A three-tree removal settled with a number on a text reads like a side hustle. The same job on a clean invoice — each tree priced by size, the brush line, the stump grind, your insurance right at the top — reads like the outfit the homeowner meant to hire. Here's exactly what goes on it.
Eight things. Miss one and you either look small-time, eat a dispute, or wait longer to get paid.
Business name, phone, license number where your state issues one, and the words "licensed and insured." In tree work that line is the sale: it's the first thing a homeowner checks before letting a chainsaw near the house.
"Remove maple, ~40 ft, rear yard — $650." A small ornamental, a mid-size removal, and a big oak are different jobs with different prices. Per-tree lines mean nothing to argue about when the total lands.
Cutting and hauling are different work. The brush line carries your chip time, truck space, and dump fees — and it gives the customer a real choice, because some will keep the wood and save the fee.
Grinding is its own machine, its own trip, its own price. Keeping it off the removal line means the customer who says "leave the stump" doesn't drag your removal price down with it.
"Rigging over garage — controlled lowering — $250" is a sentence a customer can respect. An unexplained bigger number is a phone call. If the tree hangs over a structure, a fence, or service lines, say so on the line.
Big removals should take a deposit at approval — it protects the day you blocked and the crew you booked. On the invoice it appears as a credit against the total, so the balance due is obvious.
The yard the customer left for work and the yard they came home to. Photos on the invoice end "did you really grind it flush?" conversations before they start — and they're your gallery material.
A card link they can tap, or whatever else you take — put it on the invoice. The job's done, the saw's in the truck; don't make the money a second trip.
Three trees, brush hauled, one stump ground, rigging over the garage. This is the shape:
RIDGE & ROOT TREE SERVICE — Licensed & insured · Lic #TS-4127
Invoice #114 · July 23 · Sarah Okafor, 14 Cedar Ct.
Remove maple, ~40 ft, rear yard ............ $650.00
Remove pine, ~30 ft, side yard ............. $450.00
Trim oak, crown clean, front ............... $350.00
Rigging over garage — controlled lowering .. $250.00
Brush — chip & haul-off, full load ......... $220.00
Stump grind — maple, flush + chips raked ... $180.00
Subtotal $2,100.00
Deposit paid 7/19 − $500.00
Balance due $1,600.00
Pay: card link below · Venmo @ridgeandroot
Cleanup done, gate latched, chips left in bed per request.
Sizing the tree is your judgement. Getting that number agreed to, signed, and covered before the saw starts is the app's half.
Give a range off the photo, lock the number on site, then send a branded estimate the customer taps Approve on — not a number in a text thread. Their typed name is the signature on it, and the price is good for 14 days. On a big removal, set the deposit right on that estimate: your shop default, waived, or 10 to 50 percent, decided per job.
Mark a line optional and it lands on the approval page with its own checkbox: "Include this optional add-on?" Uncheck the stump grind and the total updates in front of them; leave it checked and it's approved with the rest. One estimate covers both answers, and the one they picked comes back signed.
Add the line from the yard and the link they already approved reopens as "Authorize the added work?" — showing what they agreed to before and what the total is now. They tap it from the driveway while you're still rigging. The extra work gets paid because it got authorized, not because somebody remembered the conversation.
A tree across a driveway after a storm is not a scheduled removal and shouldn't be priced like one: live hazards, bad footing, a dropped schedule. Put the premium on the quote as its own line, in plain words — even on a same-day call, even typed from the truck in the driveway — and let the invoice repeat it word for word. A premium the customer reads and approves before you start is a price they agreed to; the same line discovered on the invoice afterward is a surprise, and the surprise is what gets argued about at the door.
Per-foot pricing is how tree guys go broke. Two 50-foot maples, identical to the inch: one stands clear in an open yard and drops in an afternoon, the other is wedged between the house and a fence and comes down on ropes, piece by piece, every limb walked to the chipper. Same species, same height, $850 apart. Size the job by how it has to come down, not how tall it stands — then price it the way the menu below does, by what the ground makes you do.
One job, one check, and the truck leaves. Whether that address ever calls you again gets decided before you pull out of the driveway — and that part is craft, not software.
Turn one emergency call into a regular has the walk-around question that opens it, the annual-visit script, the ten-year math on a single property, and the follow-up system that fires eleven months out. The app half — the plan that spawns each visit, the reminders you never have to set — is further down this page.
Units, not hours. Each line is units × your unit rate, and the removal tiers price the method: R1 drops clear, R3 comes down on ropes. These are the numbers SideWRK preloads into a new tree operator's estimate form at the default $350 unit rate — a menu, not a meter, every number editable to your market.
| Service | Units | Starting price |
|---|---|---|
| R1 tree removal — small, straight fell | 1 | $350 |
| R2 tree removal — full-size, room to work | 3 | $1,050 |
| R3 tree removal — rigged, roped down | 5 | $1,750 |
| Brush clearing | 2 × $100 | $200 |
| Stump grinding | per stump | $200 |
| Hazard / tight-access surcharge | flat | $200 |
| Debris / log haul-away | flat | $150 |
| Trip / assessment fee | flat | $95 |
Every line lands on a branded estimate the customer approves from their phone — that's how SideWRK runs tree side work end to end.
| R2 tree removal — oak, corner lot (3 × $350) | $1,050.00 |
| R1 tree removal — elm, back fence (1 × $350) | $350.00 |
| Brush clearing (2 × $100) | $200.00 |
| Stump grinding — oak | $200.00 |
| Hazard / tight-access — fence line | $200.00 |
| Total | $2,000.00 |
At SideWRK's preloaded defaults, a small straight-fell tree is one unit at $350, a full-size tree with room to work is three units at $1,050, and a rigged, roped-down removal is five units at $1,750 — with brush, stump grinding, and haul-off as their own lines. Access and lean move a tree between tiers more than height does, and every number is editable to your market.
Because the method sets the price, not the height. A tree standing clear drops and bucks in an afternoon; the same tree wedged against a house comes down on ropes, piece by piece, with every limb carried to the chipper. The difference is rigging time and hand-carrying, not markup.
What a finished job already knows keeps working after the truck is loaded: the property record, the photos, the follow-up dates.
Set up a recurring plan on the customer — the annual visit, the standard work, the price — and the app creates a pre-filled job each cycle, sitting in your jobs ready to do and get paid. The maintenance base gets built because something remembers to build it.
A quiet estimate gets a friendly nudge at 3 and 7 days. A finished job asks the customer for a review. An unpaid invoice gets a reminder at 3, 7, and 14 days with a pay link. All by email, never texts, and each one is a toggle you own.
Pair the before and the after from a job's own photos into the gallery on your public page. The lot you cleared is the ad for the next lot — and it's already on your phone.
See the follow-ups and the gallery working on a sample business in the live tree service demo — open it free, no signup.
Size up the tree, add the brush haul and the stump, put your own rate in — and hand back a number that covers the risk. It runs free, right here.
Six questions at the estimate, and the record answers for you at the callback, the permit counter, and in April.
Every job carries the property itself: the address, the work type, whether the tree might be protected, whether it stands near power lines, whether anyone checked for an active nest — plus notes for species, size, access, and hazards. When the neighbor calls in March about "the same kind of oak," you're reading a record, not squinting at memory.
Numbered invoices, payments, fuel and equipment receipts — it all rolls into a year-end wrap-up: rows, category totals, CSVs, and a printable summary your preparer can actually use. The shoebox of receipts, gone.
Tree work above your state's minor-work limit is licensed contractor work in many states — in California it's the C-49 Tree and Palm classification. Protected or heritage trees often need a local permit before removal, work near energized lines is restricted to qualified line-clearance crews, and active nests are federally protected. SideWRK keeps the records — your license on every invoice, the permit number and its fee as its own line, the flags on the job. Meeting the requirement stays yours: the app is the notebook, never the permit.
Your business block with the insurance line, the customer's name and address, one priced line per tree, brush as its own line, stump grinding separately, hazard or rigging charges in plain words, the deposit shown as paid, tax where it applies, and how to pay.
Yes. Per-tree, sized and priced. It's how the trade really bills, and it's the difference between a total the customer understands and a number they want to negotiate.
It should be — chip time, truck space, and dump fees are real costs, and a separate line lets the customer keep the wood and skip the fee if they want.
On large removals, take one at approval and show it on the invoice as a credit. It protects the day you blocked out and makes the balance due unmistakable.
SideWRK prices per tree the way the trade actually bills — tiers by size, brush at its own rate, stump grinding separate — then turns the estimate into this invoice in one tap.
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