Equipment prices taken from manufacturer sites and resale listings on 2 November 2026; business figures are sellers’ own claims, quoted with their dates
A seven-year-old residential bin cleaning company in the Kansas City area is on the market for $145,500. Its broker lists gross revenue of $106,499, equipment worth $80,000, and a trailer valued at $72,000 on its own. Read the listing closely and it also says a new owner can “net over $100K” running the route themselves, which would mean almost no expenses at all on $106,499 of sales. Somewhere between that trailer value and that profit claim is the honest answer to what bin cleaning equipment costs and what it can earn.
Three ways to get a rig on the road
Lease one. In 2022, two West Fargo, North Dakota maths teachers and one of their sons started a side business by leasing a used power-wash trailer that had belonged to a bin cleaning company in another town. Only after the business proved itself did they drive to Detroit to buy a trailer of their own. Leasing first is the cheapest way to find out whether your neighbourhood will pay for clean bins.
Buy used. Lightly used trailers appear as operators change direction. One North Carolina listing asks $32,000 for a garbage can cleaning trailer built in 2023, and a single-bin trailer with only 41.8 hours of use has been offered as part of a business asset sale. Check pump hours, burner condition if it has one, tank seals, the lift mechanism and the trailer’s title before paying.
Buy new. Prices from manufacturers that publish them:
| Trailer | Build | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Kraken bin cleaning unit (no trailer) | Equipment to mount yourself | From $9,999 |
| Kraken Eco Cold Water | Cold-water trailer | $24,999 |
| The Bin Trailer Single Cold | Single axle, up to 4,000 PSI, 275-gallon tank | $29,999 |
| Kraken Trailer Combo | One or two spinning cleaning heads | $39,999 to $44,999 |
| The Bin Trailer Double Hot | Tandem axle, diesel burner for hot water | $45,999 |
| Utah Bin Blasters | Assisted-lift or hydraulic, 380-gal clean and 325-gal grey tanks | $55,000 to $63,000 |
| Trash Bin Cleaners Direct Titanium | 17-stage water recycling | $99,995 (list $119,995) |
Two price rises in one year
One maker’s prices show how quickly this equipment has been getting dearer. The Bin Trailer’s Single Cold appeared at $27,999 on pages indexed around March 2026, at $28,999 by about May, and sits at $29,999 today. Its Double Hot followed the same steps from $42,999 to $44,999 to $45,999. That is roughly a 7 percent rise inside a year, in $1,000 and $2,000 jumps, so a quote from last spring is no longer a quote.
Set against the Kansas City listing, the gap is telling. A $72,000 trailer is not an entry rig; it is at the heavy end of the market, and its owner built a seven-year customer base before selling. A $25,000 to $30,000 cold-water trailer is what most new routes actually start with.
Claims worth checking before you buy
- Net profit higher than it can be. A listing that claims more than $100,000 net on about $106,000 gross is asking you to ignore fuel, chemicals, insurance, repairs and the truck. Ask for tax returns, not a summary.
- Germ-kill percentages. One trailer maker explicitly warns operators not to promise customers a bacteria-kill figure just because their equipment heats water. If a seller’s marketing leans on one, ask for the test behind it.
- Payback in months. The same maker states on its price page that it guarantees no customer count, daily throughput or payback period. Treat any payback timeline as a projection, and build your own from local prices and route density; the method in our snow removal pricing formula guide, cost per stop times stops per day, works the same way here.
The dirty water question
Every trailer in the table carries a grey-water tank for a reason: the rinse water from a garbage bin cannot simply run into the street drain in most places. Before buying, ask your city where you may dispose of it and whether a permit is needed. A rig with a bigger grey tank or onboard recycling costs more but means fewer trips to dump.
Where Alibaba fits
Chinese manufacturers do build bin washing systems, mostly static washers and truck-mounted units for municipal fleets, but in our research they quoted on request rather than publishing unit prices for a US-style residential trailer. Until a supplier publishes a comparable price, we have left Alibaba out of this comparison rather than guess.
FAQs
How much is a trash bin cleaning machine? New trailer-mounted rigs from US manufacturers cost tens of thousands of dollars, as the prices above show, and an established business with equipment was listed at $145,500 in late 2026.
Can I make $100,000 a year cleaning bins? Be sceptical of such claims: one listing claimed a new owner could net over $100,000 from $106,499 of sales, which would imply almost no expenses.
What do I need besides the rig? A suitable tow vehicle, wastewater handling that meets local rules, insurance, marketing and route planning.
What happens to the dirty water? It must be collected and disposed of according to local rules, as explained above; do not drain it into storm drains.
New trailer prices, tracked daily
The tracker reads three manufacturers’ published prices every day; the orange markers are The Bin Trailer’s earlier 2026 prices.
| Tracked listing | Configuration | Latest price | Previous price |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Bin Trailer Single Cold | Single axle, cold water up to 4,000 PSI, 275-gal tank | $29,999 | Unchanged since Nov 2, 2026 |
| The Bin Trailer Double Hot | Tandem axle, hot water diesel burner | $45,999 | Unchanged since Nov 2, 2026 |
| Kraken Eco Cold Water trailer | Cold water bin cleaning trailer | $24,999 | Unchanged since Nov 2, 2026 |
If you are choosing between cleaning businesses, our look at industrial dry ice blasting costs covers a very different end of the same trade, and our car wash machine cost breakdown shows what a fixed vehicle wash takes to build.
Sources: BizQuest Kansas City bin cleaning listing, The Bin Trailer price guide and West Fargo Focus, September 2022, plus Kraken Industries, LoopNet and published industry cost guides. Business figures are sellers’ claims and were not independently verified.
