Hand Clearing vs
Machine Clearing: Cost Per Acre

What a hand crew costs per hour and per day

A three-person tree or brush crew in Northeast Ohio bills about $225 an hour, which is $1,800 for an eight-hour day by our arithmetic [1]. National cost guides put land-clearing labor at $110 to $250 an hour [2].

The $225 figure comes from one Northeast Ohio owner who prices $75 per worker-hour for a crew of three, and who says that rate is a little low for his area [1]. The same pricing study found a larger outfit charging $575 per crew-hour [1]. Both are single owners' numbers, not a market survey.

Most of that hour is not wages. The median wage for a tree trimmer in Ohio is $23.87 an hour [3], and for a landscaping or grounds worker it is $18.38 [4]. One climber and two ground workers at those medians cost $60.63 an hour in pay (our arithmetic). The rest pays for the equipment, insurance, workers' compensation (an expensive line for tree work), overhead and profit. One small crew counted its chipper, bucket truck, pickups and dump trailer at about $31,833 a year to own, roughly $10 for every hour each worker spends on a job [1].

Hourly billing puts the risk of slow ground on you. If the brush is thicker than it looked from the road, or the crew spends an afternoon dragging cut stems to a pile, the hours run on. Before you compare a crew-hour price with a per-acre price, ask the crew for its estimated hours and a written total.

How fast each method clears an acre

A clearing machine takes one to eight hours an acre, depending on the growth, the terrain and the soil [5]. For a hand crew, the only Northeast Ohio figure we found is one contractor's estimate of one to two days per quarter acre in moderate brush [6], which works out to four to eight days an acre (our arithmetic).

The machine numbers are the better documented of the two. A U.S. Forest Service study timed one machine on western forest ground at an average of 0.57 acres an hour [8]. In a later Forest Service bulletin, a contractor describes small machines getting a quarter to half an acre a day in heavy material where his large machine gets five or six [9]. That is his account, not a measurement. Machine size matters as much as the method.

The hand numbers are thin, and we would rather say so than fill the gap. The Ohio estimate comes from a contractor whose main service is machine mulching, and it does not say how many people make up the crew [6]. The closest documented job we found was at a Forest Service ranger station in Vermont: a third of an acre of heavy to moderate bush honeysuckle on a rocky road bank, cut with chainsaws and chipped on site. Two contractors logged 17.5 hours, and staff and volunteers added about 12 more, for a total cost of $1,348 in 2011. The cut stumps were also treated with herbicide, which BrushBoss does not use [10]. HomeGuide describes hand clearing as labor-intensive and slower, and suited to small or sensitive areas [11]. None of the sources we found measures a hand crew's acres per day in Northeast Ohio brush.

Worked examples by brush density

By our arithmetic, a three-person crew at $225 an hour has to finish an acre of light brush in about 8.9 hours to match our machine price, before anything is hauled. In moderate brush, the one published hand pace puts crew time alone at $7,200 to $14,400 an acre.

How to read the table. The fourth column is a break-even, not a forecast. If a crew can finish your light acre in under 8.9 hours and the material is dealt with for free, hand clearing costs the same or less. If it takes the four to eight days the one Ohio estimate suggests for moderate brush, crew time alone is $7,200 to $14,400 before the brush leaves the property.

The published per-acre prices do not line up neatly with that arithmetic. The same Ohio contractor lists hand clearing at $3,000 to $6,000 an acre [6], well under what four to eight days of a $225 crew would bill. Either the crews it has in mind are larger or cheaper, or they work faster than its own estimate, or the price leaves something out. We cannot tell which from what is published, which is the strongest reason to get a written total rather than an hourly rate.

For context, HomeGuide puts the whole land-clearing bill, across all methods, at $1,200 to $2,500 an acre for light growth, $2,500 to $4,500 for moderate and $4,500 to $8,000 for heavy [11]. Those are national figures. The land-clearing cost guide breaks the whole bill down method by method. This page stays on the hours.

The costs after cutting: piling, burning, hauling

Cutting is only the first line of a hand-clearing bill. In one Forest Service cost comparison, a hand crew's cutting was estimated at $175 an acre, and piling and burning the cut material took the total to $505 to $715 [8]. Mulching by machine leaves the material on the ground, so there is no second line.

The same paper puts its machine at an average of $530 an acre [8], close to the hand total, so on that ground the two methods came out near even. The hand figure was a ranger district's estimate rather than a timed job, and it was western forest ground in 2006 dollars, so read it for the shape of the bill rather than for today's Ohio prices. The shape holds anywhere: once brush is cut, it has to go somewhere, and each of the routes below costs money or time.

• Piling. Dragging cut stems into piles is more crew time, or a machine with a grapple. In the Forest Service comparison, machine piling alone ran $255 to $400 an acre [8].
• Chipping. A tree crew usually feeds the brush through a chipper. In the Vermont case above, a day's chipper rental was $175 in 2011 [10], and a tree service that owns one counts a $50,000 chipper replaced every five years in its hourly rate [1]. The chips still have to be spread or hauled.
• Hauling. One Ohio contractor lists disposal at $200 to $500 or more a truckload [12], and HomeGuide notes that some contractors include disposal in the price and others bill it separately [11]. We found no published figure for how many truckloads an acre of brush makes. It depends on how thick the growth was.
• Stumps. Hand cutting leaves every stump standing. Grinding is usually priced per stump, at $100 to $400 on average, with each stump after the first adding $30 to $60 [13]. At BrushBoss, stumps inside ground we are already clearing are an add-on at $425 per acre of cleared ground. We do not take stump-only jobs.

Burning is the route many owners assume is free, and under Ohio's rules it is not simple. Under the Ohio Administrative Code, burning land clearing waste outside a restricted area needs written permission from Ohio EPA, the fire has to sit at least 1,000 feet from any inhabited building that is not on the property, and an air curtain device or an equally effective method has to be used to curb the smoke [14]. A restricted area is the land inside any city or village, plus 1,000 feet beyond one of 1,000 to 10,000 people and a mile beyond one of 10,000 or more [15]. Ohio EPA says permission can take two weeks, and waste cannot be hauled off the property to be burned somewhere else [16].

Household yard waste is covered by separate rules, so before lighting a pile, call the Ohio EPA district office for your county. Our Ohio land clearing permits guide covers the other approvals a clearing job can need.

When hand clearing wins

Hand clearing is the better buy for small patches and for careful work close to things a machine should not touch. The Ohio contractor above puts the useful limit at about a quarter acre and calls it impractical past half an acre [6], and HomeGuide recommends it for small or sensitive areas [11].

• A patch well under a quarter acre, where bringing a machine out costs more than the hours it saves.
• Brush tight against the house, a garden bed, a stone wall or a fence you want to keep.
• Ground behind a gate, between buildings, or anywhere else a machine cannot get to.
• Thinning seedlings out of a planting, or cutting vines off the trees you are keeping.
• Your own weekends. An owner with a saw and loppers pays in time, not money, and the edges, seedlings and vines are good work to do yourself. Our guide to clearing brush from woods covers how.
• One or two trees rather than ground. That is tree-service work, and the land clearing company vs tree service guide explains when to call an arborist.

Hand clearing stops winning as the area grows and the ground gets harder. On steep, rocky or wet ground, the same contractor notes that the safety risk goes up and the output goes down for a crew on foot [6]. Small areas are also where per-acre comparisons mislead, so BrushBoss flat-prices them: $295 for a driveway or fence line, $495 for a strip and $750 for a corner up to a quarter acre. Put the crew's written total next to the flat price and the comparison is done.

What to ask a hand crew before you hire

These turn an hourly rate into a number you can set beside a per-acre price.

1. How many people, at what rate per hour, and how many hours do you expect for my area?
2. Is the price a fixed total, or an estimate that grows with the hours?
3. Where does the cut brush go: chipped and left, hauled away, or piled for burning?
4. If it is hauled, how many loads do you expect, and is disposal on this quote?
5. Are stumps left standing, cut low, or ground, and what does grinding add?
6. Can I see your certificate of insurance, including workers' compensation?

Where BrushBoss fits

BrushBoss clears land by machine in Northeast Ohio for $2,000 to $2,990 an acre, set by how dense the growth is, with the cut material left as mulch over your own topsoil and nothing to haul. Small areas are flat-priced and there is no project minimum. Every price is on the pricing page, and the Land Clearing Cost Calculator prices your own ground from a map. If your job is a small patch by the house, a hand crew or your own saw may be the cheaper answer, and we will say so.

Methodology and sources, updated October 2026

BrushBoss prices on this page come from our published price schedule. Every other figure comes from the sources below, each read in October 2026, and is marked in the text with its number. We favored government, university extension and Forest Service sources, and used cost guides, a tree-service pricing study, an operator calculator and other contractors' published figures where those were the only public record of a number. Ohio wage figures are the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 medians.

The weakest number on the page is the hand crew's pace. The only Ohio figure is one contractor's estimate, and it does not give a crew size. The Vermont case is one documented job on a third of an acre, and the Forest Service figures are older and from western forests. We used them to compare methods, not to price an Ohio job. The break-even hours, crew-day totals and wage arithmetic are ours, built from the sourced figures and an eight-hour day, and are labeled that way where they appear.

Sources

1. Tree Service Cost Per Hour: Man-Hour vs Crew-Hour. TrueTradeCost, October 2026.
2. How Much Does It Cost to Clear Land? [2026 Data]. Angi, 2026.
3. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: Tree Trimmers and Pruners, Ohio, median hourly wage. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 estimates.
4. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers, Ohio, median hourly wage. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 estimates.
5. Options for Clearing Land to Establish Pasture (465-341). Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, 2021.
6. Brush Clearing in Ohio: When You Need It, What It Costs, and How It Works. Apex Land Services (a Northeast Ohio contractor), April 2026.
7. Acres Per Day Calculator for Forestry Mulching. MulchDeck, accessed October 2026.
8. Mastication: A Fuel Reduction and Site Preparation Alternative. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station (Halbrook et al.), 2006.
9. Is Mastication Right for Your Site? (Science You Can Use, Issue 45). USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, November 2020.
10. Management Case Studies: Green Mountain National Forest, Middlebury District Ranger Station. Vermont Invasives (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation and Vermont Extension), case dated 2011.
11. How Much Does It Cost to Clear Land? (2026). HomeGuide, 2026.
12. How Much Does Land Clearing Cost in Ohio? 2026 Pricing Guide. Apex Land Services (a Northeast Ohio contractor), May 2026.
13. How Much Does Stump Removal Cost? (2026). HomeGuide, 2026.
14. Rule 3745-19-04: Open Burning in Unrestricted Areas. Ohio Administrative Code (Ohio EPA), effective April 30, 2018.
15. Rule 3745-19-01: Definitions (restricted area, land clearing waste). Ohio Administrative Code (Ohio EPA), accessed October 2026.
16. Open Burning. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, accessed October 2026.