What a container costs around here.

You came here for a number, so the table is the first thing on the page. Nothing to fill in, no email address, no call required before you see what we charge. Under it sits the short version of what moves those figures.

Treat this as the map rather than the territory. These are the prices we quote out of the Woodlawn yard for southwest Virginia, northwest North Carolina and southern West Virginia. Where you are sets the delivery side of the total, the condition you pick sets the container side, and one phone call settles both the same day.

The numbers, first thing

Here is what steel costs delivered from our yard. Starting figures for the sizes and grades we keep on the ground, not a ceiling and not a hook.

Current as of August 2026. Every figure includes free delivery and leveling within 75 road miles of Woodlawn plus a welded lockbox. The used market moves and so does what is sitting in the yard, so call for this week's number.

Read that last column as the whole cost and not a sticker that grows on the way to the invoice. Here is what is already inside it.

• The steel. A genuine ISO container in the grade you picked: 14 gauge Cor-Ten, marine grade plywood floor, doors that seal, about thirty years of outdoor life.
• The drive and the set. Delivered and leveled at no charge inside 75 road miles of Woodlawn. Past that line we work out the mileage and say so up front.
• The lockbox. Welded on, so the padlock sits inside steel instead of hanging where a bolt cutter can reach it.
• A number that holds. What we quote is what you pay. If the drop site changes the job, you hear it on the phone, not afterward.

Two grades set those rows. Used cargo worthy is a working box with its miles showing outside and a dry, sound inside, while one trip is the like new one and costs more. Same steel either way, which is why the one trip premium is a question about paint and seals rather than durability.

Buying it, or renting and handing it back

Half the people who call already know they want to own the box. The other half are not sure the need outlasts the season, and for them the sale price is the wrong number to be staring at.

A 20-ft rents from $165 a month and a 40-ft from $235 a month, month to month, nothing signed. Delivery works the way it does on a sale, and when the job wraps you call and we haul it back.

The figure that settles it is the crossover, and it is 18 to 20 months. Keep a container longer than that and the rent you have handed over comes to about what the same used box would have cost to own, except you still do not own anything. Short of that line renting is cheaper. Past it, buying is.

So the question is how long, not how much. If you can name the month the job ends, count the months and set that against the sale price. If you cannot name it, rent. Buy or rent works the comparison all the way through, container rentals covers sizes and terms, and container sales lays out what we sell.

What your address does to the number

Distance is the one part of a container price with nothing to do with the container. A truck has to reach you and get the box off the tilt bed in one clean move onto ground that will hold it.

Our line is 75 road miles from the Woodlawn yard. Inside it, delivery and leveling cost nothing extra and already sit inside the figures above. Outside it, we work out the mileage and hand you the total before you agree to anything, which is a different experience from learning it later.

We run in three states, and each one has a page with the towns, the road miles and the local wrinkle worth knowing:

• Virginia prices, where coverage runs deepest, most of the corridor sits inside the free zone, and the state building code is usually not the hurdle people expect.
• North Carolina prices, where every town we publish falls inside the free zone, and an accessory building rule makes an early call to the county worth making.
• West Virginia prices, covering the southern counties, what we honestly reach, and how a run past the line gets priced.

The full list of towns and road miles is on the service area page. If your town is not on it, that is not a no. Call and we will measure the route.

Where the detail behind each number lives

This page is shallow on purpose. Every figure above has a real argument behind it, and stacking all of them here is how a price page turns into a wall of text that answers nothing. So each one got its own page.

• What drives container prices, the handful of things that move a quote, explained without a dollar figure on the page.
• Price per square foot, the arithmetic across our own sizes with both inputs shown, and why the 40-ft tends to win it.
• The one trip premium, what a like new container is, what the extra money buys, and who is better off skipping it.
• What modifications cost, how doors, windows, vents, insulation and wiring change the job, and which choices quietly double the work.
• The true cost of an auction container, the costs that turn up after the winning bid, and how to add them in beforehand.

Or skip the reading. Tell us the size, the grade and where it is going, and the number comes back the same day. Call (276) 237-6144, Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, or drive out to 5567 Elk Horn Rd in Woodlawn and price the exact container you are standing in front of.