Whole-unit move-out clears start at $325 for a quarter truck and top out at $985 for a full one — studio through three-bedroom, priced by volume rather than by the bedroom count on your lease. A single leftover sofa or mattress starts at the $75 minimum. We carry it down from the unit, there's no stair fee, and Arizona adds no sales tax on the service.
Snap a photo of the unit — one number back, no stair fee, no tax line
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →A full-unit clear isn't priced per item — it's priced by how much of the truck the contents fill. That's the honest unit of measure, because two people can live in identical one-bedrooms and leave behind wildly different amounts of stuff. A lease says "2BR"; a truck says "five eighths." We quote off the second one.
Send a photo of the rooms and you get the exact flat price up front — loading, carry-out and disposal included. There's no stair fee, no same-day surcharge, and because Arizona doesn't tax the junk-removal service, no tax line at checkout. Here's the ladder the quote comes from:
| Truck fraction | Price | Roughly what fits |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 truck | $325 | A stripped studio — bed, a small sofa, a few boxes |
| 3/8 truck | $455 | A furnished studio or a light one-bedroom |
| 1/2 truck | $580 | A lived-in one-bedroom, or a two-bedroom that's already been thinned out |
| 5/8 truck | $690 | A full two-bedroom with the closets included |
| Full truck | $985 | A three-bedroom, or a unit left fully furnished |
$75 minimum. Loading, carry-out and disposal included; no stair fee. No Arizona sales tax on the service. A photo gives the exact number — these are the tiers, not a range we negotiate on site.
Deliberately, you won't find a "1-bedroom = $X" price on this page. Bedroom count doesn't predict volume, and a company that quotes off it either pads the number or revises it in your hallway. We publish the tiers and read your photo against them.
Plenty of move-outs don't need a truck — they need the two things that won't fit in a friend's SUV. Those are flat-priced individually:
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| TV (medium) | $91 |
| Box spring | $124 |
| Queen mattress | $139 |
| Futon | $139 |
| Mini fridge | $155 |
| Dresser | $169 |
| Sofa / couch | $170 |
| Bagged & boxed junk — 10 bags | $178 |
| Bagged & boxed junk — 15 bags | $264 |
| Bagged & boxed junk — 20 bags | $348 |
$75 minimum applies. Send everything in one photo and it prices as a single job rather than as a stack of separate item charges — which is usually the cheaper answer once you're past three or four things.
For outside context: 2026 market surveys put a typical metro Phoenix junk-removal job at roughly $226–$237. Locally, College HUNKS is commonly cited at about $350–$500 for a half truck and $600–$800+ for a full one. Those are third-party figures; ours are the published tiers above.
| Option | Cost | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Leave it by the dumpster | Looks free — isn't | The complex's hauler removes it and bills it back to the lease-holder, typically out of the deposit, usually at more than a flat-price pickup |
| City of Phoenix bulk appointment | Free | Built for single-family curbs, capped at 4 collections a year, booked 3 business days out, out no more than 7 days early — multi-family properties are generally on private contracts instead |
| Donation pickup | Free | Conditional on condition, scheduled days out, and pickups rarely come from inside a third-floor unit — you're usually carrying it down to meet them |
| U-Haul + a transfer-station run | Rental + fuel + $55/ton gate rate | 27th Avenue or North Gateway only — the SR-85 Landfill is City-owned and not open to the public. Then you load, drive, and unload it yourself, in 110° heat if it's May through September |
| JunkRabbit | $325–$985 by truck fraction · items from $75 | None — carried from the unit, no stair fee, flat photo price, no AZ service tax |
If you own a house in Phoenix, the city's bulk service is at least an option. If you rent an apartment, it mostly isn't — and this is the gap that catches people at lease end.
The City of Phoenix bulk trash service — officially "uncontained trash" — is appointment-based: a maximum of four collections per calendar year, booked up to three business days out, with items set out no more than seven days ahead. Every part of that design assumes a single-family curb: a house, a frontage, a resident who controls the strip of ground in front of it. Multi-family properties are generally serviced under private hauling contracts rather than city curbside collection, which means the program most residents have vaguely heard of isn't the one that applies to their building.
What replaces it, in practice, is the trash enclosure — and a trash enclosure is not a bulk drop. It's contracted for bagged household waste at a set container volume. Leave a mattress, a sofa or a broken dresser beside the dumpster and the property's hauler removes it as an out-of-contract pickup, then the property charges it back to the lease-holder. That charge lands on your final statement or comes out of your deposit, and it's routinely more than what a flat-price pickup would have cost — with the added indignity that you already did the carrying. Some complexes fine on top of the removal cost. Read your lease's bulk-item clause; nearly every Valley lease has one.
Two more caveats worth stating plainly. First, the suburbs are not Phoenix — Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Glendale and Peoria each run their own bulk programs with their own schedules and caps, and none of them is a substitute for reading your own city's page. Second, your complex has its own rules on top, and those are the ones your deposit answers to. More on Valley bulk-trash and community rules →
The physical job in a Phoenix apartment is almost always about the last fifty feet, and the metro has two very different versions of it.
The walk-up belt. The older garden-apartment and student stock along Apache Blvd and Mill Ave in Tempe, through Midtown and the Central Ave corridor, is overwhelmingly two- and three-story with no elevator. A queen set, a sleeper sofa and a full-size dresser have to come down an exterior staircase, and that is the entire reason people put things next to the dumpster instead. We carry it down — from the third floor, the second floor, anywhere — and there is no stair fee. The price on your quote is the price whether your unit is on the ground floor or the top one.
The tower belt. Tempe Town Lake, Downtown Phoenix and Old Town Scottsdale are the opposite problem: there's no curb at all, everything moves through the loading dock, and the building controls access. These properties typically require a Certificate of Insurance — commonly at least $1M general liability, naming the management company or association as additional insured — on file before a vendor may use the freight elevator, plus a reserved elevator and dock window booked in advance. We file the COI and book the window as part of the job. It's coordination, not a surcharge, and it's the difference between a move-out that happens on the scheduled day and one where the front desk turns your hauler away in the lobby.
An apartment clear-out is mostly reusable goods, so the sorting matters. Furniture and household items in usable condition are routed to donation — Goodwill of Central & Northern Arizona, St. Vincent de Paul, Habitat for Humanity ReStore and Salvation Army all take resellable pieces across the Valley, and a receipt is available on request if you want the deduction. TVs, monitors and computers are pulled from the general load and sent to e-waste channels rather than buried. Metal — bed frames, shelving, that IKEA rack that survived three leases — goes to scrap recycling. Mini-fridges, the signature student-move-out item, get EPA-certified freon recovery before the shell is scrapped.
Mattresses we'll be straight about: Arizona has no statewide mattress-recycling mandate, so unless a mattress is in genuinely donatable condition — and most move-out mattresses are not — it's disposed of at a transfer station rather than recycled. We'd rather say that than put a green claim on a page it doesn't belong on.
"Third floor off Apache, no elevator, and I had a queen set and a sleeper sofa to get rid of before Friday. They carried all of it down and never mentioned a stair charge. Flat price from the photo I sent the night before."
"My old complex charged me for a mattress by the dumpster once. Not making that mistake again — this time I got a real price up front and it was less than what that charge-back cost me."
"I manage turns downtown and the COI and the freight elevator are always the bottleneck. They filed it and booked the window themselves. The unit was empty the day I needed it."
How much does an apartment cleanout cost in Phoenix?
By truck fraction: $325 a quarter, $455 three eighths, $580 a half, $690 five eighths, $985 full. A stripped studio usually lands at $325–$455, a lived-in one-bedroom around $580, a full two-bedroom around $690, a three-bedroom up to $985. Single leftover items from the $75 minimum.
Is there a stair fee?
No. Walk-ups are the norm here and we carry down from any floor at the same flat price.
Can I just leave it by the dumpster?
Please don't. The complex's hauler removes it out of contract and bills it back to the lease-holder — often more than a flat-price pickup, and usually out of your deposit.
Does the city's bulk program cover my apartment?
Generally not. Phoenix's appointment-based service (4 collections a year, 3 business days out, out no more than 7 days early) is built for single-family curbs; multi-family properties are typically on private contracts. Suburbs and individual complexes set their own rules.
Can you come same-day during the ASU move-out?
Often, and at the same flat price — same-day isn't a rush fee. We run Tempe hard through early May; book ahead if your key handover is on a fixed date.
Do you handle high-rise COIs and freight elevators?
Yes — Town Lake, Downtown and Old Town towers. We file the COI (typically $1M GL naming management) and reserve the elevator and dock window. No surcharge.
Where does everything go?
Donation first (Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, Habitat ReStore, Salvation Army) with a receipt on request; e-waste separated; metal recycled; mini-fridges freon-recovered. Mattresses are disposed of — Arizona has no recycling mandate for them.
No. Most Valley apartments — especially the older stock along Apache Blvd, Mill Ave, Midtown and the Central Ave corridor — are three-story walk-ups with no elevator. We carry everything down from any floor at no extra charge; the flat price is the same as a ground-floor unit.
No — and it's the most expensive mistake renters make here. A complex's trash enclosure is contracted for bagged household waste, not bulk. A mattress or a sofa left beside the dumpster gets removed by the property's own hauler and the charge is billed back to the lease-holder, usually out of the deposit and usually at more than a flat-price pickup would have cost. The City of Phoenix bulk program doesn't cover it either.
Apartment residents get the least out of it of anyone. City of Phoenix bulk trash — the city's term is uncontained trash — is appointment-based, capped at four collections per calendar year, booked up to three business days out, with items set out no more than seven days ahead, and the whole thing is oriented to a single-family curb. Multi-family properties are generally on private hauling contracts instead. Suburban cities and individual complexes each set their own rules, so check your lease and your city.
Often yes, when a slot is open, at the same flat price — same-day is not a rush fee. During the early-May ASU move-out we run Tempe hard, so same-day is frequently available even in the busiest week of the year. Book ahead if your key handover is on a fixed date.
Yes. Tempe Town Lake, Downtown Phoenix and Old Town Scottsdale towers typically require a Certificate of Insurance — commonly at least $1M general liability naming the management company or association as additional insured — plus a reserved freight elevator and a loading-dock window. We file the COI and book the window as part of the job; it isn't a surcharge.
Usable furniture and household goods go to donation — Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, St. Vincent de Paul, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Salvation Army — with a receipt on request. TVs, monitors and computers are separated for e-waste channels, metal is recycled, and mini-fridges get EPA-certified freon recovery. Mattresses are disposed of honestly: Arizona has no statewide mattress-recycling mandate.