores. We don't have that information and neither does anyone writing a comparison page about a competitor.
What's left is genuinely useful: how the models differ structurally, where each one breaks, our own numbers stated precisely, and the questions that let you check everything above for yourself.
Brands come and go in this trade and many operate more than one model. The model is the thing that predicts your experience.
Ask any provider which of these they are. It's a fair question, most will answer it straightforwardly, and the answer tells you more than a headline price does.
The six available across Miami-Dade: flat-price-from-photos, centrally-booked-locally-dispatched, on-site-estimate, local independent, labour-only, and your municipality's own collection.
You send pictures, a published catalogue prices them, you get a fixed number before anyone travels. This is ours, so treat the praise sceptically and the criticism seriously.
Good at: knowing the cost before committing; no on-site renegotiation; comparing against other quotes because the number is stable.
Characteristic failure: bad photographs. The quote is only as honest as the pictures. One corner of a four-room job produces a number that moves on the day — and when it moves, it's your photographs that caused it, which feels worse than being quoted badly.
Also: it needs a published catalogue to work, so anything genuinely unusual still needs a human look.
You book through a national interface; a local operator does the work.
Good at: consistent booking experience, standardised process, availability across many markets.
Characteristic failure: the gap between the booking layer and the crew. Requirements captured centrally sometimes don't reach the person at your door — and in Miami that gap most often shows up as building paperwork, which is the section below.
The question that resolves it: who physically turns up, and do they already know my building's requirements?
A truck arrives, someone looks at the pile, you're quoted there.
Good at: genuinely large, mixed or hard-to-photograph jobs where only an in-person look is realistic; established brand recognition.
Characteristic failure: the number arrives at your weakest moment. You've booked, waited, and the crew is standing in your hallway — which is the point of lowest leverage to be hearing a price for the first time.
Not dishonest, and sometimes the only workable model. But if you're comparing it against a fixed quote, you're comparing two different kinds of object. We've written that comparison out separately.
A small operator, often a few trucks, sometimes one.
Good at: flexibility, genuine knowledge of specific buildings and neighbourhoods, and a direct line to whoever makes decisions.
Characteristic failure: variance. The range between the best and worst local independent is wider than within any other model — on pricing structure, on insurance documentation, on scheduling systems and on what happens if something goes wrong.
That's not a reason to avoid them; a good one is often the best answer available. It's a reason the five questions matter more here, not less.
An app or a service that supplies people and often a vehicle, but not a disposal route.
Good at: moving things rather than disposing of them; jobs where you have somewhere for it all to go.
Characteristic failure: the disposal isn't included and it doesn't disappear. Somebody still has to take the material somewhere, and if the quote didn't cover that, the cost and the trip land on you afterwards.
Ask explicitly whether disposal is included and where the material goes. If the answer is that they'll take it to your car, that's a moving service and should be priced against moving services.
Free where you're eligible, and we'd rather you used it than paid us.
Good at: costing nothing.
Characteristic failure: eligibility and timing. Miami-Dade is fragmented across many municipalities plus unincorporated areas, so whether your address is served at all varies — and many condo and apartment addresses aren't.
Check with the municipality your address actually sits in, and confirm before anything goes outside. The kerbside guide covers why that sequence matters, and the county comparison is here.
This is the local part, and it's a structural point rather than a criticism of anyone.
A large share of Miami-Dade's housing is high-rise — Brickell, Downtown, Edgewater, Sunny Isles, Miami Beach, Aventura. Most towers require a certificate of insurance naming the building before a contractor works on site, and many require a reserved service elevator or dock slot inside set hours.
That requirement is invisible to a booking flow that doesn't ask about it. Any model can meet it, but only if the requirement reaches whoever produces the certificate — which is exactly where a booking layer separated from the crew is most likely to lose it.
In our experience it's the most common reason a Miami booking fails on the day, ahead of price disputes. The high-rise guide covers the whole sequence.
Ask every provider these, including us. They're the only way to compare across models.
We published this list in full on our Colorado Springs site, including our own answers and where our model falls short — it's the same five questions in any city.
Since we're asking you to demand them.
Fixed, from photographs, before you book. No surcharges for stairs, elevators, long carries, fuel or disposal; $75 minimum, stated up front. Insured, and we produce a COI naming your building at no charge. A vetted independent hauler turns up — not our employee, and you should know that before booking. Reuse, recycling or transfer station, and we'll tell you which.
Where we lose: bad photographs move the number; a container beats us on a job that runs for weeks; we decline biohazard work; and a free municipal collection beats us outright where you're eligible.
Live Miami prices, so you can hold everything above to them.
| What leaves | Price |
|---|---|
| Minimum job | $75 |
| Sofa | $126 |
| Dresser | $126 |
| Bed frame — metal / platform | $68 |
| Dining table (large) | $129 |
| Mattress + box spring, as a set | $143 |
| Refrigerator | $164 |
| Quarter truck (4 cu yd) | $241 |
| Half truck (8 cu yd) | $431 |
| Full truck (16 cu yd) | $732 |
Items under about five pieces usually price cheaper itemised; past that the truck tiers win. We quote both and charge the lower without being asked. Fuller breakdown here.
One job — a sofa, a dresser and a mattress set from a twelfth-floor unit in Edgewater — and what each model would need you to establish.
Ours: $126 + $126 + $143 = $395 itemised. By volume that's about seven cubic yards, which is the half-truck tier at $431, so itemised wins and $395 is quoted. COI filed, elevator window booked.
Any other model: we can't give you their number, and won't guess. What you'd need to establish before comparing is whether their figure is fixed or an estimate, whether stairs/elevator/disposal are inside it, and whether they'll produce a COI for your building in time.
That's the honest comparison — not a table of numbers we invented, but the specific things that make two numbers mean the same thing.
Check municipal eligibility first — free beats everything. If not available, itemised pricing from any fixed-price provider.
Filter on COI and elevator capability before you filter on price. A cheaper provider that can't get through the door isn't cheaper.
Volume pricing, and get it fixed in advance — this is the size where on-site estimates move most. Condo cleanout guide.
Labour-only may genuinely be cheapest. Confirm disposal is excluded so you're comparing the right thing.
An on-site estimate model is a reasonable choice here. Ask what happens if the number is higher than you expected.
Establish which are fixed and which are estimates first, then compare only fixed against fixed. Treat estimates as a starting range.
Several — and the useful way to choose is by business model rather than brand, because the model predicts how a booking goes wrong. The options in Miami-Dade: flat-price-from-photos, centrally-booked-locally-dispatched, on-site-estimate, local independents, labour-only, and your municipality's collection where eligible. We won't tell you what LoadUp or anyone else charges — we can't verify another company's prices and they change. We'll give you ours exactly, plus the five questions that make any two quotes comparable.
Ask all five: fixed price or on-site estimate; stairs, long carries, fuel, disposal and minimum each by name; insured and can you produce a COI naming my building; who physically turns up; where does the material go. Those answers are comparable across models. A headline price isn't, because a fixed quote and an estimate are different kinds of object.
Municipal collection where you're eligible — free, and nothing beats it. Otherwise it depends on job shape, not provider. Single items price best itemised (sofa $126, mattress set $143); whole rooms price best by volume (quarter truck $241, full $732, $75 minimum). We quote both and charge the lower.
Because they're often not quoting the same kind of thing. An on-site estimate is finalised in your hallway; a fixed photo quote is committed before anyone travels; a labour-only quote may exclude disposal entirely. All three can be honest and still not be comparable.
More than anything else about the job. Most towers require a COI naming the building and a reserved elevator window. A provider that can't produce one, or that dispatches without knowing your building's requirements, won't get through the door — in our experience the most common reason a Miami booking fails, ahead of price. Ask directly. We do both at no extra charge.
Sometimes, and the trade is real. A good local independent often knows specific buildings best and is genuinely flexible; the trade-off is that pricing, insurance documentation and scheduling vary enormously between them. A national booking layer gives consistency but the crew is still local — ask who turns up. Neither is automatically right.
Work out which model you're being quoted by before you compare the numbers.
Almost every bad experience in this trade traces back to comparing two quotes that were never the same kind of thing — a fixed price against an estimate, a full-service number against a labour-only one, a national booking against a local crew who never got the building requirements.
Five questions fixes that, and they take one message to ask. Ask us them too — and if someone else's answers are better for your job, book them. That's a better outcome than a page of numbers we made up about a company we don't run.
Fixed from photos · no surcharges · COI for your building · we say where it went
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