How to start a stump grinding business
Stump grinding is a single-machine business with an unusually clear customer: the tree services who remove trees and do not own a grinder.
Week 1: register, insure, plan the machine
Register and insure. $800 to $2,500 a year. Grinding throws debris at speed and works near buried services.
Call 811 or your local utility locate service before every job. Hitting a gas or water line is the catastrophic failure in this trade and it is entirely preventable.
Week 2: the machine decision
This decides which jobs you can take.
Tow-behind, 25–35 HP ($8,000–$20,000 used). Powerful and productive, and it cannot get through a narrow gate. Fine for front gardens and open access.
Self-propelled narrow-access ($15,000–$35,000). Fits through a 30-inch gate, which is where a surprising share of residential stumps are.
A large share of the jobs a competitor turns down are access jobs. Narrow-access capability is a genuine competitive position, not just convenience.
Buy used. Grinders are simple machines and depreciation on new ones is severe.
Budget for teeth. They are consumable and rocks destroy them. $30 to $80 each, several per job in bad ground.
Weeks 3–6: the tree service relationships
This is the business.
Many tree services remove trees and either subcontract grinding or simply tell the customer to arrange it. Every one of those is a lead they would rather hand to a reliable subcontractor than lose.
Visit them. Not email — turn up, introduce yourself, leave a rate card. Offer trade pricing and same-week turnaround.
Three or four good relationships can fill a schedule with no consumer advertising at all, and they arrive pre-qualified because the customer has already accepted the tree work.
Add landscapers doing garden renovations and fencing contractors who hit stumps on boundary lines.
Weeks 7–12: direct work and pricing habits
Google Business Profile for direct residential enquiries, with photos of ground stumps and cleared, backfilled ground.
Price by inch at ground level, $3 to $7, measured across the widest point where the stump meets the soil. Root flare means measuring the cut face underprices consistently.
Hold a job minimum of $100 to $175. Loading, towing, unloading and manoeuvring a machine takes longer than grinding a small stump, so the minimum is not greed — it is the actual cost.
Quote chip removal separately. Grinding produces far more volume than customers expect, and they almost always assume removal is included.
Discount multi-stump jobs slightly. The travel is amortised, so three stumps at one property is far better business than three separate visits.
What to run it on
Quoting and scheduling around access are the needs.
QuoteIQ at $29.99/mo lets you check gate access and approach on satellite imagery before driving out. Jobber at $49/mo handles scheduling and invoicing and lets you attach grinding to tree service jobs. Housecall Pro is worth looking at once you run more than one machine.
Questions operators actually ask
How do I start a stump grinding business?
Register and insure, buy a grinder sized for the access you can realistically reach, then build relationships with tree services and landscapers who cut stumps and do not grind them. Trade referrals are the core of this business.
How much does it cost to start?
$8,000 to $40,000, almost all of it the grinder. A tow-behind machine is $8,000 to $20,000 used; a self-propelled narrow-access machine costs more and reaches more jobs. Teeth, insurance and a suitable tow vehicle are the rest.
Who are my best customers?
Tree services. Many remove trees and do not own a grinder, so they subcontract or refer. Three or four good tree service relationships can fill a schedule without any consumer advertising.
What machine should I buy?
Whatever reaches the stumps in your market. A large tow-behind cannot get through a 30-inch garden gate, and a surprising share of residential stumps sit behind exactly that. Narrow-access capability wins jobs a bigger machine cannot.
How do I price stump grinding?
By inch of diameter measured at ground level, $3 to $7, with a job minimum of $100 to $175. The minimum matters more than the rate — transporting the machine is the real cost, not the grinding.