Most tree removal quotes are a number someone felt, standing under the tree, and hoped was right. Guess low and you eat the difference in overtime and a second skip. Guess high and the customer calls the next firm on the list.
There is a shorter way to get to a number you can defend: four things move the price on almost every removal. Walk through them in order and the number falls out the end, instead of coming from your gut first and getting justified afterwards.
1. Access
This is the biggest swing and the easiest to underprice, because it is invisible from the street.
- Can a chipper and a truck get within throwing distance, or is everything carried?
- Is there a fence, a greenhouse, a pond, or a neighbour's car in the drop zone?
- Is the ground load-bearing, or does a wet lawn mean tracked access only?
A tree with clean access to the road and a tree with the same crown size but a 40-metre carry through a side gate are not the same job, even though they look identical in a photo. Price the carry, not the tree.
2. Size and rigging method
Diameter and height set the base labour and disposal volume, but the rigging method is what sets the risk and the time.
- Felled whole — fastest, cheapest, only possible with a clear lay.
- Sectional, dropped free — more cuts, more time, still no rigging gear.
- Sectional, lowered on rope — a rigging block, a groundsman on the rope, and every piece taking three or four times as long as a free drop.
The same tree can sit in any of these three categories depending on what is around it. Decide the method on site, then price the method — not a flat rate per inch of trunk that assumes the easiest case every time.
3. Disposal
Chip on site is close to free. A skip, a grab lorry, or a tip run for a large trunk is not — and it is the line most often forgotten until the job is half done and there is a pile of arisings with nowhere to go.
Ask before you quote: does the customer want the wood, does the council take green waste, is there a weight limit on what the truck can carry off in one trip? Two trips to the tip on a big oak is a real cost, not a rounding error.
4. Risk
Deadwood, cavities, a lean over a structure, a species known for included bark and sudden failure — these add time for a careful climber and they add insurance exposure. This is the line most likely to get silently absorbed into "the price felt about right," because it is uncomfortable to say out loud that a job is dangerous. Say it anyway. A risk premium on the quote is cheaper than a claim.
Putting it together
None of this needs a spreadsheet. Standing at the tree, you can say all four out loud in the order above — access, method, disposal, risk — and land on a number the same way you would talk through the job itself. That is the whole point: the price should come from describing the job, not from a separate mental step afterwards.
If you are quoting on paper or in your head today, the four categories above are worth writing down once, even just as a checklist taped inside the van. The firms that price consistently are not doing more maths — they are asking the same four questions every time, in the same order, so nothing gets forgotten under pressure with a customer standing next to them.
This is also, more or less, how tree·canopy builds a quote: say the tree, the work, and the price into your phone on site, and it lands on the line as a priced recommendation the customer can accept online. The framework above works with a notepad too — the app just means you never have to remember it.