Tree trimming cost dataset
This is the complete dataset behind the pruning calculator, at national rates. Its central claim is one the trade knows and nobody publishes: you pay for the climb, not for the wood. The table of prune types below shows it — jobs that remove wildly different amounts of canopy cost within a factor of two of each other, because the cost is reaching every point in the tree. Last reviewed 2026-08-23.
Six jobs on the same tree
National figures, 40 feet with a 16-inch trunk, suburban garden, brush chipped and hauled.
| Job | Crew hours | Chip | Cost | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deadwood removal only | 2.1 | 1.2 cu yd | $650 | Taking out what is already dead, and nothing else. The cheapest real pruning there is, the safest thing you can do for a tree over a house, and the one most people never think to ask for by name. |
| Crown clean | 2.8 | 1.7 cu yd | $763 | Dead, dying, diseased and crossing branches out, and nothing living removed for shape. It is the standard maintenance prune and what a good arborist will suggest if you ask for "a trim". |
| Crown thin | 3.5 | 2.2 cu yd | $876 | Selective removal of live branches to let light and wind through, spread evenly around the canopy. ⚠️ Rarely more than about a fifth of the live crown: take more and the tree responds by throwing out weak growth everywhere. |
| Crown raise | 2.5 | 1.6 cu yd | $718 | Taking the lowest limbs off to clear a path, a drive or a mower. Quick, because everything happens at the bottom where the climber can reach easily — one of the few prunes that does not need the whole canopy worked. |
| Crown reduction | 4 | 2.6 cu yd | $959 | Shortening the outer canopy back to suitable growing points, all the way round. The most work of any prune because the climber has to reach every extremity, and the most skill because every cut has to end at a branch that can take over. |
| Clearance from a roof or a building | 2.4 | 1.4 cu yd | $698 | Pulling the canopy back off a roof, gutters or a wall. Focused on one side rather than the whole tree, and the one prune that usually pays for itself: branches on a roof mean debris in the gutters and moss on the shingles. |
From $650 to $959 — a factor of 1.5 across jobs that take wildly different amounts of wood off. What costs is getting a climber to every extremity and moving them round the canopy on rope; how much comes off changes the chip column, which is small. So the practical rule is not to economise on the scope of a prune. It is to use the climb: deadwood and a thin in one visit costs far less than the same two a year apart.
Five trees, and pruning against felling
Crown clean, suburban garden. The last column is our tree removal model on the same tree, sharing the same wage data and regional adjustment.
| Tree | Crew hours | To prune | To fell | Pruning is | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 ft × 6 in | 1.4 | $537 | $753 | 71% | An ornamental or a young fruit tree |
| 25 ft × 10 in | 1.9 | $616 | $940 | 66% | A small garden tree |
| 40 ft × 16 in | 2.8 | $763 | $1,402 | 54% | The tree most people are asking about |
| 55 ft × 22 in | 4 | $956 | $2,162 | 44% | A mature shade tree |
| 75 ft × 32 in | 6.1 | $1,292 | $3,983 | 32% | A big oak or maple |
Pruning wins on price at every size and by more as the tree grows, because felling has to bring the entire mass down past whatever is underneath while pruning only takes the ends. It stops being the answer when a tree is structurally unsound or genuinely in the wrong place — never simply because it is tall.
Access, season and batching
What is underneath
| Access | Factor | Total | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open ground below | ×1 | $665 | Cuttings can be dropped and gathered. It is the fastest way to prune anything and it is what makes a tree in a field cheap. |
| A garden, with things below | ×1.35 | $763 | Beds, a fence, a shed. Larger pieces are lowered on a rope rather than dropped, and the drop zone is moved as the climber works round. |
| Over a roof, a wire or a pool | ×1.9 | $917 | Every piece is roped before it is cut. It is the same pruning and nearly twice the time, and it is exactly the tree most likely to need it. |
When you book it
| Season | Factor | Total | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dormant season (late autumn to late winter) | ×0.9 | $709 | Best for the tree and cheapest for you, which is a rare combination. Without leaves the structure is visible, the cuts close as growth starts in spring, and most pathogens are inactive. It is also the quiet season for crews. |
| Spring or summer | ×1 | $763 | Fine for light work and for deadwood, which is easiest to spot when everything else is green. Peak demand, full canopy, more debris to chip. ⚠️ Some species should not be pruned in spring at all — oaks in much of the country, because of disease spread — so ask before booking. |
| Straight after a storm | ×1.25 | $861 | Broken limbs need dealing with and every crew is committed for weeks. If the damage is not hanging over anything, it will keep. |
Dormant-season pruning is better for the tree and cheaper for you, which is a rare alignment and worth taking. The factors themselves are our estimate of trade practice rather than published figures; what is not an estimate is the reason — a bare tree is about a third less material to chip and haul.
Several trees in one visit
| Trees | Total | Per tree |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $763 | $763 |
| 2 | $1,213 | $607 |
| 4 | $2,120 | $530 |
| 8 | $3,935 | $492 |
Eight trees cost 5.2 times one, not eight times, because the crew and the chipper only travel once. Batching is worth more than negotiating.
Line items
The default job is one 40-foot tree: 2.8 crew hours and 1.7 cubic yards of chip.
| Line item | Unit | Material | Equipment / hr | Trade | Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climber in the canopycanopy index × prune type × access × season, per tree | hour | — | — | Tree Trimmers and Pruners | sourced |
| Ground crew1 ground worker for every climber hour | hour | — | — | Construction Laborers | sourced |
| Chipper, truck and climbing kitone machine hour per crew hour | hour | $26 – $74 | — | — | estimated±48% |
| Getting the crew and the kit to your street1 per visit | job | $140 – $380 | — | — | estimated±46% |
| Chip and haul the brush away (conditional)cubic yards of chip where the brush is hauled away | cu yd | $16 – $46 | — | — | estimated±48% |
| Coordination where the canopy reaches a power line (conditional)1 where a conductor is within reach of the canopy | job | $120 – $400 | — | — | estimated±54% |
| Rake, blow and make good1 h + 0.25 h per tree | hour | — | — | Construction Laborers | sourced |
The reasoning behind each figure
Written out so an arborist can point at the exact assumption that is wrong.
- Climber in the canopy
- Hours come from a canopy index — height to the power 1.5, weighted a little by trunk diameter — times the type of prune, the access and the season. Height dominates because pruning is about reaching every extremity, and a canopy grows with the square of its radius.
- ⚠️ This is the line that inverts most people's intuition. A crown reduction takes nearly the same hours whether 10% or 25% of the canopy comes off, because the cost is getting a climber to every point in it. How much you take changes the chip volume, not the climb.
- ⚠️ The wage is official BLS data for tree trimmers and pruners, and that occupation is published for only 192 of the 530 areas in our index. Outside those the hour comes from the broader group for the same area.
- Ground crew
- One person on the ground for every hour the climber is up: taking the rope, dragging brush to the chipper and keeping the area under the tree clear.
- A prune needs a smaller ground crew than a felling, because the pieces are smaller. It still needs one, and a climber working alone is a climber nobody can help.
- Chipper, truck and climbing kitestimated, ±48%
- A chipper and a chip truck, plus a lift where the tree cannot be climbed. Lower per hour than a felling because there is no crane and often no lift at all.
- ⚠️ As on our tree removal page, this band is our estimate and not a FEMA figure: FEMA publishes chipper and lift rates, but in a PDF whose text could not be extracted and verified here.
- Getting the crew and the kit to your streetestimated, ±46%
- Towing the chipper, setting up and taking it all away. It costs the same for one tree as for five, which is why pruning several in one visit is much cheaper than pruning them one a year.
- It is also the reason a small ornamental on its own is expensive relative to its size, and why crews often quote a minimum rather than a price.
- Chip and haul the brush awayestimated, ±48%
- Chip volume follows the canopy and the type of prune: a deadwood clean produces well under half what a crown reduction does on the same tree.
- Leaving the chip on site saves this line entirely and gives you several cubic yards of mulch. In the dormant season the volume falls by about a third on its own, because there are no leaves in it.
- Coordination where the canopy reaches a power lineestimated, ±54%
- ⚠️ Nobody who is not qualified for line-clearance work may take a tool or a branch inside the minimum approach distance of an energised conductor — the substance of OSHA 1910.269. An ordinary crew will stop at that line and wait.
- What this pays for is arranging it. What it does not pay for is the utility, who will often clear their own line at no cost to you. On a pruning job that is a more common outcome than on a felling, because clearance is exactly what they do. One phone call first.
- Rake, blow and make good
- An hour plus a quarter per tree. Pruning leaves less debris than felling but it spreads it further, because pieces come down from all over the canopy rather than from one trunk.
Not included in this dataset
- Topping, and anything that looks like it
- ⚠️ Cutting main stems back to stubs to reduce height permanently damages a tree: the regrowth is weakly attached and breaks within a few years, and the wounds on large-diameter cuts do not close. It is not priced here because it should not be done. If a tree is genuinely too big for its place, reduction to proper growing points or removal are the two honest answers.
- Diagnosis and treatment
- Deciding what is wrong with a tree, testing for decay, treating a pest or assessing whether it is likely to fail are all consultancy by a qualified arborist rather than pruning work, and they are priced by the visit rather than by the tree.
- Cabling and bracing
- Hardware installed to support a weak union or a heavy limb is a separate specialty with its own inspection schedule. It is sometimes the right alternative to a reduction and it is not in these figures.
- The stump and the tree itself
- This page prunes. If the answer turns out to be removal, our tree removal calculator prices that, and our stump grinding calculator prices what is left.
- Permits and protected trees
- Some jurisdictions regulate pruning as well as removal, particularly on street trees and protected species, and a few require a permit for work above a certain proportion of the canopy. It varies completely by locality and one phone call settles it.
Use the calculator, price taking the tree down at tree removal cost, or read the full method.