Updated November 2026 · Southern New Hampshire
Document shredding services, compared side by side
Drop-off, pickup, witnessed and hard drive destruction each fit a different job, and the cheapest one is not always the right one. This page puts them next to each other, with prices, so you can pick in a couple of minutes.
Every service is shredded at our Tewksbury office and ends with a Certificate of Destruction.
- 99¢ per pound drop-off
- 3 pickup zones
- $1.99 per pound witnessed
- Since 2007
Quick answer
New Hampshire Document Shredding offers four document shredding services, all performed at its office at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA: drop-off at 99 cents per pound with no appointment, pickup at the same rate plus a $129.95, $159.95 or $199.95 zone fee, witnessed shredding at $1.99 per pound with a $100 minimum, and hard drive and media destruction quoted per item. Choose drop-off if you can carry the boxes, pickup if you cannot, witnessed if you must see it happen, and media destruction for anything with a chip or a platter.
- Side-by-side table
- Decision guide
- The four services
- Cost by service
- Who each fits
- Booking
- Packing
- FAQ
If you want the overview of who we are and where we shred, start with our document shredding home page. This page is for the next step: you already know you need something shredded, and you want to know which of our services to book.
Every document shredding service, side by side
Read across a row to see what a service costs and how it works. Read down a column to compare one thing, such as whether you need an appointment, across all of them.
| Service | Price | Appointment | Who moves the boxes | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drop-off | 99¢ per lb, or $15 small and $20 large box at 10+ boxes | No, weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | You drive them to Tewksbury, we unload | Households, small offices, anyone within a short drive |
| Off-site pickup | Same shredding rate plus $129.95, $159.95 or $199.95 by zone | Yes | We collect them from your home or office | Large cleanouts, busy offices, the Seacoast |
| Witnessed | $1.99 per lb, $100 minimum | Yes | You bring them and stay to watch | Legal, HR, sensitive estate papers |
| Hard drives and media | Quoted per item | Bring with paper or book | Bag it separately from paper | Old computers, phones, backup tapes, discs |
| Residential | Drop-off or pickup rates | Only for pickup | Your choice | Tax years, bank statements, a parent’s papers |
| Medical | Drop-off, pickup or witnessed rates | Only for pickup or witnessed | Your choice | Practices needing a BAA and a certificate |
| Office cleanout | Box rates at 10+ boxes plus zone fee | Yes | We collect them | Moves, closures, annual purges |
All of them carry the same $34.90 in per-job fees: a $14.95 HIPAA filing fee that covers the Certificate of Destruction paperwork and a $19.95 environmental fee that covers recycling the shred. Every service ends with the same certificate, and every sheet is shredded at the same Tewksbury office. The only real differences are how the boxes travel and whether you watch.
Notice what is missing from the table. We do not shred at your curb or inside your building, and we have no counter or drop box in New Hampshire. If a page somewhere tells you otherwise about us, it is out of date. Our shredding rates page lists every price in one place.
Which service fits your job: a four-question guide
Most customers can answer this on the phone in under a minute. The diagram below is the same set of questions we ask at the counter, in the same order.
Why media comes first
Paper and electronics follow different rules and different prices. A box that mixes old files with a laptop drive gets split at the counter anyway, so sort it at home. Drives, phones, USB sticks, CDs and tapes are physically destroyed and quoted per item.
Why witnessed is second
Some people do not just want the paper gone. They need to say, in writing or in court, that they saw it destroyed. If that describes your situation, the cost per pound matters less than being in the room, and nothing else on this list gives you that.
Why the car question matters
If the boxes fit in your car and you can spare an hour on a weekday, drop-off is almost always the cheapest route. A banker’s box of paper weighs about 30 pounds, and our staff help you unload at the door.
What stairs change
Pickup prices assume ground-level or elevator access. Third-floor walk-ups, tight basements and storage cages add a handling fee. We quote it before you book, so the number on your confirmation is the number you pay.
The four core services in detail
Everything else on this page, from estate work to medical offices, is one of these four with a different set of papers in the box.
No appointment
Drop-off
99¢ per pound
Drive to Route 38 in Tewksbury, park out front, and we weigh and take your boxes. Paper is shredded the same business day.
Full details on drop-off shredding.
Appointment
Pickup
$129.95 to $199.95 trip fee
We collect the boxes and shred them in Tewksbury. Shredding is billed at drop-off rates on top of the zone fee.
Full details on off-site shredding.
Appointment
Witnessed
$1.99 per pound
Watch your material go through the shredder at our office and see the certificate signed in front of you. $100 minimum.
Full details on witnessed shredding.
Per item
Media
Quote per item
Hard drives, tapes, CDs, USB sticks and phones are physically destroyed. Tell us what you have and we quote it.
Full details on hard drive destruction.
Drop-off, in practice
This is the service most New Hampshire households use. From Salem or Pelham the drive is about 15 to 20 minutes, and you do not need to call ahead. Under 10 boxes we charge by the pound, so one box is about $29.70 in shredding. At 10 or more boxes you can switch to $15 per small box or $20 per banker’s box.
Pickup, in practice
Pickup makes sense when the volume is large, when nobody can leave the office, or when you are on the Seacoast and the drive eats half a day. The zone sets the trip fee: $129.95 for the border towns, $159.95 for greater Nashua and Manchester, $199.95 for the Seacoast and farther north. We confirm your zone when you book.
Witnessed, in practice
You book a time, bring your boxes to Tewksbury, and stand where you can see the shredder. It costs about twice the drop-off rate per pound since it ties up the machine and a staff member for your job alone. For a single box it hits the $100 minimum.
Media, in practice
Bag drives and devices apart from your paper. We quote them by the item and destroy them physically. Pulling a drive out of an old desktop usually takes a screwdriver and a few minutes, and our guide to secure hard drive disposal shows how.
What each service costs for the same job
Same paper, same per-job fees, five different routes. This is where the choice gets real, because the gap between services shrinks or grows with the size of the job.
Look at the single box first. Dropped off, it costs $64.60. Picked up in Zone 1, it costs $194.55, three times as much, because the trip fee is the bill. Witnessed, the $100 minimum applies and the total is $134.90. For one box, driving is the clear winner unless you cannot leave the house.
At 100 pounds, about three boxes, drop-off is $133.90 and witnessed is $233.90. The Zone 3 pickup is $333.85. If you are in Portsmouth or Dover, that gap is roughly the cost of a long afternoon on I-95 and I-495, and only you know what your afternoon is worth.
At ten boxes the box rate changes the picture. Ten banker’s boxes dropped off cost $234.90. The same job picked up costs $364.85 to $434.85 depending on zone. Witnessed is the outlier here at $631.90, because witnessed is always billed by the pound and 300 pounds at $1.99 adds up.
Two costs are left out of the chart on purpose. Media is quoted per item, so it depends on what you bring. Stairs or restricted access add a handling fee to a pickup, and that is quoted before you book. Neither one appears as a surprise on the day.
So the rule of thumb holds. Small jobs: drive. Big jobs: the pickup fee shrinks as a share of the bill. Watch only the boxes you truly need to watch, and send the rest through drop-off or pickup. For a deeper cost breakdown, read shredding cost and our guide to pickup cost by distance.
Who each service fits
Here is what we usually suggest to each kind of customer who calls. Treat it as a starting point, not a rule.
Households
Drop-off, almost always. A household job usually fits in the back of a car. Our residential shredding page covers what to keep, and the guide on home office shredding helps if you run a business from the house.
Executors and families
Drop-off for a few boxes, pickup for a house full. Witnessed if siblings want to be sure. Start with estate cleanout shredding and hold back recent statements until the estate attorney says they can go.
Medical and dental practices
Pickup for routine purges, drop-off for a few boxes, witnessed for a records audit. Ask for a BAA. See our medical shredding service page and the practice-focused notes on dental office shredding.
Law firms
Pickup for closed files in bulk, witnessed when a client or court order calls for it. Our page on law firm shredding covers file closeout timing.
Accountants and tax preparers
Drop-off after tax season for a small practice, pickup for a firm. The Safeguards Rule applies to you. Read shredding for accountants before your post-season purge.
Real estate and property managers
Pickup once or twice a year for closed deal files and rental applications, which often hold credit reports. See real estate office shredding.
Schools and tutoring centers
Pickup in summer, when staff have time to sort old student and staff files. Our page on school records shredding explains timing.
Counselors and therapists
Witnessed or pickup, with a BAA. Session notes deserve the extra care. Read mental health records shredding.
Offices on the move
Pickup with box rates, plus media for retired computers. Plan it with office cleanout shredding a few weeks before the movers arrive.
Not on the list? The industries we serve page covers more fields, and the same four services apply to all of them.
How booking works for each service
Drop-off needs no booking at all. The other three take a few minutes online or on the phone. Here is the sequence for a pickup, which has the most steps.
- Count your boxesA rough count is fine. Tell us whether they are small boxes or banker’s boxes, and roughly how full.
- Give the address and accessWe confirm your zone from the address. Mention stairs, a basement or a loading dock so any handling fee is quoted now.
- Pick a timeBook online or call (978) 636-0301. Pickups outside 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. can sometimes be arranged by appointment.
- Hand over the boxesHave them sealed and stacked by the door. They go back to Tewksbury for shredding after pickup.
- Keep the certificateYour Certificate of Destruction arrives with the job. File it with your retention records.
Drop-off skips all of this. Come in any weekday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., pull up out front, and we weigh the boxes while you wait. Payment and paperwork take a few minutes, and the paper is shredded the same business day.
For a witnessed session, the steps are the same except you bring the boxes and stay. For media, list the items so we can quote them. Our shredding pickup checklist is a one-page printout for whoever will be at the door.
Packing for any service
The prep rules are the same for every paper service. They are shorter than most people expect.
| Leave it in | Take it out |
|---|---|
| Staples and paper clips | Three-ring binder hardware |
| Binder clips and rubber bands | Hanging-folder frames |
| Manila file folders | Anything that is not paper |
| Envelopes, sticky notes, receipts | Drives, discs and USB sticks (bag them separately) |
- Use boxes you can lift. A full banker’s box is about 30 pounds.
- Close the lids or tape the tops for a pickup.
- Keep anything you still need in a different room until the boxes are gone.
- Write “media” on the bag with your drives so it does not end up in a paper box.
Unsure what belongs in the box at all? Our list of documents to shred first and the document retention guide will save you from shredding a deed you meant to keep. The full prep walk-through is in how to prepare documents for shredding.
Special jobs and how we handle them
Some jobs do not fit neatly in one row of the table. These are the ones we hear about most.
A one-time purge
You can come once, or once a year. There is no contract to sign and no minimum number of visits. Our page on the one-time shredding service covers how a single cleanout works, and one-time vs scheduled shredding helps offices decide how often to book.
Water-damaged papers
Basement floods leave boxes of damp files that nobody wants to sort. Call before you bring them so we can tell you how to pack them. Our guide to wet documents covers drying, sorting and what to keep.
A parent’s papers after a death
Do not shred everything at once. Keep recent statements, tax returns and anything the estate attorney asks for. Our guide on shredding after a death lists what to hold back and for how long.
Old medical films and records
Patients and practices both ask about x-rays. Read should I shred my medical x-rays before you box them, and call us so we can tell you how to bring them.
An annual office purge
Some offices pick one month a year to clear everything past retention. The annual document purge guide lays out a simple calendar, and pickup with box rates usually fits best.
A free shred day you missed
Towns, banks and credit unions run free events a few times a year. They are worth it when the date works. Our page on shred events explains how they run and what the paid option costs the rest of the year.
The trade-offs nobody puts in a price table
Price is only one column. Time, control and who has to be there matter just as much, and they push different customers toward different services.
Your time
Drop-off costs you a drive and a short wait at the counter. From the border towns that is a quick errand. From Concord or the Seacoast it is a real trip. Pickup costs you a few minutes at the door. Witnessed costs the most time, because you stay for the whole job.
Control
With drop-off you hand the boxes over yourself and watch them go on the scale. With witnessed you see the shredding too. With pickup you hand them to us at your door and rely on the certificate. All three end the same way, but some people sleep better having seen more of it.
Who has to be there
Drop-off needs one person with a car on a weekday. Pickup needs someone to open the door and point at the stack. Witnessed needs the person whose signature matters, which is often a partner, an executor or an HR lead, so book it when that person is free.
Paperwork
Every service produces the same Certificate of Destruction. If your office also needs a Business Associate Agreement, ask before the first job so it is in place when the boxes move. For a longer comparison, read drop-off vs off-site and our guide to when you need witnessed shredding.
Shopping around is smart. Our list of questions to ask a shredding company works for any vendor, and how to choose a shredding company explains what to check before you hand anyone your files.
What every service includes
The services differ in logistics. The protections do not.
A certificate
Every job gets a Certificate of Destruction, covered by the per-job HIPAA filing fee. Learn what it records on our certificate of destruction page.
Locked handling
Paper stays under lock from the counter or the pickup until it is cross-cut shredded at our office. Read how chain of custody shredding works.
Recycling
All shredded paper is recycled. The $19.95 environmental fee on each job pays for it, so nothing you bring goes to a landfill.
For regulated offices, the paperwork matters as much as the shredder. HIPAA covered entities can ask for a Business Associate Agreement, the written contract described in 45 CFR 164.504(e). Businesses that hold consumer report information, such as landlords, employers and car dealers, answer to the FTC Disposal Rule at 16 CFR 682.3, which names shredding as a reasonable way to dispose of papers.
Tax preparers and other small financial businesses fall under the FTC Safeguards Rule. It asks for procedures to securely dispose of customer information no later than two years after it was last used, unless there is a business or legal reason to keep it. Our HIPAA shredding requirements and FACTA compliance pages go into each rule section by section.
No shredding company can make an office compliant on its own. The duty stays with the business that holds the records. What we give you is a disposal method the rules describe and a certificate that shows you used it.
Frequently asked questions
What document shredding services do you offer?
Four: drop-off at our Tewksbury office for 99 cents a pound with no appointment, off-site pickup at the same rate plus a zone fee of $129.95, $159.95 or $199.95, witnessed shredding at $1.99 a pound with a $100 minimum, and hard drive and media destruction quoted per item. Residential, medical and office cleanout jobs use these same four services.
Which shredding service is cheapest?
Drop-off. You pay 99 cents a pound, or $15 and $20 per box at 10 or more boxes, plus the $34.90 per-job fees. One full banker’s box costs $64.60 in total. Pickup adds a zone fee, and witnessed costs $1.99 a pound, so drop-off wins whenever you can carry the boxes yourself.
When is pickup worth the extra fee?
Pickup earns its fee when you have a lot of boxes, cannot leave the office, or live far from Tewksbury. At ten boxes the trip fee is a smaller share of the bill. For one or two boxes, the zone fee usually costs more than the shredding itself, so driving down is the better deal.
Do I need an appointment for every service?
No. Drop-off is walk-in, Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pickup and witnessed shredding need an appointment, which you can make online or by calling (978) 636-0301. For media destruction, list the items when you book or when you arrive so we can quote them before we start.
Can I mix services in one job?
Yes. Some offices watch a few boxes of the most sensitive files and drop off or send the rest by pickup. Bag drives and devices separately for media destruction. Tell us the mix when you book so each part is priced at its own rate and you get the right paperwork for the job.
Where is my paper actually shredded?
At our office at 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA, for every service. We do not shred at your address, and we have no location in New Hampshire. Pickup boxes come back to Tewksbury and are shredded there. Drop-off paper is shredded the same business day it arrives.
Is witnessed shredding more secure than drop-off?
The shredder and the locked handling are the same. What witnessed adds is your own eyes on the process and a certificate signed in front of you. That matters for legal holds, HR files and family disputes, where you may need to say you saw it happen. For routine paper, drop-off gives the same result for less.
Do you shred hard drives at the same time as paper?
You can bring them on the same trip, but keep them in a separate bag. Hard drives, tapes, CDs, USB sticks and phones are physically destroyed and quoted per item, apart from the paper weight. Let us know what you are bringing so the quote is ready and the media is handled on its own.
Do you require a contract?
No. There is no long-term contract and no minimum number of visits. Plenty of people come once, or once a year after tax season or a records purge. Offices that shred more often simply book each pickup when the boxes pile up, and pay the posted rates each time.
Sources
- 45 CFR 164.504, HIPAA organizational requirements, including business associate contracts (govinfo.gov) (checked November 2026)
- 16 CFR 682.3, FTC Disposal Rule, proper disposal of consumer information (govinfo.gov) (checked November 2026)
- Disposing of Consumer Report Information? Rule Tells How (ftc.gov) (checked November 2026)
- FTC Safeguards Rule: What Your Business Needs to Know (ftc.gov) (checked November 2026)
Picked your service? Book it now
Drop-off needs nothing but a weekday trip to Tewksbury. For pickup, witnessed or media, book online or call and we will confirm your zone and price before anything moves.
Our office
1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876
Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Drop-off: 99¢ per pound, walk in
- Pickup: shredding rate plus zone fee
- Witnessed: $1.99 per pound, $100 minimum
New Hampshire Document Shredding · 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876 · (978) 636-0301 · Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.