Shopping around for a junk removal company in Akron usually leads to the same two names: Ohio Junk Force and 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. Both have strong reputations. Both show up on the first page of Google. Both will take your old furniture, your dead appliances, and whatever’s been cluttering your basement for ten years. So which one do you actually hire?
My name is Chris Blumfeldt. Together with my wife Shawna, I own Ohio Junk Force. We’ve been in the Ohio junk removal business since 2010. I’m writing this comparison knowing full well that I’m one of the people being compared, and I’m not going to pretend I’m unbiased. What I am going to do is walk you through the real differences between our two companies — including the spots where GOT JUNK has advantages I can’t honestly argue against — so that by the time you’re done reading, you can make a decision you feel good about.
Already Decided? Just Need a Real Price?
If you’ve already made up your mind and you just want a real Akron junk removal price, skip ahead to our pricing page: https://ohiojunkforce.com/pricing/. The online estimator will give you a genuine number in under a minute for any service we offer.
The Thing That Matters Most: How Each Company Prices a Job
If there is one category where the two companies diverge completely, this is it. Every other difference between us is downstream of this one.
When you ask Ohio Junk Force what a job costs, you get a real number. Our service pages have online estimators. You answer a few questions about what you need hauled, and the estimator produces a price before you book anything. The price is all-inclusive — crew, truck, labor, hauling, disposal, taxes. When our truck pulls away from your house after the job, the invoice matches the number you saw online. The only exception is if something on-site genuinely changes what the job is — in which case we tell you the new number before any work happens.
When you ask 1-800-GOT-JUNK? what a job costs, you get a range. A polite phone representative will tell you the actual price requires an on-site visit. The crew arrives, looks at your stuff, and delivers the real quote in person. That’s the model. It’s not hidden; it’s how they operate.
What happens next is what most comparison articles don’t talk about. When that crew is standing in your driveway and hands you a number, you are not a neutral decision-maker anymore. You have taken time off work. You have rearranged your day. You have probably dragged the old couch out to the garage so they wouldn’t have to go inside. You are, from their perspective, committed to a transaction. The only real way out is to tell everyone to pack up and leave, and then start this whole process over tomorrow with somebody else. Most customers, when handed a high on-site quote, pay it. That isn’t weakness or stupidity. That’s just human psychology interacting with a sales process designed to capture it.
See What Upfront Pricing Looks Like
Curious how a published price compares to what you’d get quoted on-site? Our pricing page has real numbers for every service we offer: https://ohiojunkforce.com/pricing/. Worth a minute even if you’re still shopping around.
A Story I Hear Some Version of Every Single Month
There’s a particular conversation I’ve had maybe fifty times with customers over the last few years, and I want to share the most recent version because it’s the cleanest example of the pattern.
A customer called a well-known national franchise junk removal company — not GOT JUNK, one of their competitors in the national branded-franchise category — about a sectional couch she needed gone. They quoted her around $299 on the phone. She agreed, and they booked the pickup.
Fast-forward to the appointment. The crew showed up, took one look at the sectional, and the price became $800.
She objected. She mentioned the $299 phone quote. Within about thirty seconds, the crew had a new number for her: $500. Not $299. Five hundred. Almost double the phone quote, offered up like the customer had won a negotiation.
She didn’t accept. She sent them off and called us. Our CSR gave her a price of $350 over the phone. When our crew finished hauling the sectional out of her house and the truck was headed back, that $350 was the amount on her receipt.
Look at the arithmetic of that job. One couch. One customer. One haul. Phone quote from a national franchise: $299. On-site quote from the same national franchise: $800. Bargained-down quote from the same national franchise: $500. Our phone-and-invoice quote: $350. The prices quoted by that one franchise company spanned a $500 range, and the “concession” they offered was still a higher price than the honest competitor quoted her from the start.
I keep hearing versions of that story. The specifics vary — couch, shed, basement cleanout, appliance, whatever — but the shape of the mathematical move is identical every time. It is why we built an online estimator with real published prices. We wanted to stop being the company people found only after they’d already been burned.
Who Actually Owns the Company You’re Hiring
This one surprises a lot of customers, and I think it’s worth understanding before you make a choice.
Ohio Junk Force is a straightforwardly independent Ohio business. Shawna and I own it. No franchise structure, no corporate parent, no royalties flowing out of state. When you hire us, you are hiring the two people who started the company and still run it.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? is a franchise model. The franchise that serves the Akron area is owned by a corporate entity that operates a portfolio of GOT JUNK franchises in multiple markets across multiple states. The employees on the trucks live and work in Northeast Ohio. The ownership of the business — and the strategic decisions about how it operates — sit with out-of-state corporate owners.
Both are legitimate business structures. Neither one is inherently bad or good. But they are different, and a lot of customers naturally assume that “1-800-GOT-JUNK? of Cleveland” means a locally-owned Cleveland business. That assumption isn’t wrong about the crews — the people on the trucks are local. It’s just incomplete about the ownership.
The Guarantee That Puts Real Money on the Line
In 2024 we decided that a good reputation wasn’t enough. We wanted something that legally committed us to the standard we were claiming.
The guarantee we launched is called the Amazing Service Guarantee. Its actual language is short: “Friendly, Professional, Dependable — or it’s FREE.” If our crew does not meet the standards of professional, friendly, and dependable service on your job, you pay nothing. No discount. No partial credit. No voucher for next time. The full job is free.
We’ve run over 2,500 jobs under that guarantee since launching it. Two of those 2,500+ jobs ended with us honoring it — meaning the crew fell short of the standard, and the customers got the work for free. That’s a real number attached to a real promise.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? has customer-satisfaction policies and a service reputation that has earned them a lot of positive reviews. I won’t misrepresent their exact terms. What I will say is this: I don’t know of any junk removal company currently operating in Ohio — including in the Akron market — offering a guarantee comparable to ours. If one exists, it hasn’t crossed my path.
What the Review Numbers Mean (and Don’t Mean)
Both companies show well in Google. Here’s what each of us actually has.
GOT JUNK’s regional franchise (which services Akron as part of its territory) sits at over 9,000 Google reviews with a strong rating. Not many small-city junk removal operations have anywhere close to that volume. It speaks to years of steady operation and a large customer base served over time.
Ohio Junk Force has 1,500+ five-star Google reviews and a perfect 5.0 average rating, from over 20,000 total jobs completed since 2010. Significantly less volume on the review count, a slightly higher rating average.
Review count and review rating measure two different things, and neither one measures what you probably actually care about. Volume tells you how many customers bought the service. Rating tells you, in aggregate, how satisfied those customers were. Neither tells you what happens on the margin — specifically, what happens when the job gets complicated, when the phone quote doesn’t match the on-site quote, when something gets scratched on the way out the door. That’s where the Amazing Service Guarantee section above matters more than either number.
Where 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Has Real Advantages Over Us
I’ve spent a lot of words telling you why I think we’re the right choice. Let me give equal space to the categories where GOT JUNK genuinely beats us, because those are real.
GOT JUNK offers Sunday service. We do not run Sundays. If you work a weekday job with Saturday commitments and the only time you have for a junk haul is a Sunday afternoon, they can help you and we can’t.
GOT JUNK offers evening pickups. We don’t. Our last crew of the day wraps up in late afternoon. If 7 PM on a Thursday is the only window that works for your schedule, we can’t accommodate that. They can.
Because GOT JUNK runs those extended hours, they sometimes have a real same-day speed advantage we can’t match. A 4 PM call to us typically means we’re booking you for tomorrow. A 4 PM call to them might mean an evening crew rolls out to your house that same day.
Sunday service, weeknight evening service, and fastest-possible same-day response — those are three categories where the right call is GOT JUNK. No argument.
Who Picks Up the Phone When You Call
Dial our number and someone in Northeast Ohio picks up. Usually Shawna. Sometimes one of our customer service reps. If you catch us after business hours, probably me. Whoever you reach knows our crews by name, knows tomorrow’s truck schedule, and can quote your job in real time on the call.
Dial GOT JUNK and you are usually routed into a centralized call center that handles bookings for a portfolio of franchise territories spanning multiple states. The representative is trained, professional, and will get your appointment scheduled cleanly. They are not in Akron. They are probably not in Ohio at all. They are working from a script optimized for booking efficiency across many markets, not for deep knowledge of the specific market you live in.
Both companies also offer online booking for customers who’d rather skip the phone call entirely, and both online systems function fine. So online-booking customers hit something close to a tie in this category. The phone experience is where the difference shows up.
What Happens to the Usable Items on Your Job
Northeast Ohio’s Cleveland Furniture Bank places donated furniture with families in need across the region — including families in the Akron area. When our crews find items that still have useful life in them during a job, we set those items aside and route them through the Furniture Bank instead of sending them to a landfill. Not every piece qualifies — most of what gets hauled is legitimately end-of-life — but the pieces that can be saved, get saved.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? has corporate-level recycling and donation programs. Individual franchises sometimes participate in local donation partnerships. What actually happens to donation-quality items from a given job depends on the specific franchise operator’s program.
The Full Comparison, Side by Side
Summary of everything above:
| What You Care About | Ohio Junk Force | 1-800-GOT-JUNK? |
| Price published before booking | Yes | No |
| 60-second online estimator | Yes | No |
| Price on invoice matches phone quote | Yes | Not always |
| Written guarantee | Friendly, Professional, Dependable — or it’s FREE | Standard satisfaction policies |
| Ownership type | Ohio-owned, independent | Multi-state corporate franchise |
| Operating since | 2010 | Franchise model |
| Phone answered locally | Yes — usually Shawna or a CSR | No — centralized call center |
| Online booking | Yes | Yes |
| Monday–Saturday service | Yes | Yes |
| Sunday service | No | Yes |
| Evening pickups | No | Yes |
| Rush fees | Never | Varies |
| Google review count | 1,500+ | 9,000+ |
| Google rating | 5.0 | Strong |
| Local donation partner | Cleveland Furniture Bank (serves Akron) | Varies by franchise operator |
Want to Run the Numbers Yourself?
Head to our pricing page and plug in your job: https://ohiojunkforce.com/pricing/. Compare that number to what anybody else quotes you. If we’re not the better deal for your specific job, we’d rather you know that up front than find out the hard way.
My Honest Call on Which One You Should Hire
I’ll make it easy instead of giving you wishy-washy conclusions:
Hire 1-800-GOT-JUNK? if your deciding factor is scheduling. If you need Sunday service, evening service, or the fastest-possible same-day response from a late-afternoon call — those are genuine advantages and the honest answer is they’ll serve you better.
Hire Ohio Junk Force if your deciding factor is pricing honesty, ownership, or accountability. If you want to see the real price before a truck is in your driveway, if you care about keeping your money with an Ohio-owned business, or if you want a guarantee serious enough that we’ve actually honored it with free jobs — we’re the better choice.
That’s the honest answer. No hedging. Pick whichever set of priorities fits your situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Ohio Junk Force owned by people from Ohio?
Yes. Ohio Junk Force was founded and is owned by Chris and Shawna Blumfeldt — Ohio residents who started the company in 2010 and continue to operate it directly. It is not a franchise, does not pay royalties to a national brand, and has no corporate parent outside of Ohio. Hiring Ohio Junk Force means putting your junk removal dollars with an Ohio-owned independent business.
Who owns 1-800-GOT-JUNK? in the Akron area?
The GOT JUNK franchise servicing the Akron market is not owned by an Akron-area resident. It is owned by a corporate entity that operates a portfolio of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchises across multiple cities and states. The employees driving the trucks live in Northeast Ohio. The people making the ownership and operational decisions do not.
Why won’t 1-800-GOT-JUNK? just tell me the price on the phone?
Their business model is structured around in-person quoting. Their stated reason is that accurate pricing requires seeing the job in person. The practical result for you is that you won’t know the real price until the truck is already at your home, which reduces your ability to comparison-shop before committing. We built our published pricing and online estimator specifically because we thought customers deserved the real number before booking the service.
Am I going to save money with Ohio Junk Force vs. GOT JUNK?
In the majority of customer comparisons I’ve personally heard about, yes, often significantly. I’ve had customers report being quoted double or triple our price by national franchise competitors for identical jobs. I can’t guarantee we’ll be cheaper on your specific job because I can’t see what their on-site quote would be. What I can guarantee is that our price is published up front and doesn’t change when the crew arrives. If you want to compare, get a real quote from both of us — and make sure the GOT JUNK number is firm, not a range.
Do you do all the same jobs GOT JUNK does?
Almost all of them, yes. Furniture, appliances, electronics, mattresses, estate cleanouts, garage and basement cleanouts, hot tub removal, shed removal, deck demolition, piano hauling, and light demolition work — all covered. The categories they handle that we don’t are evening pickups and Sunday pickups.
How fast can Ohio Junk Force get to an Akron-area job?
Same-day and next-day service are both common during our Monday-through-Saturday daytime hours, and we never charge rush fees — our same-day rate is just our regular rate. During peak summer season (roughly June through August) bigger jobs can stretch out by a day or two. Call (440) 577-6010 and we’ll give you specific availability. If your need is a Sunday or weeknight evening pickup, GOT JUNK beats us on scheduling — we can’t match those hours.
Is the Amazing Service Guarantee something I can actually hold you to?
Yes. The terms are simple: if our crew is not professional, friendly, and dependable on your job, you pay nothing. Full refund. We introduced the guarantee in 2024, and since then we’ve run more than 2,500 jobs under it. Two of those ended with us honoring it — the customer got the job for free because the standard wasn’t met. It is a real guarantee with a real track record of payouts. No asterisks, no fine print.
What happens to furniture I’m throwing out that’s still in decent shape?
We try to donate it. Our partner is the Cleveland Furniture Bank, which distributes donated furniture to families in need across Northeast Ohio, including the Akron area. When our crew spots a piece on your job that has useful life left in it, we try to route that piece through the Furniture Bank. Most of what we haul is genuinely past donation quality — that’s usually why it’s being thrown out in the first place — but the items that can be saved are worth saving.
Ready for a Real Price?
If the comparison above has you ready to move, our pricing page is where you start: https://ohiojunkforce.com/pricing/. The online estimator will give you a real price for your Akron-area job in under 60 seconds, for any service we offer.
Prefer to talk to a person? Call or text (440) 577-6010. You’ll reach Shawna, one of our CSRs, or me. Whoever answers can quote the job on the phone and book a crew for it.
Comparison accurate as of April 2026. Either company’s policies and service offerings can change; we update this post when that happens.
— Chris & Shawna Blumfeldt, Ohio Junk Force