How We Calculate Trimming Costs

The formula

Every rate on this site comes out of the same three-step calculation. Nothing is hand-picked.

Why we do not simply average published prices

Most cost guides average whatever numbers other cost guides published. That compounds errors and produces figures nobody can trace. Wage data is different: it comes from compulsory or large-scale employer surveys, it is revised on a fixed schedule, and anyone can check it. Building up from wages means our estimates move when the underlying labour market moves, rather than when someone else updates their blog post.

The on-cost factor

An employee costs more per hour than their wage. In the United States that gap comes from payroll taxes, workers' compensation and liability insurance. In the United Kingdom it is employer National Insurance, pension auto-enrolment and holiday pay. In Australia it is superannuation and leave loading. In New Zealand it is KiwiSaver, ACC levies and holiday pay. We use a factor between 1.28 and 1.35 depending on the country, which sits within the normal range for outdoor trade employment.

The overhead and profit multiplier

This is the largest single assumption on the page, so it deserves the most scrutiny. It covers vehicle purchase and running costs, petrol trimmers and their maintenance, green waste disposal fees, public liability insurance, quoting time, travel between jobs, seasonal downtime, and the operator's margin.

We use a lower multiplier for low-cost areas, where sole traders with modest equipment dominate, and a higher one for metropolitan areas, where insurance, disposal fees, parking and vehicle costs are all higher. The range across our four countries runs from roughly 1.55 to 2.25.

The productivity assumption

To turn an hourly rate into a per-metre or per-foot rate, we assume a baseline of 6 metres, or about 19.7 linear feet, of standard hedge trimmed per labour-hour, inclusive of setup, cleanup and loading green waste. This baseline describes a well-maintained hedge of moderate height and density with easy access. Everything harder than that is handled by the multipliers in the calculator.

This is the assumption we hold with the least confidence, because no statistics agency publishes hedge trimming productivity. We derived it by working backwards from published per-metre rates in New Zealand, where several operators quote NZ$8 to NZ$15 per metre[12], and cross-checked it against hourly rates in the other three markets. We say more about this in the limitations section below.

What this method does not do well

A methodology page that only lists strengths is marketing. Here is where our numbers are weakest, so you can judge them properly.

The productivity assumption carries the most uncertainty

No government agency publishes how many metres of hedge a worker trims per hour. Our figure of 6 metres per labour-hour is derived by working backwards from published per-metre pricing and sense-checked against hourly rates. A dense yew or leylandii hedge can easily halve it. A young privet border can double it. The height, type and density multipliers in the calculator exist to absorb this, but the baseline itself is an estimate rather than a measurement.

Australian and New Zealand wage data is weaker than US and UK data

The BLS and ONS both run large compulsory or near-compulsory employer surveys and publish occupation-level detail. Our Australian and New Zealand wage anchors come from aggregated salary surveys instead, which have smaller samples and self-selection bias. We compensate by weighting the market cross-check more heavily in those two countries, but the inputs are not equivalent in quality and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Our US percentile detail lags the headline figures

The May 2025 OEWS release gives us current mean and median wages. The full percentile and state-level breakdown we use for the regional tiers is drawn from the May 2023 release and uprated using national mean growth. That is a reasonable approximation, but it assumes the wage distribution kept its shape over two years, which may not hold exactly.

We model labour, not materials or disposal at scale

The calculator handles green waste as a flat add-on. For a large restoration job producing several trailer loads, actual disposal costs can materially exceed that flat figure, particularly where transfer station fees are high. Treat large overgrowth jobs as the case where our estimate is most likely to run low.

These are estimates, not quotes

We are a matching service, not a contractor. We do not perform the work and we do not set the prices our partners charge. Every figure here describes a typical market, and your property is not a typical market. Use the estimate to know whether a quote is in the right range, not to hold anyone to a number.