“How do I quote a tree removal?” Not by height alone. A 60-foot pine in an open back yard with the truck parked alongside can come down whole and be chipped by lunch. The same pine leaning over a garage, with the only access through a narrow side gate, has to come down in pieces on ropes and be carried out by hand. Same tree, very different day. The price has to follow the work, and the homeowner should hear a range before anyone has stood under the tree.
What homeowners have already read
Your customer has probably looked up a price first. LawnStarter's pricing guide, updated October 5, 2026, says tree removal typically costs homeowners $385 to $1,070, or $10 to $14 per foot, for an average of $630, with an extreme low of $150 and an extreme high of $1,935. It lists stump grinding at $158 to $450 on top, and says an inaccessible tree can raise the bill by up to 50 percent. Those are national figures from a consumer guide, not your costs, and they describe no particular tree. But they are the numbers in the homeowner's head when you open your mouth, so it helps to know them and to be able to say why your job is different.
The five things that set the price
1. Height. Height decides whether the tree can be felled in one piece, how much climbing or lift time it takes, and how much wood hits the ground. Price in bands (under 30 feet, 30 to 60, 60 to 80, over 80, or whatever bands match your equipment), not to the foot.
2. Trunk diameter. Diameter sets the felling cuts, the weight of each piece you lower, whether the wood goes through the chipper or gets bucked into logs, and the size of the stump. The standard measure is diameter at breast height, which the Forest Service's measuring guide defines as 4½ feet above average ground level. A homeowner can measure it with a piece of string: the distance around the trunk divided by 3.14 is the diameter. LawnStarter's guide notes that diameter usually tracks height, so it matters most when it does not, such as a short tree with an unusually thick trunk.
3. Targets. Ask what is under the drop zone: the house, a garage, a fence, a deck, a septic field, a neighbor's yard, power lines. Every target turns felling into rigging, and rigging means more people, more rope work and more hours.
4. Access. Can the chipper and the stump grinder reach the tree, or does every branch get dragged? How wide is the gate, how far is the carry, is the yard soft or sloped, and can a lift or a crane set up within reach? A long drag across a lawn can add more hours than the cutting does.
5. Condition. Dead or decayed wood changes how a tree can be climbed and rigged, and it is the factor nobody can see from a photo. The industry's safety standard, ANSI Z133, is available from the International Society of Arboriculture; its 2026 edition replaced the 2017 one, and the ISA offers the digital version free for individual use. If your crew has not read the new edition, that is a cheap afternoon.
Power lines change the job, not just the price
OSHA's general rule for overhead lines, 29 CFR 1910.333(c)(3), says that when an unqualified person works in an elevated position near overhead lines, the person and the longest conductive object he may contact cannot come closer to an unguarded, energized line than 10 feet for voltages to ground of 50kV or below, with more distance for higher voltages. The same limit applies to someone on the ground with a conductive object. Clearing trees around power lines for the utility is line-clearance tree trimming, which falls under a separate standard, 29 CFR 1910.269. For a small crew, a tree with lines through or near its crown is not a bigger line item. It is a different job: a site visit, a conversation with the utility, and a written price only after that.
Build the number from your own costs
The pieces of a removal price:
Here is the arithmetic with example figures. They are made up for the illustration, not market rates; use your own.
| Line | Open yard, fell whole | Over a garage, rigged down |
|---|---|---|
| Crew hours (3 people) | 4 | 10 |
| Crew cost at $150 an hour for the crew, loaded | $600 | $1,500 |
| Chipper and truck at $60 an hour | $240 | $600 |
| Disposal | $100 | $100 |
| Cost | $940 | $2,200 |
| Price at a 35 percent margin (cost divided by 0.65) | $1,446 | $3,385 |
Nothing about the tree changed. The targets and the access more than doubled the hours, and the hours are the price.
Stump grinding is its own line
Price the stump separately so the customer can say no to it. A simple way to price grinding is by the stump's diameter in inches, with a minimum charge per visit, adjusted for exposed roots, a rocky site and how deep below grade the customer wants it ground. Say in writing what happens to the grindings: left in the hole, raked out, or hauled away. Grinding below grade disturbs the ground, so check whether your state's one-call law needs a locate ticket first; the basics are in Call 811 Before You Dig.
Quote a range, then a number
On the phone or on your website, give a range built from the facts a homeowner can tell you: the height band, the trunk measured with a string, what is underneath, how a truck reaches it, the stump and the wood. Then give a written price after you have stood under the tree, because decay, a weak union or a fresh lean only show up in person.
Write the scope plainly: which trees, whether the stump is ground and how deep, who keeps the wood, what cleanup includes, and what happens to lawn ruts from equipment. If the job includes pruning trees you are leaving, the ANSI A300 tree care standards help, but the Tree Care Industry Association's own magazine is clear that they “are not meant to be used as standalone work specifications”; use them as the framework for a spec written for that tree and that site.
Storm work brings its own rules on what you may charge after a declared emergency; see Price-Gouging Laws After a Storm before the season starts.
If you want that first range on your own website, NapkinPrice™ asks the homeowner those questions, runs your own rates for height, trunk, what is underneath, access, stumps and wood, and shows a range, while a tree over the house or with wires through the crown can be sent to a site-visit service that shows no number at all. The tree service page shows how it is set up.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and vary by state; check with the agency named above or a professional for your situation.