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Stump removal cost, per inch and per hour

Updated 2026-09-04 · 8 min read

Woodcut hero illustration for the stump removal cost guide
The cutting wheel does the work; the price is a function of how many inches it has to travel.
"Stump removal" covers two jobs with different machines and different prices. One turns the stump into chips down to a chosen depth. The other digs the whole root plate out of the ground. Ask for the wrong one and you either overpay by a factor of three or find out in two years that your patio has a dip in it.

Two different jobs

GrindingGrubbing / excavation
MachineStump grinderExcavator or backhoe
What is leftChips in a shallow craterAn open hole to backfill
Typical depth4–18 in below gradeWhole root plate
Relative cost1×3–6×
Good forLawn, mulch bed, mowingHardscape, foundations, replanting

Sound

If nothing structural is going over the spot, grinding is almost always the answer, and the money saved is real. The failure mode is grinding when you needed grubbing, not the reverse.

How grinding is priced

The industry convention is per inch of stump diameter measured at ground level, with a minimum charge that exists because mobilising the machine costs the same for one stump as for six. The diameter is measured across the widest point including the root flare — which is why the number on the invoice is often bigger than the number you eyeballed from the trunk.

Underneath, the arithmetic is still crew hours. At a loaded $41.71 per crew-member hour derived from the BLS hourly mean of $26.91, a two-person grind crew plus the machine runs to a familiar per-inch rate once the minimum is spread over the job. Run yours through the grinding calculator.

Woodcut illustration: stump removal cost, step one
Ground to a shallow crater and left full of chips — the standard finish, and enough for grass.

Depth decides the price

Grinding is sold by depth as well as diameter, and the depths are not interchangeable:

  • 4–6 inches

    Enough to mow over. The cheapest finish and the most common.

  • 8–12 inches

    Enough for turf to establish properly and for a mulch bed to look level.

  • 12–18 inches

    What you need if a new tree is going nearby, and roughly where the price stops being linear.

  • Below 18 inches

    You are paying grinder rates for excavation work. Ask for a machine instead.

Watch

Utility locates are the customer's risk on most contracts. A grinder wheel does not care whether the thing it hits is a root or a gas service. Get the locate done before the machine arrives.

The chips problem nobody quotes for

A ground stump produces far more volume than the stump occupied — wood chips fluff. A 24-inch stump ground to a foot will typically fill the crater and mound over it. That mound settles, sometimes a lot, and grass will not grow in fresh chip.

You have three options and all three cost something: leave the mound and top it with soil in a year, have the crew haul the chip (a disposal line), or spread it as mulch elsewhere on the property. Work out how much you are dealing with in the chip calculator before you decide.

Woodcut illustration: stump removal cost, step two
Grubbing lifts the whole root plate — a different machine, a different hole, a different invoice.

Buy it on the same visit

The single largest saving available on a stump is timing. Grinding bought as part of the removal shares the mobilisation with the removal; grinding bought three weeks later pays for its own trip. That is usually the difference between a minimum-charge job and a per-inch job, and it is the reason the removal calculator treats the stump as a checkbox rather than a separate quote.

Sources

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