Tree Service Pricing Guide: What Per-Tree Really Buys

Short answer: Any honest tree service pricing guide has to admit that the per-tree unit is a bundle of five things that scale separately. Height sets a class, DBH sets weight, and access sets the hours. A 30 in DBH oak carries roughly 65 cubic feet of stem wood at about 63 lb per cubic foot — two tons in the trunk alone. The same 65-foot red oak below takes 10.5 crew-hours in a pasture and 36.5 wedged between a house and a pool.

Selling by the tree is the right call, because a homeowner understands a tree and does not understand a rigging cycle. The problem is that the number you quote has to survive contact with a yard, and the yard is where the per-tree unit either holds or falls apart. This page takes the unit apart: what it covers, what it quietly hides, and which conditions make it stop working. The cost side of the same truck is in tree service business expenses.

What is a per-tree price actually made of?

Five cost families, sharing one number on the estimate, each scaling on something different.

Inside the per-tree price	What it scales with	What breaks it
Aerial work	Number of rigged pieces	A drop zone that forces rigging instead of felling
Ground processing	Volume of brush and wood	A crown that has to be dismantled rather than limbed on the ground
Movement	Carry distance and gate width	The chip truck parking on the street instead of the drive
Disposal	Weight and chip volume	The customer wanting everything gone
Protection and reset	Surfaces under the tree	Turf, beds, pool coping, a roof, a septic field

Nothing in that table scales with height on its own, which is why two bids for the same tree can differ by a factor of three. One company is describing a fell-and-clean; the other is describing a dismantle-and-haul. The words on the estimate are the same.

What the per-tree price does not include by default is worth stating in writing every time: the stump, the surface roots, the wood if the customer wants it bucked and stacked, the fill and seed where the roots came out, and anything discovered inside a hollow trunk. Say so on the document. The lines that belong there are covered in what to include on an invoice.

Which measurement sets the class, and which one sets the hours?

Height puts a tree in a class. DBH tells you what each piece weighs. Access tells you how long the day is, and it is the only one of the three the customer never mentions on the phone.

Diameter at breast height, taken at four and a half feet, is the number that turns a tree into weight, and weight is what decides whether a piece can be free-dropped or has to be lowered on a rope. A 24 in stem and a 32 in stem look similar from a driveway and differ by about 78 percent in cross-sectional area, which means a section of the same length is nearly twice the load on your rigging.

Access is a class of its own, and it is worth writing on the estimate so the customer sees why the number is what it is:

Access class	What it means for the unit
Open drop	The per-tree price is mostly cleanup
Over turf and beds	Add protection and reset, keep the free drops
Rigging over structure	The unit stops describing a tree and starts describing rope work
Restricted egress	Carry distance and gate width become the largest single line
Crane assist	The unit is no longer the tree; it is the crane day

Height, DBH, condition, and access get written down before a number is spoken. Three of them the customer can hear on a walkthrough. The fourth is the one you are actually selling.

How do I turn a crown into a piece count and a cycle time?

This is the calculation that makes access concrete instead of a feeling.

An open drop has a piece count of one. The tree is notched, back cut, and on the ground, and the rest of the day is limbing and dragging. Over a structure, that same crown becomes a sequence: tie the piece, make the cut, lower it, untie it at the ground, drag it clear, reset the line. Nothing in that cycle can be skipped, because the cycle is precisely what stops the piece from going through a roof.

Count the pieces the way the climber will actually take them. A mature spreading crown over a house commonly comes apart in 25 to 40 rigged pieces, and a crew working well averages four to six of them per hour once the line is set. Thirty pieces at five an hour is six hours aloft, and none of that time has produced a single chipped branch yet.

Run the same estimate for the stem. Spar sections taken over a roofline are short and heavy and go slower than crown pieces; sections dropped once the roof is clear go fast. Split the stem into “over” and “clear” and count both.

That piece count is the honest core of a per-tree price. Two trees with identical tape measurements and piece counts of 1 and 32 are not the same product.

What does the wood weigh, and why does that set the disposal line?

Because weight is what you pay to move, and it is invisible on a walkthrough.

Take a 30 in DBH stem. The radius is 1.25 ft, so basal area is about 4.9 square feet. If the trunk runs 22 ft to the first major union and you apply a taper factor of roughly 0.6 for the shape, stem volume is about 65 cubic feet. Green oaks and hickories run somewhere near 60 to 70 lb per cubic foot, which the Penn State Extension green weight tables set out by species. At 63 lb, that stem is around 4,100 lb — just over two tons before a single limb is counted. A mature open-grown crown can hold roughly as much wood again.

Two prices come out of that:

• Log haul. Four tons of rounds is truck trips and scale weight at a green waste facility that bills by the ton. It is also a machine or six people, since rounds off a 30 in stem are not carried by hand.
• Chip volume. Brush from that crown fills one to two chip boxes depending on your truck. A full box has to be emptied somewhere, and the emptying is time plus a tipping ticket.

This is why “leave the wood” is a real discount and “haul everything” is a real surcharge, and why both belong on the estimate as separate lines. Define what leaving the wood means, too — rounds in a pile at the base is a different job from bucked to stove length and stacked at the back door.

When does the per-tree unit break down completely?

Six situations. Recognize them on the walkthrough and price differently rather than forcing the unit.

Mobilization on a single tree. The first tree in a yard carries the drive, the setup, the chipper for the day, and the dump run. A second tree of the same class in the same yard costs materially less. A flat per-tree list price overcharges the two-tree job and undercharges the one-tree job at the same time. Fix it with a mobilization line plus per-tree lines.

Below the minimum. There is a tree size under which the mobilization is the whole cost. Publish a minimum and stop doing arithmetic below it.

Crane days. Once a crane is on site, the unit is the crane day and the trees divide into it. Price the day, then allocate.

Pruning. “Per tree” says nothing about a prune. A crown clean, a thin, a raise for clearance, and a reduction are four different amounts of time in the same canopy. Name the pruning type and the clearance being created, or plan to go back for free.

Storm work. No route, no scheduling, after-hours crews, and hazards you cannot survey from the ground. Storm pricing is set in writing in advance and applied consistently, since many states enforce price-gouging rules after a declared emergency.

Energized primary conductors. Not a pricing question at all. Work inside the minimum approach distance of energized conductors is restricted to qualified employees and trained line-clearance tree trimmers under OSHA 1910.269. A service drop to a house is a different matter — the utility can usually schedule a temporary disconnect, and that scheduled window is a delay you price rather than a hazard you accept.

Why does stump grinding refuse to sit inside the tree price?

Because it is a different machine, a different day, and a different set of constraints.

Measure across the widest point of the root flare at ground level, not the DBH. A 30 in trunk routinely presents a 42 to 46 in stump. Price per inch of that measurement and apply a depth class, since turf depth and replant depth are different amounts of grinding.

Three things break the grind that have nothing to do with the tree:

• Gate width. The grinder either fits or the job needs a different machine. Measure the gate on the walkthrough.
• Utility locates. A grinder is a digging operation near the surface, and locate marks are required and have an expiration window.
• Spoil volume. Ground chips fluff well above the volume of the hole, so a large stump leaves a mound. Say on the estimate whether you rake it level, leave it, haul it, or backfill with topsoil and seed. Surface roots are a separate per-foot line.

What does the same 65-foot red oak cost in two yards?

Same tree, same species, same 30 in DBH, crew of three.

Yard A — open pasture, chip truck within 40 ft of the trunk, felled in one piece, rounds left on site, brush chipped.

Yard B — 14 ft from the house, 9 ft from a neighbor’s pool fence, a service drop crossing the drip line, a 32 in side gate as the only access, everything hauled.

Stage	Yard A	Yard B
Site walk, gear out, ground protection	1.0 hr	3.0 hr, plywood over coping and beds
Utility service drop disconnect window	—	1.5 hr waiting
Aerial work	0.5 hr, one felling cut	6.5 hr, ~32 rigged pieces at 5/hr
Stem	2.0 hr, bucked to rounds on site	4.5 hr, spar sections over the roofline
Movement to the truck	1.0 hr, 40 ft drag	9.0 hr, 90 ft through a 32 in gate
Chipping	3.0 hr	4.0 hr at the curb
Limbing and processing	3.0 hr	included above
Log haul	—	5.0 hr, two trips
Reset, rake, blow, gutters	1.0 hr	3.0 hr
Crew-hours	10.5	36.5
Chip boxes	1	2
Log weight over a scale	0	~4 tons

Three and a half times the hours, twice the chip volume, and a tipping ticket that did not exist in Yard A. A single published per-tree number applied to both means the pasture customer is subsidizing the pool customer, and the pasture customer is the one telling neighbors your prices are high.

How do I build my own per-tree number, and is that 35 percent markup or margin?

Build it in this order, once, and then reuse the method on every tree.

1. Count the pieces and estimate the cycle rate. Convert to crew-hours by stage.
2. Multiply by your own loaded crew-hour — wages plus payroll burden plus workers’ compensation, which in tree work is one of the highest-rated classifications in any trade.
3. Add the equipment allocation for the chipper, chip truck, and saws for the day, divided across billable hours rather than all hours.
4. Add disposal at your facility’s actual rates: chip volume and log weight.
5. Add drive time both ways, and the estimate visit that produced the job.
6. Add overhead per hour from your own annual insurance, yard, phone, and unbilled hours.
7. Then add profit, and know which kind you are adding.

That last step is where money vanishes. Suppose Yard B costs you $4,900 all in. A 35 percent markup gives $6,615 — which is a 25.9 percent margin, not 35. Holding a true 35 percent margin means dividing rather than multiplying: $4,900 ÷ 0.65 = $7,538. The formula is price = cost ÷ (1 − margin), and on one oak the difference between the two is $923.

Treat published removal ranges as a sanity check on arithmetic you have already done, never as a source. Species, access, season, workers’ compensation rates, and disposal costs swing this trade far enough between regions that a national average tells you nothing about the yard you are standing in. Your own cost is the only number with authority behind it.

What is worth keeping after the chipper shuts off?

Three things, and they compound.

Actual crew-hours by stage, so your piece counts and cycle rates stop being guesses after ten removals. The disposal tickets, which are both a cost record and proof of where the material went. And photographs — the drop zone before, the ground protection down, the finished site from two angles — which settle nearly every argument this trade produces. Keep it as long as the return stays open, per how long to keep tax records.

Keel is an iOS app for that end of the job, running entirely on the device: no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label reading Data Not Collected. The green waste ticket gets photographed at the scale and read on-device by Apple Intelligence, so the four tons out of Yard B lands on the books with a weight and a date attached. Saw chains, bar oil, a rented crane day, and the fuel all capture the same way. Miles between three estimates and the job log as you drive. The invoice goes out from the curb the same afternoon with your own numbering, logo, brand color, and a payment link the customer scans as a QR code off your screen, and the ledger behind it is append-only and hash-chained — on a four-figure removal, sending before you leave beats any collections process, which is the point of how to get clients to pay. At year end the Accountant Pack exports a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF. Free covers unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

Is tree removal priced per tree or per hour?

Quote per tree and cost it in crew-hours you keep to yourself. Hourly quotes make a homeowner watch the clock and penalize a fast crew, which in this trade means a good one. Day rates fit lot clearing, utility contracts, and storm standby, where the customer is buying availability rather than one finished outcome.

Why do two companies quote wildly different prices for the same tree?

Because they are quoting different work. One plans to fell it whole and clean up; the other plans to dismantle the crown in thirty rigged pieces over a roof. Add differences in whether the stump is included, whether wood is hauled or left, and whether a crane is used, and a three-to-one spread on identical measurements is ordinary.

How much does a tree weigh, and why does it matter for pricing?

Enough to set your disposal line. A 30 in DBH stem running 22 ft to the first union holds roughly 65 cubic feet of wood, and green oak runs near 60 to 70 lb per cubic foot, so the trunk alone is around two tons. A mature crown can add as much again. That weight is truck trips and scale charges, not a rounding error.

Should stump grinding be included in a tree removal price?

It should be its own line. The stump is a separate machine with its own gate-width constraint, its own utility locate requirement, and its own spoil problem. Price it by the diameter of the root flare at ground level across the widest point, apply a depth class, and state what happens to the grindings, since a large stump produces far more chips than the hole holds.

How do I price a second tree in the same yard?

Split mobilization from the trees. The first tree carries the drive, setup, chipper day, and dump run; a second tree of the same access class in the same yard costs materially less to reach. Charging a flat list price per tree overcharges multi-tree jobs and undercharges single-tree jobs simultaneously, and customers notice the first one.

Can I bid a tree touching the wire to a house?

The service drop and the primary are different questions. A drop from the pole to the house can usually be temporarily disconnected by the utility on request, which makes it a scheduling cost you price. Energized primary conductors are restricted to qualified employees and trained line-clearance tree trimmers, so the correct answer there is a call to the utility rather than a bid.

---

This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.