How Owner-Operators with a Tow Rig Earn $1,500–$5,000 Per Big-Asset Job with USA Federal Junk Removal

If you run a tow truck, a rollback, or a heavy-duty pickup with a gooseneck, you already own the equipment most haulers need to clear $1,500 to $5,000 per job. Since 1993, USA Federal Junk Removal has dispatched jobs to independent operators across 38,000 cities — dead motorhomes, flooded boats, condemned mobile homes, demo trailers — everything too big for a scrap yard to come get and too expensive for the owner to deal with alone. You haul it, we pay you, the customer never knows your name. No branding required, no website, no answering the same pricing question forty times a week.

I've worked with guys who started with one flatbed and a borrowed winch. Three years later they're running two trucks and turning down work. The model's simple: we feed you jobs in your coverage area, you give us a price to haul, we add our margin and quote the customer, job gets approved, you show up and do what you already know how to do. Direct deposit hits your account within days of completion.

What We Dispatch (and What They Pay)

Most of our big-asset calls fall into a few categories. A dead Class A motorhome usually runs the customer $4,000 and up — your cut depends on distance to the dump, whether you need a second guy, if the tires are flat. I had a guy pull a 38-foot Fleetwood out of a Commerce, OK driveway last month; it had been sitting since 2019, wasps in the dash, all four duals rotted. He brought a buddy with a backhoe to winch it onto his lowboy trailer, charged $3,200 for the haul, and the whole job took five hours including the landfill wait.

Boats are consistent money. We start most boat removals at $1,299 to the customer; if it's a 24-foot cabin cruiser with a seized trailer, your take might be $900 after our dispatch fee. Travel trailers from $1,099 customer price, jetskis from $549, hot tubs from $1,050. The real money's in the weird stuff — a semi tractor with no title ($2,599 starting customer price), a double-wide mobile home that code enforcement red-tagged ($3,599 and up). Last week we dispatched a Palmyra, VA job: a 16-foot utility trailer full of construction debris and a riding mower with no wheels. Customer paid $1,400, hauler took $950, done in an afternoon.

Why Operators Join Our Network Instead of Going Solo

Running your own junk-removal brand sounds good until you're spending twenty hours a week on Google Ads, answering calls at 9 PM from someone who wants a refrigerator moved for $40, and explaining why you can't haul a motorhome for $200 because their cousin said so. We handle all of that. You get a text or email: 32-foot Class C in Enid, needs to go to county landfill, customer approved $2,800, are you available Thursday? You reply yes or no. That's the whole sales process.

We've been online since 2003, and we rank for the searches people actually type when they've got a dead RV in the side yard. When AT&T needs a shipping container moved off a cell tower site, when State Farm's got a totaled travel trailer to clear from a claim property, the call comes to us. We distribute that work to haulers who've proven they'll show up on time, send a photo when it's done, and not leave a transmission pan in the customer's driveway. Do that consistently and you'll get more pings than you can handle.

What You Need to Qualify

You don't need a CDL for most of this work, but you do need a truck that can handle 8,000 to 15,000 pounds and the common sense not to drag a motorhome down a residential street at 45 mph. A rollback or a flatbed with a winch covers 80% of our dispatch board. If you've got a gooseneck trailer and a one-ton dually, even better — that's mobile-home and container territory.

Insurance is the non-negotiable. We require general liability, and if you're hauling commercially most states want your truck covered under a commercial auto policy. The Department of Transportation has interstate rules if you cross state lines; if you stay local it's usually simpler, but know your state's requirements through your motor vehicle services office.

We don't require you to haul every job type. Some guys only want boats. Some won't touch mobile homes because the permitting is a hassle. That's fine. Tell us your lanes and your geography and we'll ping you when it matches.

How the Money Works

We don't pay hourly and we don't take a percentage of your invoice. Here's the structure: you quote us your price to do the job (haul, dump fees, labor, whatever it costs you plus your margin). We add our dispatch and customer-service fee — usually 25% to 40% depending on job complexity — and quote the customer that total number. Customer approves, you do the work, you send us a photo of the load at the landfill or scrap yard, we process payment. Most haulers see money in their account within 72 hours, sometimes same day if it's a corporate client.

A guy running a single truck in a mid-sized market can realistically clear $6,000 to $12,000 a month on our jobs alone if he stays busy. Add your own local accounts and you're looking at a sustainable one-man operation without the overhead of a storefront or a call center. I know operators who've paid off their trucks in two years doing nothing but our big-asset removals.

The Jobs Nobody Else Wants (and Why You Should)

Most small-time junk haulers turn down motorhomes and mobile homes because they're intimidating. They're not, they're just big. A Class C on a Ford E450 chassis is basically a box truck with a bed over the cab — you winch it, you chain it, you haul it. If the tires are flat, throw some plywood under the wheels and drag it. The customer's already decided to get rid of it; they're not going to complain about cosmetic damage to a rig that's headed to a crusher.

Mobile homes are even easier than people think. Most single-wides come apart in two or three sections if you know where the marriage line is. A Sawzall, a mini excavator, and a rolloff dumpster, and you're golden. Yeah, there's HUD regulations on disposal if it's an older unit with asbestos siding, but your county landfill will tell you if they accept it or if you need an abatement cert. Do one demo and you'll realize it's just repetitive work — siding, insulation, frame. We've got haulers who do nothing but mobile home teardowns and they're booked six weeks out.

What the Process Looks Like from Your End

• You apply on our Become a Hauler page — tell us your equipment, your coverage area, what you will and won't haul.

• We vet you — quick call, insurance check, maybe a test job if you're new.

• Jobs start coming — text or email with the details, customer-approved price, pickup address, dump location.

• You confirm or decline — no penalty for saying no, but reliability gets you first dibs on future pings.

• You haul it — coordinate timing with the customer (we give you their number), load it, haul it, dump it.

• You document it — photo of the empty property or the load at the landfill scale, text it to our dispatch line.

• You get paid — direct deposit, usually inside a week, often faster.

No uniforms, no branded truck wrap, no project manager breathing down your neck. You're an independent contractor doing what you already do, just with a steady pipeline.

Why We've Lasted Since 1993 (and Why That Matters to You)

We've hauled for Chick-fil-A, Frito-Lay, and State Farm. A couple years ago we pulled a shipping container off an AT&T site in Nebraska — it had been converted into an equipment shack, then abandoned when they upgraded the tower. Our hauler made $4,100 on that job and the customer never blinked because we're on their approved vendor list. Corporate work pays on time, every time, and we've spent thirty years building those relationships so you don't have to cold-call a procurement department.

We also cover 38,000 cities. That's not marketing fluff — we've got operators in towns you've never heard of, and when a job pops up in your coverage zone, you get the ping. A guy in rural Kansas gets just as much work as a guy outside Phoenix because we're pulling from a national customer base.

One of our haulers left a five-star review last year: 'Very professional and completed the job fast.' That's the standard. Show up when you say you will, haul what you said you'd haul, don't leave a mess. Do that and you'll have more work than you can handle.

Get Started

If you've got a truck, a trailer, and the itch to stop scraping by on Craigslist calls and tow-lot auctions, this is the simplest way to add $1,500 to $5,000 per job to your income. No franchise fees, no territory buy-in, no mandatory monthly minimum. Just work when you want it and walk away when you don't.

Apply on our Become a Hauler page — tell us what you run and where you run it. Or call 405-698-4285 and ask for dispatch. We'll walk you through it. We've been doing this since 1993, and we're not going anywhere.

---

FAQ

Do I need a CDL to haul motorhomes and boats for USA Federal? Not for most jobs. If you're under 26,000 lbs combined weight and staying intrastate, a regular driver's license usually works. Check your state's motor vehicle department if you're near the threshold.

How much does USA Federal take from each job? We add 25% to 40% to your quote depending on job type and customer tier. You quote $2,000 to haul a Class C, we might quote the customer $2,700. Your $2,000 is guaranteed once the job's approved.

What if the customer cancels or the job turns out to be bigger than described? If it's bigger, you re-quote before you touch it and we go back to the customer. If they cancel after you've driven out, we have a kill-fee policy that covers your windshield time. We don't leave haulers holding the bag.