Stump removal cost and stump grinding prices in Australia

Most Australians pay $70 to $450 to have a tree stump ground out, and the middle of the market sits at about $225. Airtasker's stump removal figures give a median of $225, a low of $70 and a high of $1,010, which is a spread of nearly fifteen to one on what sounds like a single job.

That spread is not randomness. It is a measurement. Stump work is one of the few tree jobs priced off a number you can take yourself in about thirty seconds, with a tape measure, before you ring anybody. Everything on this page runs off that one number, so go and get it first.

How much does stump removal cost?

Measure the cut face at ground level, straight across its widest point. Not the skinnier trunk further up, and not the narrow side. Then find your row.

This table is not a separate price list. It is the trade's own per-centimetre rule worked out in full, which is explained in the next section. The palm column applies the discount that published figures show between palm and hardwood stumps of the same width, so treat it as a guide rather than a quote.

It holds up against real quote data. Go Tree Quotes reports an average of $60 for a stump 15 to 25cm across and $385 for one of 85 to 120cm, and both of those land inside the bands above. Where the two sources part company is at the top: Airtasker's high is $1,010, while Go Tree Quotes puts the ceiling at $900. Either way, a four-figure stump quote is unusual and worth a second opinion.

What does stump grinding cost per centimetre?

Three dollars a centimetre, and up to four and a half when the job is slow. Go Tree Quotes sets the starting formula as diameter in centimetres multiplied by three, stretching to four and a half where access, root spread or hard timber make the work harder. Its own worked examples are 25cm at $75, and 85cm coming out somewhere between $255 and $380.

Two things people get wrong when they measure.

• Measure the flare, not the trunk. A gum that looks 40cm at chest height can be 70cm where it meets the soil. The grinder has to eat the wide part.
• Count the buttress roots. Where thick roots run out above ground across the lawn, those are extra metres of grinding that your single diameter measurement never captured. Say so on the phone and you will get a straighter price.

Pricing by width rather than by the hour is not laziness. Width is the closest thing to a measure of how much timber has to be turned into chips, and of how fast the cutting teeth go blunt doing it. Those teeth cost real money to replace, and hardwood is what wears them out.

Stump removal cost calculator

Set the five things a crew weighs up before they quote and you will get the range your job is likely to land in. It runs on the same per-centimetre rule as the table above.

Is stump grinding cheaper than digging the stump out?

Yes, and it is not close. Grinding shaves the stump away with a spinning wheel until it sits below your lawn. Digging it out means an excavator pulling the whole root plate up, which is an earthmoving job priced by machine and hours rather than by width.

The good news is that you almost never have to choose. When an Australian crew quotes "stump removal", they are quoting you for grinding. So the real question is not which one is cheaper. It is this: what is going on that patch of ground afterwards?

• Lawn, garden bed, or a new plant a metre to one side. Grinding is all you need, and the price is the table above.
• A slab, a driveway, a footing, a pool or a retaining wall. Now the roots are in the way of the build, and you are asking for excavation. Say so before anyone quotes.

Getting that wrong is how a $200 stump turns into a return visit with a machine on a float. There is no published Australian price for pulling a whole root ball out, because it is quoted job by job. Ask for it as its own line, in writing, with the depth stated.

How deep does stump grinding go, and does depth cost extra?

Standard practice is 20 to 30cm below the surface, then covered over, with the remaining roots left to break down naturally. That is a hard limit on the machine as much as a choice: grinders are not designed to go much beyond about a foot down.

Depth costs money in two ways, and neither shows up as a "depth" line on the quote.

• More passes. Going deeper means working the wheel back and forth across the same face repeatedly. It is time, and time is the bill.
• More spoil. A deeper grind produces a bigger heap of chips and soil, and that heap has to go somewhere. See what is not in the price, below.

So when you ask for a quote, name the depth you need rather than asking for "deep". Below the turf so a mower clears it is one job. Deep enough to plant into, or to run a trench through, is another.

Is hiring a stump grinder cheaper than paying someone?

For one ordinary stump, no. The maths is brutal and it is worth doing before you spend a Saturday on it.

T7 Hire in Jimboomba, Queensland, publishes $160 for four hours, $195 for eight hours and $345 for two days on a walk-behind Red Roo grinder, plus a $100 security deposit. Then there is getting it home. Go Tree Quotes puts a ute or trailer at $68 to $120 per four hours and notes the machines weigh at least 200kg, so you also need someone to help you load it.

Line that up against the table. A 30cm stump is a $90 to $135 job. Four hours of machine is $160 before you have hitched a trailer to anything. You would be paying roughly double to do the work yourself.

Go Tree Quotes draws the line at $200: below that, hiring makes no sense, and with only two or three stumps under 30cm you should get a professional in. Hiring starts to pay when you have four or more stumps, or one genuinely huge one, and you are comfortable running a machine that throws grit and stones at speed near windows and feet.

Does stump removal cost more in some cities?

Less than you would expect. These are Airtasker's city figures for stump removal:

Read down that column and the useful finding is how much the ranges overlap. Sydney, usually the dearest city in the country for tree work, has the second-lowest bottom end here. Brisbane and Adelaide look expensive only because their top figure is a very large stump, not a typical one. What your stump measures matters far more than which city it is in.

Perth carries a genuine local cost on top. The whole metropolitan area sits inside a quarantine zone for the polyphagous shot-hole borer, and the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development requires that untreated wood is not moved out of the zone unless it is chipped to 2.5cm or smaller, and that any machinery used to handle green waste is cleaned before it crosses that boundary. Cleaning a grinder is time somebody pays for. Our stump removal service page sets out how those rules work.

What is not included in a stump grinding quote?

Four things, and each one has caught somebody out.

Carting the grindings away. Raked back into the hole they are free. Loaded onto a trailer they become a green waste charge, and tip fees are set council by council. For a sense of scale, from 1 July 2026 the City of Ballarat charges residents $9 for a car boot of green waste and clean timber, $23 for a level small trailer and $61 for a full small caged trailer, with non-resident rates of $12, $32 and $84. Small money on its own, but it is labour plus disposal, not disposal alone.

Soil and turf on top. Grindings settle and slump over the following months. If you want the patch to look like lawn rather than a saucer, someone has to bring in topsoil and returf it, and that is a landscaping job rather than a tree one.

The lateral roots. The grind takes the stump and the flare around it. Roots running out under paths and pipes stay put. Our guide to tree root removal, pipes and root barriers covers what to do when those are the actual problem.

Approval, if the tree is still standing. There is no national rule here, and the official guidance is about taking the tree down rather than the stump left behind, so if yours is still standing that is the approval to sort out first. Service NSW says the rules differ from council to council and to seek advice from your local council before removing any tree, warning that failing to do so can incur substantial fines. Victoria's guidance is the same shape: trees can be covered by council rules, so check with your council. If the tree has not come down yet, our tree removal cost guide is the number you actually need.

All prices on this page are in Australian dollars and were compiled in August 2026. Hire rates, tip fees and council rules are set locally and change over time, so treat every figure here as a starting point and confirm the detail with your own council and your own quotes before you book.