Tree removal is the purest labour job we track. There is no material to buy — no panels, no shingles, no fixtures. You are paying for a crew, a chipper, sometimes a crane, and the time it takes. On our numbers about 85% of the total is on-site labour, the highest share of anything on this site.

That makes it the clearest demonstration of how much geography matters. When a job is nearly all labour, the local wage passes almost straight through to the price. Around San Jose, CA, where crews run $45.42 an hour, the same tree costs meaningfully more to take down than around Gadsden, AL at $20.60 an hour — not because the work is different, but because the hour is.

Compare that with solar, where hardware is bought at national prices and only about a third of the job is labour. The same wage gap barely moves the total. This is why we publish a labour share for every job rather than applying one regional multiplier to everything: the multiplier that is right for a tree surgeon is badly wrong for a solar installer.

What changes a tree quote

  • Height, not trunk width. Height drives the rigging and the number of cuts. It is the first thing a quote should state.
  • What is underneath it. A tree that can be felled whole into open ground is a morning's work. One that has to come down in sections over a roof or near power lines is a different job with different equipment and different insurance.
  • The stump. Leaving it, grinding it and removing it entirely with backfill are three prices. Most quotes assume the cheapest unless you ask.
  • Where the debris goes. Chipping on site and hauling away are not the same cost, and "cleanup included" can mean either.

Check this before anything else. Ask for a certificate of insurance naming your property, and confirm the crew is covered for work over structures. Tree work is the job on this list where an uninsured contractor can cost you far more than the quote ever would.

Driveways are the other half of outdoor work

A concrete driveway is a more conventional job — about 55% labour — and it does have a material line. Concrete products have risen +3.7% in the twelve months to July 2026, which is worth knowing when a quote is a few months old.

The factors that move a driveway quote are the ones people tend not to ask about: what has to come out first, and whether the ground needs regrading. Removing an old concrete slab and disposing of it is a substantial part of the job, and a quote priced on bare ground will not survive contact with an existing driveway. Finish matters too — a broom finish, exposed aggregate and stamped-and-coloured concrete are three quite different prices for the same slab.

Neither job has a sourced national baseline on this site yet. See tree removal and concrete driveway for what we do hold: the local wage data, and what it implies for a job that is mostly hours.