Tree Removal Cost Calculator
Three inputs decide a removal bid: how thick the trunk is at 4.5 feet, how tall the tree is, and what is underneath it. This runs those through the same crew-hour arithmetic a company uses at the tailgate, and shows every assumption instead of hiding them inside an average.
Pre-filled with a realistic job. Change any input and the figure updates as you type — nothing is sent anywhere, and Print gives you a clean sheet without the buttons.
- Loaded labour, 3-person crew$125 / hr
- Truck, chipper and rigging$65 / hr
- Direct cost before overhead$1,323
- Overhead and margin multiplier1.6× – 2.1×
Where the numbers come from
The labour line starts at the federal wage for the occupation that does this work. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the hourly mean for tree trimmers and pruners at $26.91 and the annual median at $50,960 (OEWS, May 2025, retrieved 2026-09-04). That is take-home for the climber, not what the job costs.
Multiply by 1.55 to carry payroll tax, a high-risk workers' compensation class and non-billable time and you get roughly $41.71per crew-member hour — about $125 an hour for a three-person crew. The 1.55 is our assumption, not a BLS figure, and it is the first thing to argue with if your quote looks wrong.
Every cost page on this site uses this same model, so the numbers agree across the site. See the removal cost guide for the long version.
Why access moves the price most
A 24-inch oak in an open field is a felling job: notch, back cut, done. The same tree eight feet from a roof is a rigging job — every limb is roped, lowered and cleared before the next cut. That is why the access setting multiplies hours rather than adding a flat fee, and why two quotes on the same street can differ by a factor of two.
Anything within ten feet of a power line is line-clearance work under a different rule set, and is not priced here. That is a utility-qualified crew, not a general tree service.
Reading a real quote against this
Ask the company for crew size and expected hours. If their number sits inside the band above, the pricing is normal and you are choosing on insurance, credentials and cleanup. If it sits far below, ask who is carrying the workers' compensation. If it sits far above, ask what they see that this model does not — a defect that makes the tree dangerous to climb is a legitimate reason for a premium.
Sources
- BLS OEWS May 2025, 37-3013 Tree Trimmers and Pruners, hourly mean wage $26.91retrieved 2026-09-04
- BLS OEWS May 2025, 37-3013, annual median wage $50,960retrieved 2026-09-04