Stump Grinding Pricing: Per-Inch Rates & Quote Guide

You just finished a fall cleanup. The homeowner walks out, points at the old maple stump by the driveway, and asks, “Can you grind that too? What would that run me?” You look at it, think about the grinder, the drive, the chips, and throw out a number. Maybe $100. Maybe $250. You’re not sure either one is right.

That guess is where most stump work goes wrong. Price too low and you “barely broke even after dump fees,” as one owner put it in a Facebook landscaping business group. Price too high without a reason and the customer goes and gets three more bids.

This guide gives you a clear stump grinding pricing system: a per-inch rate built from your own costs, a job minimum that covers hauling the grinder, adders for the hard stumps, and a 5-step routine to quote in the yard and close the job the same day.

Stump Grinding Pricing at a Glance (2026 Price Chart)

Start with what customers expect to pay. These are national figures from consumer cost guides, so treat them as the range your customer has already seen online, not as your rate.

Thumbtack also breaks out national project prices by stump size: under 12 inches runs $267–$354, 12–24 inches $324–$443, 24–36 inches $355–$486, and 36–48 inches $372–$494 (Thumbtack). Those are real project totals, so they include minimums. That’s why a small stump still lands above $250.

Why the average price for stump grinding misleads you: a $250 average blends one 10-inch pine in an open yard with a 40-inch oak behind a 36-inch gate. Your costs on those two jobs are nothing alike. You need a method, not an average.

How Much to Charge for Stump Grinding: The Contractor Math

Consumer guides tell homeowners what they’ll pay. Nobody tells you how to get there. Here’s the math, in three steps.

Step 1: Find your real cost per hour

Add up what one hour on a stump job costs you. The figures below are illustrative only. Use your own:

• Labor: you plus a helper, with payroll taxes and workers’ comp: $50/hour
• Truck and trailer: fuel, insurance, payment, wear: $20/hour
• Grinder: payment or rental, fuel, teeth, maintenance: $30/hour
• Total cost: $100/hour

Now add overhead and profit. If you want a 33% margin on top of cost, you need to bill about $150/hour. That lines up with the roughly $150/hour Thumbtack reports for multi-stump work (Thumbtack).

If you haven’t built your hourly cost yet, our guide on how to calculate landscaping job costs walks through every line.

Step 2: Turn your hourly rate into a stump grinding cost per inch

Customers understand “per inch.” Your bank account understands “per hour.” Connect the two with one number: how many inches you grind per hour.

Time yourself on your next five stumps. Write down the diameter and the grind time (not the setup time). Add up the inches and divide by the hours.

Formula: Per-inch rate = Billable hourly rate ÷ Inches ground per hour

Illustrative example: You bill $150/hour. Your timing shows about 40 inches per hour on average softwood with your machine. $150 ÷ 40 = $3.75 per inch.

That sits inside HomeAdvisor’s $2–$5 range, a good sanity check. If your math says $8 per inch, check your costs and timing. If it says $1.50, you’re about to work for free.

Woodland Mills, which sells grinders, suggests tiering the rate by size: $2–$3 per inch for small stumps, $3–$4 for medium, and $4–$5 for large ones (Woodland Mills). That makes sense. Big stumps take more passes per inch and wear more teeth.

Step 3: Pick your pricing model

For most small crews, the winner is per inch with a job minimum. It’s easy to explain, fair to the customer, and it scales from one stump to twenty.

Setting Your Job Minimum and Trip Charge

Consumer guides all quote a $100–$150 minimum (HomeAdvisor). Few explain why it exists. Here’s why: the first 45–60 minutes of every stump job are spent not grinding.

• Loading and hauling the grinder
• Driving to the property
• Unloading and walking the machine to the stump
• Checking for buried utilities (more on 811 below)
• Raking, cleanup, and loading back up

One Reddit owner put it well, talking about planting: “Price the visit, not just the plant. A per-flat or per-gallon number falls apart on the jobs with bad soil or a long drive to the bed, you end up working for free once you count loading, drive time and cleanup” (Reddit). Stumps work the same way.

Formula: Job minimum = Billable hourly rate × Non-grinding hours per visit

Illustrative example: $150/hour × 1 hour of haul, setup, and cleanup = $150 minimum.

Now your 14-inch pine makes sense. At $3.75/inch, it’s $52.50 of grinding. The minimum bumps it to $150, and you still get paid for the hour you spent getting there.

First stump vs. additional stumps: Once the grinder is unloaded, each extra stump costs you only grind time. That’s why LawnStarter shows a first stump around $123 and each additional one at $37–$70 (LawnStarter). Your per-inch rate does this for you automatically, because the minimum only applies once per visit.

Save the minimum as a standard line item so you never forget it. Leaving it off is one of the quiet landscaping estimating mistakes that cost crews real money every month.

Price Adders That Belong on Every Stump Quote

Diameter is the starting point. These factors change how long the job really takes. Except where a source is noted, the percentages below are suggested starting points you set yourself, not industry figures. Adjust them after you’ve timed a few jobs.

Two rules make adders work:

1. Name them on the quote. “Hardwood +25%” reads as fair. A mystery total reads as a guess.
2. Default to chips left in the hole. Make haul-away a clear add-on. Many customers will keep the chips to save money, and you skip the dump trip.

Your Stump Grinding Calculator: Quick-Quote Table

Think of this as a stump removal cost calculator you build once. Copy it into your notes app or estimate templates. Fill in the right-hand column once, then quote every stump job from it.

The full formula:

Quote = (Sum of each stump’s inches × per-inch rate × its adders) + haul-away + backfill. If the total is below your minimum, charge the minimum.

Worked example 1 (illustrative): One 14-inch pine, open yard, chips left. 14 × $3.75 = $52.50. Below the $150 minimum. Quote: $150.

Worked example 2 (illustrative): Three stumps: a 30-inch oak with surface roots, a 12-inch maple, and a 10-inch pine. Customer wants chips hauled.

• Oak: 30 × $3.75 = $112.50 × 1.25 hardwood × 1.20 roots = $168.75
• Maple: 12 × $3.75 = $45.00 × 1.25 hardwood = $56.25
• Pine: 10 × $3.75 = $37.50
• Chip haul-away: $75 (your number)
• Total: $337.50. Round to $340.

How to Quote Stump Grinding On the Spot: 5 Steps

The owner on YouTube described how they closed six stumps for $1,150: “I priced them out by inches, and I just put a price beside of them and gave her the total” (YouTube). Then they went back and typed the quote into software later. Here’s how to do it all in the driveway.

1. Measure right

Measure the widest point across the cut surface, including the root flare at ground level. DC Tree Cutting recommends measuring at the cut surface (DC Tree Cutting). Round up to the nearest inch. Measuring 2 inches above the flare can shave 20% off your price without you noticing.

2. Count, classify, and note adders

Walk every stump with the customer. Note species, surface roots, access, slope, and anything buried in it. Then ask, “Any other stumps you want gone while I’m here?” In the YouTube video, the customer added a sixth stump on the spot.

3. Ask the questions that change the price

• How deep do you need it? (Grass only, or replanting and pavers?)
• Keep the chips or haul them away?
• Do you want topsoil and seed in the holes?
• Has anyone marked utilities? Rules vary by state, so check your state’s 811 center before you grind.

4. Run the formula and send the quote before you leave the driveway

Apply your per-inch rate, adders, and minimum. Then send the quote while you’re standing there. A quote sent from the yard gets a yes from a customer who’s still looking at the stump. A quote emailed that night competes with two other bids.

Paper slows you down here: sketch it on a pad, re-type it at the kitchen table. In Okason, you save your per-inch rate, minimum, and adders in your Price List once. In the yard, you build the estimate from your phone, or use Talk-to-Estimate to say the job out loud and get priced line items. When the customer accepts, the estimate becomes a job. When the job is done, it turns into an invoice without retyping a thing.

5. Close or set a follow-up

Ask for the yes: “I can grind these Thursday. Want me to put you on the schedule?” If they want to think, set a follow-up for two days out. Our landscaping quote follow-up scripts give you the exact wording.

For HOAs and property managers: contract a per-inch rate plus a per-visit minimum, not a fixed total. Put depth, chip handling, and a buried-debris clause in writing.

Handling Stump Grinding Price Objections

“I’m getting three bids.” That’s normal. One Reddit commenter told a homeowner to “Call a minimum of 3 places for quotes to get an idea,” and asked, “Are they insured?” (Reddit). Use that. Put your insurance on the quote and show the per-inch math. A clear breakdown beats a lower number on a napkin.

“I could do it myself with a shovel and a chainsaw.” One Facebook commenter claimed exactly that: clear the stump low with “shovel and chain saw… do it all in 45 min or less” (Facebook). Don’t argue. Say: “You can. On a small pine, that might work. On this oak, you’ll be at it all weekend, and the roots will still be there. I’ll have it 8 inches below grade in an hour.”

“Can you do it for less?” Homeowners get coached to haggle. In the same Reddit thread, someone said, “Negotiate maybe. Tell them $3500” (Reddit). Don’t cut your rate. Remove scope instead: leave the chips, skip the backfill, or grind to 4 inches instead of 8. For more scripts, see how to handle landscaping price objections.

Should Your Crew Buy, Rent, or Sub Out a Grinder?

Your per-inch rate depends on what the grinder costs you. Here’s how the three options compare.

Rent. HomeAdvisor lists stump grinder rental at $60–$90 per hour, $110–$220 for a half day, $200–$400 for a full day, and $840–$930 per week (HomeAdvisor). Batch rental jobs into one day.

Buy. Woodland Mills lists PTO-driven grinders at $2,500–$3,500 and says one can pay for itself in 8–12 stumps (Woodland Mills). They sell grinders, so run your own payback math: grinder cost ÷ profit per stump job = jobs to break even.

Sub out. If stump work is rare, partner with a local stump grinder and add a markup for finding the job and managing the customer. You keep the customer and skip the equipment.

Rule of thumb: weekly stump work, buy. A few jobs a month, rent and batch. A few a year, sub it out.

Off-season tip: stump work can keep a crew busy when mowing slows. As one stump grinding owner said on YouTube, “as long as it’s not wet and rainy and it’s just dry and cold, we can still grind stumps” (YouTube). You don’t need a winter discount; offer faster scheduling instead. And add stump grinding to fall cleanup quotes as a natural upsell when the customer is already walking the yard with you.

Stump Grinding Pricing FAQ

How much does stump grinding cost? Most residential jobs run $120–$500, with an average around $250, according to HomeAdvisor. Large stumps can cost much more.

What’s a fair per-inch rate for stump grinding? National guides put it at $2–$5 per inch (HomeAdvisor). Your fair rate is your billable hourly rate divided by the inches you grind per hour.

Should I charge more for hardwood stumps? Yes. Hardwood grinds slower and wears teeth faster. LawnStarter reports hardwood adding $50–$150 to a job (LawnStarter).

Should I discount stump grinding in winter? Not by default. Sell fast scheduling, not a lower price, unless you have open days to fill.

What’s the difference between stump grinding and stump removal? Grinding chews the stump below grade and leaves the roots to rot. Removal pulls the stump and main roots out, which takes far more time and equipment. Say which one you’re quoting.

Do I need to call 811 before grinding a stump? In many states, grinding below grade counts as digging. Rules vary by state, so check with your state’s 811 center before every job.

Start Quoting Stumps With Confidence

You don’t need to guess at the curb anymore. Time your next five stumps. Work out your per-inch rate and your minimum. Fill in the quick-quote table and decide on your adders. Then the next time a customer points at a stump and asks “What would that run me?”, you’ll have a real answer in two minutes, and you’ll leave with a yes.