Stump grinding pricing: per inch, minimums, and multi-stump jobs

Stump grinding is the part of tree work most likely to be underpriced, because it looks easy and it is quick. A homeowner sees a stump and a machine and assumes it is a ten-minute job worth twenty dollars. The contractor who prices it that way forgets that the twenty minutes of grinding is bolted to an hour of driving, unloading, setting up, cleaning up, and reloading. Price the grinding and you lose money. Price the whole job and you make it. This is how to do stump grinding pricing so the small jobs pay and the big jobs do not get left on the table.

The per-inch method

The standard, defensible way to price a stump is by diameter: a fixed dollar amount per inch. Measure the stump at grade across the widest point, multiply by your rate, and that is the grind. A rate around $4 per inch is a common national starting point; set yours from your costs and your market.

Per inch works because it tracks the thing that actually varies: how much wood you have to turn into chips. A 30-inch stump has far more material than a 12-inch stump, and the per-inch rate scales the price with the work. It is also easy to explain to a customer, which matters when they ask why one stump costs more than another.

Why you need a per-stump minimum

Here is the trap. If your rate is $4 per inch and a customer has a 10-inch stump, per-inch alone says $40. But that $40 stump costs you the same drive, the same unload, the same setup, and the same cleanup as a $200 stump. You cannot make money at $40, and you should not try.

The fix is a per-stump minimum. Set it at the point where a job is worth the roll: $100 is a common floor. Now a 10-inch stump is $100, not $40, because that is what it costs you to show up and do it right. A 30-inch stump is still $120 on the per-inch rate, above the minimum, so the minimum does not apply. The minimum protects you on the small jobs without inflating the big ones.

Say it in the quote as one line per stump, with the diameter and the price. The customer sees a professional method, not a made-up number, and you never eat the setup time on a small stump again.

Multi-stump jobs

When a customer has several stumps, two things pull in opposite directions. Your per-stump setup time drops after the first, because you are already on site with the machine running. But every additional stump is still real grinding time and real cleanup. The honest way to handle it is to price each stump on the per-inch rate and let the minimum apply only where it needs to.

On a job with one big stump and three small ones, the big stump clears the minimum on its own, and the small ones each hit the floor. You are not double-charging for setup, because you are only charging the minimum where the per-inch price would have been too low to cover the work. If you want to reward volume, a small discount on the third-and-beyond stump is a clean way to do it, but resist the urge to grind a yard full of stumps for a flat lowball. The cleanup alone on ten stumps is a real chunk of the day.

What the price should and should not include

Decide, once, what a grind includes, and put it in your terms. The common line is: grinding to a set depth below grade, and the chips left on site, mounded over the hole. What is usually extra: hauling the chips away, backfilling with topsoil, and grinding surface roots that run out from the stump. Those are real work and real time, so they are their own line items, not freebies you discover you gave away when the customer asks you to haul the pile.

Surface roots deserve special attention. A customer who wants a clean lawn often does not realize the roots radiating from the stump are part of the ask. If you see roots that will need grinding, quote them, so the scope is agreed before you start and there is no argument at the end.

Bundle grinding with removals, but price it separately

Most stump work rides along with a removal. The temptation is to fold it into the removal price to keep the quote simple. Resist it. Grinding is a separate operation with a separate machine and separate cleanup, and burying it in the removal price makes both numbers harder to defend and easier to shave. Quote the removal, then quote each stump on its own line. The customer sees the full value of the work, and you can adjust one without unpicking the other.

It also helps on the jobs where the customer wants the tree gone now and the stump ground later. If the stump is its own line, dropping it from this visit and scheduling it separately is a two-second edit, not a re-quote.

Make it consistent

The reason stump pricing drifts is the same reason all field pricing drifts: it is done by hand, quickly, under time pressure. A per-inch rate and a minimum only protect you if you apply them the same way every time, and mental math on a tailgate does not.

LimbQuote handles stump pricing the way it should be handled: enter the diameter for each stump and the engine applies your per-inch rate and your per-stump minimum automatically, as its own line, every time. A 10-inch stump comes out at your $100 minimum, not $40. A 30-inch stump comes out at $120. Set the rate and the minimum once in your price book and stop losing money on the setup time.

Stump grinding pricing is simple once you separate the grinding from the job. Charge per inch for the wood, set a minimum that covers the roll, quote each stump on its own line, and decide up front what the price includes. Do that and the small stumps stop costing you money and the big yards stop getting lowballed.