Bundle WasteUse your written Cleanaway quote and agreement to establish what your business will pay. A published additional-fee schedule or equipment page is not an all-inclusive collection price for every address.
This is a Bundle Waste editorial guide. It does not imply endorsement by Cleanaway, and we do not attribute an unsourced market price or saving to the company.
Cleanaway's published fees and charges
Cleanaway separates agreed service charges from additional fees and says its listed fees exclude GST unless stated otherwise. Its schedule covers weight, access, fuel, billing and cancellation charges, is shown as effective 1 July 2025, and applies on top of the collection rate in your own agreement. Figures below are taken from Cleanaway — Fees & charges, checked 21 September 2026.
| Fee | Published amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| On-call service | $40 per request | Unscheduled pickups (Solids, C&D, OTS, Health, IWS) |
| Weekend and public holiday surcharge | 15% of the standard charge, capped at $15 | Solids, C&D and Health services falling on a weekend or public holiday |
| Late payment fee | $38.70 per unpaid invoice | An invoice past its due date |
| Paper invoicing | $3 per invoice | Where billing has not moved to email |
| Equipment collection | $150 per piece of equipment, plus removal costs | Equipment removal; the page notes lower rates may be offered at its discretion for multiple items at one site |
| Fuel surcharge | Variable, recalculated monthly | Indexed to the national average diesel price, using the prior month's prices; it may rise, fall or be waived |
| Break fee (account closing fee) | Months remaining × average monthly fees × 0.3 | Ending an agreement early; Cleanaway asks customers to contact it for the specific calculation |
| Waste Plus fee | As stated in your pricing specifics | Exceeding the allowed weight or volume for the equipment supplied |
| Waste Tracker fee | As stated in your agreement | Administration of waste documentation |
| Missed service fee | The standard charge for the service | A scheduled service that could not be completed for a customer-side reason, such as blocked access |
| Credit card surcharge | As shown on the payment page | Card payments |
Two of these deserve a closer look
The fuel surcharge moves every month and is the line most often left unchecked, because it changes without anything changing at your site. Ask which month's diesel index a given invoice used. Our guide to hidden fees on waste invoices covers how surcharges stack up alongside the headline rate.
The break fee matters most if you are mid-term. Applying the published formula as an illustration only: an account averaging $1,000 a month with 18 months remaining produces about $5,400 (18 × $1,000 × 0.3). That is arithmetic from the published formula, not a quote and not a prediction of your own figure. It is also why the notice window in your agreement is worth finding before you do anything else — our guide on getting out of a waste contract works through the calendar.
Questions for your account
Match each invoice item to your Agreement Specifics and the relevant fee condition. Ask how the fuel surcharge and any excess-weight fee were calculated.
- What service, containers and collection schedule are included?
- Which charges are recurring, conditional or one-off?
- What weight, contamination and access conditions apply?
- When can the price change, and how will you be notified?
Why a large-provider bill creeps upward
Scale brings real advantages in fleet and post-collection infrastructure, but it does not automatically produce the cheapest bill for a small or mid-sized site. The pattern that shows up on long-running accounts is usually some combination of:
- Scheduled price reviews applied to a rate nobody has benchmarked since the agreement was signed.
- Rollover clauses that renew a multi-year term automatically when a narrow notice window passes unnoticed.
- Ancillary charges — equipment, site conditions, contamination, the monthly fuel surcharge — accumulating on top of the headline rate.
- Service mismatch — paying for weekly lifts on a bin that does not fill, or a bin size the site has outgrown in either direction.
None of this is particular to Cleanaway; it is how any long-running service agreement drifts. The counter is checking, line by line, what each charge is for and whether the service still matches the site.
How to pay less on a Cleanaway account
- Pull your last three invoices and mark every line that is not the collection itself — fuel surcharge, equipment charges, site fees, paper invoicing, excess weight.
- Remove the avoidable ones first. Moving to email billing removes the $3 per paper invoice, paying inside terms avoids the $38.70 late payment fee, and folding ad-hoc pickups into the scheduled service avoids the $40 on-call fee.
- Find your agreement's end date and notice window before you do anything else. Your position is strongest inside that window.
- Check the service against reality: how full each bin actually is at collection, and whether the schedule still matches how the site runs.
- Get competing written quotes for the same specification, or have a broker run that comparison across Melbourne service providers, including a revised proposal from your current provider.
If you conclude the fit is wrong, our Cleanaway alternatives comparison covers who else services the area and how a change is sequenced without a gap in collections.
Compare the full proposal
| Option | Evidence to obtain | Decision to make |
|---|---|---|
| Keep the current service | Current invoice, schedule and terms | Does it meet your requirements at the total cost shown? |
| Request a revised proposal | Written scope, fees and effective date | Are the proposed changes useful and clearly priced? |
| Consider another provider | Like-for-like quote and transition arrangements | Do the service and total cost justify changing? |
Request written confirmation of any break fee, equipment collection fee and outstanding charges before comparing the cost of leaving.
Compare annual totals with your own figures. Include any known transition costs separately and do not count collections twice when they are included in a fixed fee.
Before changing a service
Ask for written confirmation of the final collection, equipment removal, new container delivery and first collection. Keep the current service in place until the agreed arrangements are clear. Seek qualified advice if you dispute a contractual charge; this guide does not decide whether a particular term is enforceable.
Frequently asked questions
Does Cleanaway publish its prices?
How is Cleanaway's break fee calculated?
Why did my Cleanaway bill go up?
Can I negotiate with Cleanaway?
How do I cancel a Cleanaway contract?
Can a broker guarantee a lower price?
What should I send for a comparison?
Sources and scope
- Cleanaway — Fees & charges. Checked 21 September 2026. Fees and charges schedule, effective 1 July 2025, excluding GST unless otherwise stated.
- EPA Victoria — Waste levy. Checked 21 September 2026. Table 1: waste levy rates, 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, with 2025-26 comparison.
These sources describe each organisation's own published information. They do not establish Bundle Waste's relationship with that operator, and they do not establish prices for your account. Recheck the current agreement and the source before relying on a fee.
Discuss your waste service requirements · Read the waste-cost comparison guide