SOURCED AND DATED, LINE BY LINE

Hauler Hero vs Docket: which dumpster software should you choose?

A fair comparison of two vendors, from their own pages, with the URL and the date on every line. Where Hauler Hero wins, where Docket wins, and where Dumpster Controls fits at $0.

• Hauler Hero: price not published, demo required
• Docket: price not published, demo required; card rates 3.0% or 2.8% + 30c
• Dumpster Controls: $0 a month for any fleet size, card processing only
• Facts checked between 2026-08-23 and 2026-09-23; re-verified every 90 days

Create your free accountSee every published price

4.7 on the App Store (12 ratings, Sep 2026) Available in all 50 US states and Canada

Last updated September 28, 2026 Published by Dumpster Controls, built by a software group led by a founder with 20+ years in enterprise IT who also ran a roll-off business for four years

Neither Hauler Hero nor Docket publishes a price; both sell through a booked demo. The difference is what each is built around. Hauler Hero's core is recurring residential and commercial collection, with roll-off as the third of four industry pages, billing in cycles with autopay and ACH, and three AI products (Hero Vision, Hero Chat, Hero Routing) that its own home page calls prototypes in testing. Docket started as a roll-off product in 2019, added front-load and residential routes with its March 2026 rebrand, and ships an AI router, IronRouteAI, in production since the end of 2025. If roll-off is your main business and you want AI routing today, Docket. If your revenue is recurring routes billed in cycles, Hauler Hero.

Both have a driver app on Google Play; Docket is also on the App Store, and a Hauler Hero App Store listing was not found in a search on 2026-09-23. Docket publishes its card rates (3.0% or 2.8% + 30c, ACH 1%) and documents its QuickBooks Online integration; Hauler Hero's QuickBooks details were not covered by our research. Hauler Hero documents four partner APIs with credentials from an account manager; no Docket API documentation was found on 2026-08-24. Dumpster Controls is the free third option, described near the end.

How to read this page: every claim about Hauler Hero or Docket links to the page it came from and shows the date we read it. "Not found" means we looked on that date at the URLs listed and did not find it, which is not proof that a capability does not exist. Prices are quoted in the vendor's own words. Where we did not research a line, the cell says so instead of guessing. If we got something wrong, write to daniel@dumpstercontrols.io and we will correct it with a dated note.

Hauler Hero, Docket and Dumpster Controls, side by side

The third column is ours. Its facts are checkable without an account: the pricing page, the public manual, the App Store listing and the developer documentation are all linked from each cell.

Competitor lines from their own pages and the public app stores, checked on the date shown in each cell. Published September 24, 2026. Re-verification is scheduled every 90 days.

Where Hauler Hero wins

Recurring routes and cycle billing are the core, not an add-on. Billing cycles, exclusive payments groups and batch entry of cash and check payments are on Hauler Hero's billing page, and its customer portal lets customers manage autopay and store card and ACH payment methods. Docket's plan rows say Streamlined Billing, Payments and ACH, with account statements added in December 2025.

There is API documentation, even if it is for partners. docs.haulerhero.com documents four APIs (Account, Scale, Site, Vision), with credentials requested from your account manager. For Docket, no public API documentation was found at the three URLs we tried on 2026-08-24.

The driver app describes truck inspections before and after every shift and an offline mode. Docket's driver app is in both stores, and its dispatch page describes an SMS with an ETA and a live map for the customer.

A scale integration is published: MyTruckScales and Strong Data to sync weights instantly. Docket's published integrations are QuickBooks Online, Mailchimp, Samsara, Verizon Connect and Dumpsters.com.

Municipal work is a published segment. Hauler Hero has a Governments industry page, and TechCrunch (2026-02-10) describes a growing municipal focus alongside $27 million raised.

Where Docket wins

AI routing is in production, not in testing. IronRouteAI shipped publicly at the end of 2025 after about a year in beta with over 100 customers, and weighs dump fees, materials, bin sizes, distance, fuel, driver wages and overtime. Hauler Hero's home page describes Hero Routing, Hero Vision and Hero Chat as prototypes in testing and development now.

Roll-off is where it started. Docket was founded in 2019 as a dumpster product, and DocketShop sells a dumpster from the hauler's site with zip-code pricing and material selection. Hauler Hero's roll-off page covers fee templates, violation notes and duplicated recurring orders, and roll-off is its third industry page after Commercial and Residential.

The driver app is in both stores: Docket - Work Simplified on iOS (version 4.6.0, updated 2026-08-05, 30 ratings) and Docket on Android (5K+ downloads). Hauler Hero Road is on Google Play; an App Store listing was not found in a search on 2026-09-23 and the mobile page carries no store links.

The money lines are printed. Card 3.0% + 30c on Grow, 2.8% + 30c on Pro, ACH 1%, SMS 500 or 1,000 messages a month. Hauler Hero's site prints no software price, and Capterra and Software Advice list it as contact vendor.

QuickBooks Online is documented. Docket's support article describes a primarily one-way integration with sync buttons and batch actions. Hauler Hero's QuickBooks sync was not covered by our research, so we make no claim either way; the difference is that Docket's is checkable today.

Where the table does not settle it

Dispatch boards, driver apps, container tracking, online ordering and invoicing exist on both products and, by their own descriptions, work. A checkbox does not say whether the implementation is good on a Tuesday with two trucks down. We do not compare app store ratings here: at least one of the two has no store listing we could verify, and a missing listing says nothing about the product. The only reliable test is a week of your real orders on each.

Two things we deliberately do not claim about either vendor: how their interfaces feel, because that is opinion, and whether a capability we did not find exists internally, because absence from a website is not absence from a product. Neither vendor is in any sense abandoned: both publish current pages and sell actively as of the dates in the sources below.

Where Dumpster Controls fits

Dumpster Controls costs $0 per month for any fleet size, with no order, user, truck or feature limit; the company earns only when a customer pays by card, 2.99% + $3.99 per transaction on the free plan or 2.99% + $0.30 on the optional $169 per month Unlimited plan, and cash or check orders carry no fee. That is the whole pricing page. Against Hauler Hero at Not computable, price not published a year and Docket at Not computable, price not published, the software line of the budget goes to zero, and the card line depends on how your customers pay, so compare that line too.

Everything else about it can be checked before you sign up, which is the standard this page holds the other two vendors to. Signup is self-serve: name, email and password, no card and no demo, documented in the public manual, and the whole app runs in English, Spanish or Portuguese, chosen per user. Canadian companies run in Canadian dollars on their own Canadian Stripe account, with a fee of 0.5% + C$2.00 per card transaction on top of Stripe's rate, per the Canada guide. There is a public REST API with an OpenAPI specification at /developers and signed webhooks, capped on the free plan at 10 minutes of API time and 200 leads per day. The landfill database covers 2,916 facilities with tipping fees and is published as open data. And the Dumpster Net Hub lets hauling companies pass whole jobs to each other with no listing fee and no percentage cut.

For a company running its own roll-off or junk removal trucks, that is why Dumpster Controls is the pick over both: the software line goes to zero and nothing sits behind a higher tier. Tresha, the built-in assistant, creates orders and completes deliveries, pickups and landfill runs by chat or voice, behind a confirmation card, on the free plan. A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server at mcp.dumpstercontrols.io/mcp connects the account to Claude on the web, desktop and phone, open to every company, with a ChatGPT app in preparation, as documented at /developers/mcp; none of the other dumpster platforms we track publishes an MCP server (checked 2026-09-28). Support is the same on every plan, with no paid tier: tickets from inside the app at any hour, answered within 24 hours, a public manual of 326 articles, and Tresha around the clock. It is built for roll-off, junk removal and scrap metal, the business this page is written for.

The individual pages carry more depth on each vendor: the Hauler Hero alternative page and the Docket alternative page, plus the price index of every vendor that publishes a price.

Hauler Hero vs Docket: FAQ

Sources

Every URL cited on this page, with the date we read it. Competitor pages open in a new tab. Nothing here comes from a review aggregator or a directory entry; where a vendor's own site contradicts itself, we quote both versions.

1. Hauler Hero pricing: https://www.haulerhero.com/pricing (checked 2026-09-23)
2. Hauler Hero sales model: https://www.haulerhero.com/ (checked 2026-09-23)
3. Hauler Hero product age: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/hauler-hero-collects-16m-for-its-ai-waste-management-software/ (checked 2026-09-23)
4. Hauler Hero, dispatch and routing: https://www.haulerhero.com/industry/roll-off (checked 2026-09-23)
5. Hauler Hero, driver app: https://www.haulerhero.com/features/mobile (checked 2026-09-23)
6. Hauler Hero, invoicing and payments: https://www.haulerhero.com/features/billing (checked 2026-09-23)
7. Hauler Hero, public api: https://docs.haulerhero.com/ (checked 2026-09-23)
8. Hauler Hero, self-serve signup: URL tried 6 of 6: https://www.haulerhero.com/features/customer-portal (checked 2026-09-23)
9. Hauler Hero on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.haulerhero.driverapp (checked 2026-09-23)
10. Hauler Hero integrations: https://www.haulerhero.com/scale-integration (checked 2026-09-23)
11. Hauler Hero self-reported figures: https://www.capterra.com/p/10006624/Hauler-Hero/ (checked 2026-09-23)
12. Docket pricing: https://www.yourdocket.com/pricing/ (checked 2026-08-23)
13. Docket headquarters: https://www.yourdocket.com/about-us/ (checked 2026-08-23)
14. Docket product age: https://www.prweb.com/releases/servicecore_expands_roll_off_capabilities_with_acquisition_of_docket/prweb19312005.htm (checked 2026-08-23)
15. Docket, dispatch and routing: https://www.yourdocket.com/dumpster-rental-software/ (checked 2026-08-23)
16. Docket, driver app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/docket-work-simplified/id1463097846 (checked 2026-08-23)
17. Docket, online booking: https://www.yourdocket.com/features/online-ordering/ (checked 2026-08-23)
18. Docket, quickbooks: https://support.yourdocket.com/hc/en-us/articles/29340817444365-Integrating-Quickbooks-Online-with-Docket (checked 2026-08-23)
19. Docket, public api: URL tried 1 of 3: https://www.yourdocket.com/api (checked 2026-08-24)
20. Docket, public api: URL tried 2 of 3: https://www.yourdocket.com/developers (checked 2026-08-24)
21. Docket, public api: URL tried 3 of 3: https://developers.yourdocket.com/ (checked 2026-08-24)
22. Docket, ai: https://www.yourdocket.com/ironrouteai-route-optimization-dumpster-haulers/ (checked 2026-08-23)
23. Docket on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.docket_mobile&hl=en_US&gl=US (checked 2026-08-23)
24. Docket integrations: https://www.yourdocket.com/website-online-booking/ (checked 2026-08-23)
25. Docket integrations: https://www.yourdocket.com/docket-boost/ (checked 2026-08-23)
26. Docket self-reported figures: https://www.yourdocket.com/ (checked 2026-08-23)
27. Dumpster Controls pricing: https://dumpstercontrols.io/pricing (checked 2026-09-24)
28. Dumpster Controls sales model: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/getting-started/create-your-account (checked 2026-09-24)
29. Dumpster Controls headquarters: https://dumpstercontrols.io/about (checked 2026-09-24)
30. Dumpster Controls, dispatch and routing: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/dispatch (checked 2026-09-24)
31. Dumpster Controls, driver app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dumpster-controls/id6476944277 (checked 2026-09-23)
32. Dumpster Controls, online booking: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/online-booking (checked 2026-09-24)
33. Dumpster Controls, quickbooks: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/quickbooks (checked 2026-09-24)
34. Dumpster Controls, public api: https://dumpstercontrols.io/developers (checked 2026-09-24)
35. Dumpster Controls, ai: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/tresha (checked 2026-09-24)
36. Dumpster Controls, marketplace: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/hub (checked 2026-09-24)
37. Dumpster Controls, canada: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/canada (checked 2026-09-24)
38. Dumpster Controls on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dumpstercontrols.app.twa (checked 2026-09-24)
39. Dumpster Controls integrations: https://dumpstercontrols.io/help/api (checked 2026-09-24)
40. Dumpster Controls self-reported figures: https://dumpstercontrols.io/llms.txt (checked 2026-09-24)

Topicshauler hero vs docket docket vs hauler hero hauler hero pricing docket dumpster software waste hauling software comparison