The short answer
Both companies will take your junk away. The difference is the pricing model.
JunkRabbit publishes flat per-item prices and a flat truck-fill ladder. You see the number on screen, you book at that number, and it does not move when the crew arrives and sees your stairs. A sofa is $126. A queen mattress is $103. A fridge is $164. A full truck is $732. The visit minimum is $75.
The traditional model in this industry is an on-site estimate: a truck comes out, someone looks at the pile, and you are quoted then. That model is perfectly legitimate. It just means the moment you find out the price is the moment the truck is already parked on your block.
Why that distinction matters more in Richmond than elsewhere
In a metro of driveways and garages, an on-site estimate is a minor inconvenience. In Richmond, a lot of the housing stock is the exact kind that makes an estimator pause.
Fan and Museum District rowhouses have steep straight stair runs with a quarter-turn landing at the top. Church Hill and Union Hill houses sit on raised basements with long exterior steps. Oregon Hill blocks are tight and the rear access is an alley, if there is one at all. Jackson Ward and Manchester have a mix of narrow historic doorways and converted upper floors.
Those are precisely the conditions under which a walk-around quote tends to come in higher than the same pile would in a Short Pump two-car garage. With published flat pricing, the Fan third floor and the Short Pump garage are the same $126 for the same sofa. The access problem is our problem to solve, not a variable in your price.
What we publish
Every one of these is a live price, the same across the metro:
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Sofa / couch | $126 |
| Sectional (3-piece) | $185 |
| Mattress — queen | $103 |
| Mattress + box spring set | $143 |
| Refrigerator (standard) | $164 |
| Washer | $133 |
| Dryer | $128 |
| TV (42" to 65") | $68 |
| Treadmill | $115 |
| Hot tub / spa | $322 |
| Upright piano | $290 |
And the volume ladder when a pile is easier to measure by truck space than by item: quarter truck $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732.
How the booking actually goes
You list what you have, or send photos, and you get a total. If the list is long, you are quoted whichever is lower — the sum of the items or the truck-fill tier your load lands in. Then you pick a window.
Nobody arrives to give you a number. The crew arrives to do the work, already knowing what they are walking into, because you told us it is a third-floor Fan apartment with a tight landing and street parking that only opens up after nine.
That is the practical benefit of pricing before dispatch: the conversation on the day is about logistics, not money.
What we do not do
We do not add a stair charge. We do not add a walk-up fee. We do not add a same-day surcharge. We do not quote low over the phone and revise it in your driveway.
Disposal is included in every price on the list. When you see $164 for a refrigerator, that is the removal, the carry and the disposal together.
Where a traditional on-site estimate is still reasonable
To be fair about it: if you genuinely do not know what you have — a West End estate with a full attic, a basement, a garage and forty years of accumulation, where nobody has opened half the boxes — an on-site look has value, because you cannot describe what you have not seen.
Our answer to that case is the same truck-fill ladder. You describe roughly how much space it fills, you are quoted a tier, and if the load turns out smaller than expected, you are charged the smaller tier. Big unknown jobs are still quotable in advance; they just get quoted by volume instead of by item.
A worked Richmond example
A Museum District couple downsizing a guest room and a den:
- Sleeper sofa $149
- Dresser (standard) $126
- Queen mattress $103
- Box spring $92
- TV (42" to 65") $68
- Bookshelf $72
The addition: $149 + $126 + $103 + $92 + $68 + $72 = $610. A full truck is $732 and this load does not fill one, so item pricing is the cheaper of the two and $610 is the quote. You know that before anybody drives down Grove Avenue.
The bottom line
Pick whichever company you like. Just decide in advance which pricing model you want to be standing in. If you would rather see the number while you are sitting on the sofa you are getting rid of — rather than while two people are looking at your staircase — published flat pricing is the model that does that.
In Richmond specifically, where so many of the homes have the access conditions that make on-site quotes unpredictable, that is worth something.
Frequently asked questions
Do you charge more for stairs than a competitor would?
We charge nothing for stairs. A sofa is $126 on the ground floor of a Tuckahoe ranch and $126 on the third floor of a Fan rowhouse. There is no stair charge in our pricing at all.
Is the online price binding?
Yes. The price you book at is the price you pay, provided the list matches what is actually there. If you add items on the day, those items are added at their published prices.
What if I do not know exactly what is in the basement?
Use the truck-fill ladder instead of the item list. Quarter truck $241, half $431, full $732. Describe the volume, get the tier, and if it turns out to be less you pay the lower tier.
Is there a minimum charge?
$75 per visit. That is the floor whether you have one nightstand or one bag of clothes.
Do you serve Henrico and Chesterfield as well as the city?
Yes — the same published prices apply across the Richmond metro, from Short Pump and Glen Allen through the city to Midlothian, Bon Air and Chester.