What counts as small
A useful working line: a tree you can reach the top of from the ground, growing where it can fall in any direction without hitting anything, with a trunk a handsaw or a small chainsaw will manage.
Once you are thinking about a ladder, a rope, or controlling which way it falls, you have left that category. Ladder work with a running saw is how a large share of amateur tree injuries happen, and a three-metre tree can still put you in hospital if it hits you on the way down.
Signs a small tree should come out
It is dead. Not thinning, not stressed — dead. No green growth after a full spring.
It is the wrong species for the spot. A eucalypt tube stock planted two metres from a slab is a small tree today and a structural problem in fifteen years. Removing it now costs a fraction of removing it later, and no amount of pruning fixes placement.
It is a declared weed. Privet, camphor laurel seedlings, cocos palm, rubber tree. Most councils exempt these, they spread into bushland, and they are far easier to deal with small.
It is suckering from something else. Shoots rising from a root system, rather than a real seedling, will keep coming until the parent root plate is dealt with.
It is in the footings, the drains or the fence line. Small roots become large roots. This is the cheapest moment to act.
What removal actually costs
Small tree removal typically runs in the order of $200 to $500 depending on access, species and what is around it. The uncomfortable part is that the number is not very sensitive to the tree's size, because most of it is the callout — crew, chipper and tipper to your street, set up, and away again.
That has one clear implication: batch it. If you have three small trees, a hedge that needs taking out and a stump, do them in one visit. If a neighbour has a similar job, book together. If you are already having a larger tree removed, add the small one to the same quote. The marginal cost of the second and third job is a fraction of the first.
The stump
Small tree stumps are frequently left because grinding "is not worth it". Sometimes true — a small stump in a back corner rots down harmlessly. But if the species suckers from the root plate, or you intend to replant, turf or pave over the spot, deal with it while the machine is already there.
Doing it yourself, sensibly
If it is genuinely in the small category: check the council threshold first, cut it in sections from the top down rather than felling it in one, keep the saw out above shoulder height, and have somewhere for the material to go. Green waste bins fill fast, and a tip run costs money that a crew's tipper would have absorbed.
See tree removal, stump removal and the cost guide. Other guides are on the blog index.
Frequently asked questions
How small is small enough to do myself?
Roughly: something you can reach the top of from the ground, that will fall clear of everything if it goes the wrong way, with a trunk a handsaw or a small chainsaw handles. If you are thinking about a ladder, a rope, or how to make it fall in a particular direction, it is not a small tree job any more.
Do small trees need council approval?
Often not, because most councils set a size threshold and small trees fall under it. But thresholds vary and some councils regulate at surprisingly modest sizes, particularly on the North Shore and in the east. It takes two minutes to check your council's development control plan, and it is cheaper than the alternative.
Why does a small tree sometimes cost almost as much as a big one?
Because most of the price is the callout. Getting a crew, a chipper and a tipper to your street and setting up costs the same whether the tree is three metres or thirteen. That is why combining several small jobs, or adding the small tree to a larger one, is far better value than booking it alone.