How the Dumpster Price Index is built

Everything below is what we actually do. If it changes, this page changes first.

Where the numbers come from

Every price in the Index is a price a company publishes on its own website. We read the site, extract the size and the listed price, and record the page we took it from. We do not call for quotes, and we do not estimate — a company with no published price contributes nothing to the Index.

What counts

Independently owned roll-off companies and locally owned franchises in the United States. National carriers and brokers are excluded, so the Index measures the independent local market rather than the whole industry. It is built from 3,542 prices across 1,140 companies.

How a price is validated

A published price is only used when the company's sizes form a consistent ladder — a 30-yard costing less than a 10-yard means we mis-read the page, and the whole company is excluded until a person checks it. Roughly 8% of companies get held back this way.

A price is also only used when something corroborates it: either the company lists several sizes that cross-check each other, or the figure came from a genuine pricing table. A lone number pulled from a sentence is not enough.

What the median means

We publish the median, not the average, because a handful of very high commercial rates would drag an average upward and misrepresent what a homeowner pays. The typical range shown is the 25th to 75th percentile. No median is published on a sample smaller than 8 companies.

Known limitations

• Published prices are usually starting prices. Delivery distance, placement and disposal of heavy material can all push the final invoice higher.
• Companies that publish prices may not be representative of those that don't. Roughly one in five publishes at all.
• Prices change and pages go stale. Every figure carries the date it was checked.
• Coverage is thinner in rural states, where fewer companies publish anything.

Corrections

If a price here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — claim the listing and say what it should be. Corrections are free and do not require anything in return.

Reuse

The Index is free to use and quote with attribution to the Dumpster Price Index. CSV and JSON are published alongside it.

Last updated 2026-07-30.