Land Clearing Cost Per Acre: A Pricing Worksheet for Contractors, Not Just a National Average

Key takeaways

• Published per-acre ranges run from under $500 for open brush to over $5,600 for heavy timber, and the spread is real: it reflects different jobs, not disagreement about one job.
• Most published "per acre" tables just scale a flat rate down to fractional lots, which ignores the minimum crew-day charge every real contractor actually has.
• A defensible price comes from your own crew-day cost divided by your own production rate, not from a number on someone else's blog.
• Disposal method, mulch in place versus push-and-haul, often moves the price more than vegetation density does, and almost no guide prices it separately.

How much does land clearing cost per acre?

Most jobs land somewhere between $330 and $5,600 per acre, and where you fall in that range comes down to vegetation, not luck.

Two cost guides we read directly land close together on both ends of that range. LawnLove, last updated December 27, 2025, and Bob Vila, last updated February 28, 2023, independently arrive within a few hundred dollars of each other at the light and heavy end:

That agreement on the light and heavy ends is the useful part. It means the wide national ranges you see quoted (often $500 to $15,000 an acre) are not two sources disagreeing about the same job. They are averaging together jobs that should never share a number: an open pasture with scattered saplings and a stand of mature hardwoods with heavy stumps are not the same project, and pricing them off one blended average is how contractors underbid the second one.

Why do "per acre" guides get fractional lots wrong?

Because most of them just divide a flat rate by the acreage, and a real crew does not work that way.

LawnLove's own size table makes the problem visible. Its figure for a one-eighth-acre lot, general clearing, is $101 to $734. Multiply that by eight to get a per-acre-equivalent, and it lands at $808 to $5,872, which is almost identical to its own 1-acre figure of $810 to $5,870. The table is just scaling one flat per-acre rate down, as if a contractor would load a mulcher onto a trailer, drive to a site, and clear a one-eighth-acre lot for $101.

No contractor actually does that. Every real crew has a minimum charge, typically tied to a half or full crew-day, because mobilization, load and unload, and setup cost close to the same amount whether the lot is one-eighth acre or five acres. That is why the true per-acre-equivalent cost on a small lot is usually far higher than any published table shows, and why contractors who quote straight off a national guide lose money on small jobs without realizing where it went.

The inverse is also true at the top end. ContractorPlus, a field-service software company, published a pricing guide on August 31, 2026 (updated September 10, 2026) that notes volume discounts of 10 to 20 percent per acre often become workable above about five acres, since the same mobilization and setup cost spreads across more billable acreage.

What does disposal method do to the price?

Often more than vegetation density does, and it is the variable most guides skip.

Clearing an acre is really two decisions: how you knock the vegetation down, and what you do with what is left. Three disposal paths show up across the guides we read:

• Mulch in place. A forestry mulcher grinds brush and small trees into material that stays on site as ground cover. No hauling, no burning, and Bob Vila's guide prices this as an add-on of $400 to $600 per acre on top of base clearing.
• Push and pile, then burn. Cheaper where open burning is legal and the debris volume is too high to mulch economically, but it adds the cost and the schedule risk of a permit, which we cover next.
• Haul off site. The most expensive route by far. ContractorPlus prices hauling timber off site at $500 to $2,000 or more per acre on top of the clearing cost, separate from stump removal, which it prices at $150 to $500 per stump.

A homeowner or developer comparing three quotes at wildly different prices is often comparing three different disposal methods, not three different crews. Naming the method in your quote, not just the per-acre total, is what makes your number defensible when a cheaper bid shows up.

What permits should you build into the price?

Check the state forestry agency and the local county, every time, because the rules do not match from one jurisdiction to the next.

Burn permits are the one that trips contractors up most. In Georgia, for example, the Georgia Forestry Commission states plainly on its own site (read November 5, 2026) that authentic burn permits issued through the GFC are free, available online at GaTrees.org or by calling 1-800-GA-TREES. That said, the same GFC page notes that a burn permit may also need to be obtained from the local county or city office under its own ordinance, so the free state permit is not always the only permit in play.

Bob Vila's guide separately prices a general land-clearing permit at up to $200, which is a different line item from any burn permit and varies by municipality. The only safe move is to call the specific county or city office for the property before you quote, and to carry that line as "permits: confirmed with [county] on [date]" rather than a guess.

How do you build a price you can actually defend?

Start from your own crew-day cost, not from any number on this page.

ContractorPlus's August 31, 2026 pricing guide lays out a method that holds up regardless of what the market average says. The numbers below are their published worked example, meant to show the mechanic, not a rate to copy:

1. Total your crew-day cost. Labor, payroll tax, fuel, maintenance, insurance, equipment payments, and overhead for one full day.
2. Know your production rate. How many acres your crew actually clears in a day at a given density, from your own job history, not an estimate.
3. Divide for your break-even. ContractorPlus's example uses a $1,600 crew-day on one acre of medium brush, giving a $1,600-per-acre break-even.
4. Add your margin. Their example adds 30 percent, for a quote of roughly $2,100 per acre.
5. Set a real minimum. Their example sets $1,800 for any lot up to a half acre, based on a $1,200 crew-day, which is the fix for the fractional-lot problem above.
6. Price extras as their own line items. Stumps per stump, hauling per load or ton plus dump fees, and extra loads as a change order rather than folded into the per-acre number.

Run this with your own crew-day cost and your own production rate by density, and you have a number that holds up against a cheaper competitor because you know exactly which input they are cutting to get there.

Should you publish your pricing, and how do you do it without underbidding yourself?

Yes, and the way to do it safely is to publish a range tied to the variables, not a flat number.

The reason this search term is worth answering on your own site is visible in who currently ranks for it: mostly national home-improvement aggregators with no local crew, no local permit knowledge, and no real photos. A property owner who finds one of those pages still has to call around for an actual quote. A land clearing company that publishes an honest, density-based range, the disposal options, and the permit question is answering the whole search, which is the kind of page that earns trust before the first call and keeps the owner from anchoring on a lowball number from a competitor who will add change orders later.

The underbidding risk is real but avoidable. Three guardrails keep a public pricing page from becoming a liability:

• Publish ranges by density and disposal method, never a single flat number. The ranges above show you how wide that spread legitimately is.
• State plainly that the final price depends on a site visit. Terrain, access, and stump volume cannot be priced from a photo or a phone call.
• Update the page when your costs move. A stale price page is worse than no price page, because a customer will hold you to a number you published two fuel-price cycles ago.

This is the same logic behind a strong land clearing company service page generally: specific, honest content about what a job actually involves outranks and out-converts a vague page built to avoid giving anything away. If building that page, keeping it current, and getting it found is the part you do not have time for, that is the work we do for land clearing companies every day; see our land clearing SEO service.

Frequently asked questions