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Scrap metal calculator

Pick your metal and grade, enter the weight, and see what it comes to at today’s live UK rates. No sign-up, no email.

  • Free to use
  • 200+ verified UK buyers
  • No sign up
  • Copper
  • Brass/Bronze
  • Cables
  • Aluminium
  • Iron
  • Stainless Steel
  • Lead
  • Miscellaneous
  • Select a material type first
KG
Today’s indicative price
Sell your material

Indicative only · Final price confirmed by licensed buyer.

How to get the most for your scrap

The calculator gives you the arithmetic. Everything that changes the answer in the real world comes down to how your material turns up at the yard.

  • Sort by metal and by grade. A mixed load is graded at the rate of its weakest component across the entire weight — sorting is the single biggest lever you have.
  • Strip attachments. Steel brackets, plastic fittings and rubber seals are either deducted or drop the material into a lower grade.
  • Weigh before you go. Knowing roughly what you have tells you whether the trip is worth making and gives you a reference point at the weighbridge.
  • Keep non-ferrous well away from ferrous. Copper windings inside a motor are worth many times the steel around them.
  • Compare buyers rather than taking the nearest yard’s first offer. Rates differ with haulage costs, volumes and what each buyer is currently short of.
  • Never burn insulation off cable. It is a criminal offence in the UK and burnt copper is graded down anyway.

Check the live rates by metal

Full grade tables, market drivers and selling advice for each metal.

Calculator questions

Everything you need to know about the product and billing.

It multiplies the live per-kilo rate for the grade you select by the weight you enter, converting tonnes or pounds to kilos first. The rates are the same live figures shown on our price pages, refreshed every trading day, so the answer reflects today’s market rather than a stale table.

Treat it as an indication rather than a quote. The figure assumes your material is clean, correctly graded and sorted. In practice, offers vary with condition, contamination, how much you have and where you are. The way to find out what your specific load is worth is to let buyers bid on it.

It helps a great deal, because grade is the biggest single factor in price. If you are not sure, our per-metal price pages explain what separates one grade from another, with the everyday items that fall into each. When in doubt, calculate with the lower grade so you are not disappointed.

Bathroom scales work for smaller quantities — weigh yourself holding the material and subtract your own weight. For anything substantial, a cheap digital luggage or platform scale is more accurate. Yards weigh on a calibrated weighbridge, so treat your own figure as an estimate for planning.

Run the numbers before you set off. At ferrous prices in particular, a small load can be worth less than the fuel to deliver it. Non-ferrous metals like copper and brass are worth far more per kilo, so a smaller quantity can still justify the trip. The calculator is the quickest way to check.

Copper, consistently — clean bright wire sits at the top of the table. Brass and bronze follow, then stainless steel, aluminium and lead, with iron and steel the lowest by weight. Select each metal in the calculator to compare today’s rates directly.

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