Two haulers can own the same number of trucks and need completely different software. One runs a residential route, a set of commercial front-load accounts and a transfer station. The other delivers cans, does swaps, hauls junk and lives on how fast the yard turns over.
CurbWaste is built for the first one. We are built for the second, which is most of this industry. Everything below can be checked by a stranger: our price is on a public page, our API specification is machine readable before you create an account, our landfill data is openly licensed, and every claim about CurbWaste links to their own page or to named press, with the date we read it.
The number that decides it for most independents
CurbWaste does not publish prices. The most reliable public figure comes from Waste Dive, which reported in October 2025 that the company charges an initiation fee plus roughly $250 to $300 per driver per month for smaller haulers, with custom pricing above that.
That is the part worth sitting with. Their model scales with drivers, so the month you hire someone, your software bill goes up. Ours does not move. We earn when a customer pays a company by card, which means we make money when you get paid, not when you grow headcount.
Under a per driver model, hiring is a software purchase. That is a strange incentive to put in front of a company trying to grow.
Where we are a different kind of product
AI that runs the operation, today
CurbWaste announced in its Series B that it intends to build machine learning tools and a business intelligence platform. That is a credible direction from a well funded team, and as of August 2026 we found it described as a roadmap rather than a shipped feature.
Tresha ships now. It creates delivery orders and junk removal jobs from a conversation, completes deliveries, pickups and landfill runs behind a confirmation card, answers questions about revenue, and works by voice as well as chat. For an owner who is in a truck or a yard rather than at a desk, that is a different way to run the company.
A driver terminal built for the cab
Truck Tablet Mode is a second layout of our driver app, for a tablet that stays mounted in the truck. It is not the phone screen resized. The day sits in a panel on the left, the live map fills the right, a vertical rail holds the few things a driver touches while working, every control is at least 48 by 48 pixels and no text is smaller than 14 pixels. Those numbers exist because the person reading it is wearing gloves, at arm's length, in a moving vehicle.
Two things make it a different product rather than a responsive breakpoint. The tablet is paired to the company instead of to a person, so drivers identify themselves at shift change on a "Who is driving?" screen with a 4 digit PIN: one terminal can live in the truck and every stop, photo and shift hour is still attributed to the individual who did it. And the map is modelled on the roll-off cycle rather than on generic multi-stop routing. A roll-off truck carries one container at a time, so the map draws one trip at a time with its two ends numbered, a solid line when the truck is carrying a container and a dashed line when it is running empty, landfill runs drawn at the landfill instead of at the customer address the task inherited, and a trip that starts at the yard when the full container spent the night there.
Checked on September 1, 2026, CurbWaste describes its driver app as "Any device, any size". That is responsive sizing, which almost every modern web app does, and it is a different claim from a layout designed for the cab; we found no dedicated tablet layout and no driver switching on a shared device documented on their pages. Read that as absence of published documentation, not as proof that nothing exists internally.
It runs on any Android tablet or iPad. There is no proprietary hardware to buy from us, no per device fee and no contract, and the guide is public before signup at /help/driver-tablet.
An open platform
We publish a v1 API with approved keys, documented at /developers. We found no public developer platform at CurbWaste, and the only named integration on their site is QuickBooks. If you want to connect your own website, a phone AI or an internal dashboard, that difference matters more than a logo wall.
A network instead of a directory
Dumpster Net Hub lets haulers pass overflow work to each other inside the platform, with no marketplace fee. CurbWaste publishes a Company Profiles Network, which is a directory of company pages. Both are useful, but a directory lists companies and a network moves jobs and money between them.
Junk removal in the same account
Junk jobs have their own pricing by truck fraction, crew size and time window, sharing the same customers, drivers, dispatch board and books as your roll-off work. Most dumpster companies eventually get asked to haul the debris too, and most junk companies eventually buy a can.
| Dumpster Controls | CurbWaste | |
|---|---|---|
| AI that executes operations | Tresha, by chat and voice, today | Machine learning announced in the 2025 Series B |
| Create an order by prompt | Yes, with a confirmation card | Not documented |
| Voice operation | Yes | Not documented |
| Public developer API | Yes, v1 with approved keys | No public developer platform found |
| Hauler marketplace | Dumpster Net Hub, no fee | Company Profiles Network is a directory |
| National landfill database | 2,900+ facilities, open data | Facility finder, mixed facility types |
| QuickBooks Online | Yes, one way DC to QBO | Yes, the only named integration we found |
| Software subscription | $0 | Not published; ~$250 to $300 per driver per month reported |
CurbWaste site, app store listings and Waste Dive · Checked August 23, 2026
Where CurbWaste is clearly stronger
First the context that makes the rest fair. CurbWaste is a serious, well funded company: $50 million raised, around 150 hauling companies in about 40 states, serving fleets from five to two hundred vehicles. Those are their numbers and the reporting around their Series B, and they describe a company operating at a scale we are not.
Commercial and residential collection. Recurring route work is a first class part of their platform and is not a current focus for ours. If a real share of your revenue is weekly pickups, this comparison is already decided.
CurbPOS. A cloud point of sale for transfer stations: gross and tare weights, dump tickets, in house versus third party hauler cost, and they say it works with most scales on the market. If you own a transfer station, that is a serious product and we do not have anything like it.
The customer portal. A documented module for schedules, payments, history and balances. For a company with hundreds of recurring commercial accounts, customer self service is a direct reduction in office work.
Capital and traction. They have raised $50 million, including a $28 million round in October 2025 led by the venture arm of Cox Enterprises, and report roughly 150 haulers across about 40 states. That buys engineering, support and staying power, and it is a fair thing for a buyer to weigh.
| Dumpster Controls | CurbWaste | |
|---|---|---|
| Roll-off dumpster rental | Core focus | Yes, one of several service lines |
| Junk removal | Native workflow with load pricing | Not a primary documented workflow |
| Commercial front-load routes | Not a current focus | Yes |
| Residential collection routes | Not a current focus | Yes |
| Transfer station / scale house | Not offered | CurbPOS, works with most scales |
| Customer portal | Customer order portal | Strong, a documented product module |
CurbWaste product pages · Checked August 23, 2026
How to choose
Choose Dumpster Controls if dumpster rental, roll-off and junk removal are the business rather than one line of it, if you want AI you can talk to instead of a roadmap, if you want a published API your own tools can reach, if you want to buy and sell overflow work inside your software, or if you would rather put $15,000 a year into a container than into a software subscription. For most independent haulers that is the list.
Choose CurbWaste if you run residential or commercial recurring routes, if you operate a transfer station or a scale house, if a mature customer portal for hundreds of commercial accounts is central to your operation, or if you want a larger vendor with venture funding behind it and are comfortable with per driver pricing.
The honest test takes a week: run your real orders through both. You can start on our side tonight with no call and no card, which at least makes your half of the experiment free.