Per-item price lists tell you what a sofa costs. They don't tell you what emptying your actual apartment costs. Here are five representative Miami jobs with every line shown — and each one priced twice, so you can check which way the arithmetic falls.
Studio $470 · one-bed condo $661 · storage locker $587 · three-bed house $1,070
Upload Photos & Get Quote →Everyone searching this question wants one number, and every page they find gives them a table of items instead.
The gap is that nobody's apartment is one item. Knowing a sofa is $126 doesn't tell you what a furnished one-bedroom costs, because the answer depends on how many pieces there are, how much space they occupy, and which of the two pricing models ends up cheaper.
So this page does it the other way round. Five jobs, each with its contents listed, each costed both ways, with the winning number shown. The per-item catalogue is here if you want it — this is the layer above it.
Two models run in parallel on every job, and you get the cheaper one.
Itemised — each object at its published price, added up.
Volume — total cubic yards, matched to a truck tier: 4 yards $241, 6 yards $338, 8 yards $431, 10 yards $513, 12 yards $587, 14 yards $661, and a full 16-yard load $732. Beyond one truck, additional loads price at the same rates.
You never have to work out which applies. Both are computed from your photographs and the lower one is quoted. The examples below show both numbers precisely because it's the part people can't easily check for themselves.
Small apartment, tenant leaving, everything going.
| Item | Price | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Sofa | $126 | 3.5 cu yd |
| Mattress + box spring, as a set | $143 | 2.0 |
| Bookshelf | $72 | 1.0 |
| Medium loose pile | $129 | 2.0 |
| Itemised total | $470 | 8.5 cu yd |
| Truck rate for 8.5 cu yd (10-yard tier) | $513 |
Quoted: $470. Itemised wins by $43, because four pieces is below the crossover. This is the shape where per-item pricing is genuinely better.
The commonest job we quote in Miami, and the one people most want a number for.
| Item | Price | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Sofa | $126 | 3.5 cu yd |
| Mattress + box spring, as a set | $143 | 2.0 |
| Dresser | $126 | 1.5 |
| Dining table (large) | $129 | 2.0 |
| Large loose pile | $208 | 4.0 |
| Itemised total | $732 | 13.0 cu yd |
| Truck rate for 13 cu yd (14-yard tier) | $661 |
Quoted: $661. The truck rate wins by $71 — one extra item past the studio and the arithmetic has already flipped.
Contents packed rather than arranged, which changes the density.
| Item | Price | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Mattress + box spring, as a set | $143 | 2.0 cu yd |
| Dresser | $126 | 1.5 |
| Bookshelf | $72 | 1.0 |
| Large loose pile (boxes) | $208 | 4.0 |
| Medium loose pile | $129 | 2.0 |
| Itemised total | $678 | 10.5 cu yd |
| Truck rate for 10.5 cu yd (12-yard tier) | $587 |
Quoted: $587, the truck rate by $91. Boxed contents almost always favour volume pricing, because boxes itemise badly and stack densely.
Past a single truck, which is where people expect the price to jump alarmingly and it doesn't.
| Item | Price | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Two sofas | $252 | 7.0 cu yd |
| Mattress + box spring set, plus a queen mattress | $246 | 3.5 |
| Two dressers | $252 | 3.0 |
| Dining table (large) | $129 | 2.0 |
| Refrigerator | $164 | 1.5 |
| Large loose pile | $208 | 4.0 |
| Itemised total | $1,251 | 21.0 cu yd |
| One full truck ($732) plus a 6-yard tier ($338) | $1,070 |
Quoted: $1,070, saving $181. Additional trucks price at the same rates — there's no penalty for crossing into a second load, which is the thing most people assume and get wrong.
Worth including because it's the most common enquiry and the answer is short.
A sofa on its own is $126. A queen mattress is $103. A bookshelf is $72. The minimum job is $75, so anything below that still prices at $75.
But before booking a single sound item, check the free routes. A donation collection costs nothing for something clean and structurally sound, and where your address is eligible for a municipal bulky-waste collection that costs nothing too — the free-routes guide works through all of them.
We'd rather you used one of those for a single good piece than paid our minimum for it.
Pulling the four jobs together, since they map the boundary quite precisely.
Four pieces at 8.5 cubic yards: itemised wins by $43.
Five pieces at 13 cubic yards: the truck wins by $71.
The flip happens somewhere between them, and it depends on density rather than count — bulky-but-cheap items push you into volume pricing faster than expensive compact ones. A large loose pile at $208 occupies four cubic yards; a refrigerator at $164 occupies one and a half.
That's why a storage locker full of boxes favours the truck rate while a studio with four substantial pieces doesn't.
Worth stating because these are the things people expect to be charged for.
The floor you live on. A twenty-eighth-floor unit and a ground-floor one with identical contents are quoted identically. No stair charge, no elevator fee.
The distance from the loading dock to the truck. No long-carry fee.
Where in Miami-Dade you are. No zone pricing and no fuel surcharge, from Kendall to Sunny Isles.
Whether your building needs a certificate of insurance. Produced at no charge — though it does change your timeline, which is the one thing a tower genuinely costs you.
Four things, all of them about the contents rather than the address.
How much is actually going. A partly cleared apartment costs far less than a furnished one — you pay for what leaves, not for the square footage.
Density. A room of boxed books is much less volume than a room of light furniture at the same visual fullness.
Category. Construction debris is $120 a cubic yard and yard waste is $88 — both price separately from household contents.
The spaces people forget. Balcony, storage locker, the cupboard nobody opened. These are why a quote moves on the day, and photographing them prevents it.
Around $470 fully furnished, less if partly cleared. Usually the shape where itemised pricing wins.
About $661 furnished. The crossover point — truck rate typically wins by a small margin.
Between the one-bed and the house figures, depending on how much is going. Photograph both bedrooms and any storage.
Around $1,070 for a full clear. Additional trucks price at the same rates, so crossing into a second load costs no premium.
A 5×10 packed is about $587. Boxed contents favour volume pricing almost every time.
$75 minimum, sofa $126, queen mattress $103. Try the free routes first for anything sound.
For whole jobs, roughly $470 to $1,070 across the common property types. A studio being emptied is $470; a furnished one-bedroom about $661; a 5×10 storage locker around $587; a three-bedroom house about $1,070. Single items are much less — $75 minimum, sofa $126. Each whole-job figure is the lower of the itemised total and the truck-volume rate, which is how every quote is calculated.
About $661 furnished. Itemised — sofa $126, mattress set $143, dresser $126, large dining table $129, large loose pile $208 — comes to $732. By volume it's around thirteen cubic yards, the seven-eighths tier at $661, so the truck wins by $71 and that's quoted. Partly cleared is considerably less, because you pay for what leaves rather than the size of the apartment.
It flips at around five pieces. A studio's four items at 8.5 cubic yards is $470 itemised against a $513 tier — itemised wins by $43. Add a couple of pieces and it reverses: a furnished one-bedroom is $732 itemised against a $661 tier, truck wins by $71. You never have to work it out; both are computed and the lower is charged.
Because price follows what leaves, not the apartment. Two identical one-bedrooms differ by hundreds if one is fully furnished and the other has had the good pieces taken already, or if one still has a full balcony and storage locker. Density matters too. The floor, the elevator and the dock distance change none of it — there are no stair, elevator or long-carry charges.
Not in price. Identical contents cost the same on the twenty-eighth floor as at ground level — no stair charge, elevator fee, long carry or fuel surcharge, and no fee for a COI. What a tower changes is the timeline: a COI and reserved elevator take days and can't be compressed. Same money, more lead time.
The minimum is $75 and a genuinely small job costs exactly that. Sofa $126, queen mattress $103, bookshelf $72. Before booking at the low end, check the free routes — a donation collection is free for a sound item, and municipal collection is free where your address is eligible. We'd rather you used those than paid our minimum for one good piece of furniture.
Price the contents, not the property — then photograph the spaces you'd forget.
Every number on this page came from a list of objects, not from a floor plan. That's why two identical apartments can differ by hundreds of dollars, and it's why the single most useful thing you can do before asking anyone for a quote is open the balcony door and the storage cupboard.
Send photographs of everything that's actually going and the figure you get back will be the lower of two calculations, fixed before anyone arrives, and it won't move because of which floor you live on.
Both models calculated · charged at the lower · fixed before we arrive
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