The same contract, applied to the same household's own numbers, can retain a very different share depending on how large the sale turns out to be. Run one company's schedule against a $12,000, a $4,000, and a $2,000 estimated sale and the total retained goes 37.92% → 58.75% → 87.50% — not because the contract changed, but because a flat fee stack does not shrink with the sale and a tiered commission charges its highest rate first.
Same company throughout: 40% commission on the first $2,000 of sales, 30% on the next $6,000, 25% above that, plus a flat $400 setup/staging fee, $250 credit-card processing fee, and $300 haul-away/donation fee — $950 in flat fees regardless of sale size.
| Estimated gross sale | Commission-only rate | Flat fees as % of sale | Total retained | Family nets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $12,000 | 30.00% | 7.92% | 37.92% | $7,450.00 |
| $4,000 | 35.00% | 23.75% | 58.75% | $1,650.00 |
| $2,000 | 40.00% | 47.50% | 87.50% | $250.00 |
Figures computed by this calculator's own shipped arithmetic, not estimated for this page.
The commission tiers front-load the highest rate. The 40% tier only covers the first $2,000 of any sale, so a $2,000 sale never reaches the cheaper 30% or 25% tiers at all — its blended commission-only rate is a full 40.00%. A $12,000 sale spreads far enough into the 25% tier that its blended rate drops to 30.00%, even though every dollar is priced from the identical schedule.
The flat fees do not move with the sale. $950 in setup, processing, and haul-away fees is a fixed cost of running the sale at all — it is 7.92% of a $12,000 sale and 47.50% of a $2,000 sale, the same dollars measured against very different totals.
Together they mean the household with the smaller estate loses the larger share of it, from the same written contract a larger estate would sign.
Run the company's actual schedule against your own estimated gross sale total, not a round number from the conversation — the calculator this page links to does the tier and fee arithmetic for you. If the estimate is uncertain, as it usually is before the sale happens, run it at both a low and a high estimate; a contract that looks reasonable at $12,000 can retain most of a $2,000 sale under the same terms. If the flat-fee stack looks large relative to your estimate, that is a specific, answerable question to put to the company before you sign — not a reason to assume anything improper, since setup, processing, and disposal are real costs the company incurs whatever the sale total turns out to be.
Because setup/staging, credit-card processing, and haul-away/donation fees are usually flat dollar amounts, not percentages. A $950 fee stack is a fixed cost regardless of whether the sale brings in $12,000 or $2,000, so it is 7.92% of the larger sale and 47.50% of the smaller one — the same dollars, a much bigger share of a smaller household.
Yes, in the opposite direction from what a headline rate suggests. A tiered schedule (for example 40% on the first $2,000, 30% on the next $6,000, 25% above that) charges its highest rate on the first dollars of any sale, so the blended commission-only percentage falls as the sale gets larger: 40.00% on a $2,000 sale, 35.00% on a $4,000 sale, 30.00% on a $12,000 sale in this calculator's own worked example — before the flat fees are even added.
It rises, and both effects push the same direction: the commission tiers charge their highest rate first, and the flat fees do not shrink with the sale. On this calculator's own worked example, the same company's schedule and $950 fee stack retains 37.92% of a $12,000 sale, 58.75% of a $4,000 sale, and 87.50% of a $2,000 sale.
That the flat-fee stack is worth asking about directly, not just the commission percentage — and that a company's schedule is worth running against your own estimated sale total rather than a round number from a conversation, since the same contract can retain very different shares depending on how large the sale actually is.