Plant health care pricing: per inch, per tree, or flat.

Why per inch of DBH

Every label for a systemic doses by trunk diameter. The product in the tree, the number of injection ports, the time the uptake takes, and the size of the crown you are protecting all go up with DBH. Pricing the same way keeps the quote honest on both ends: a 10 inch crabapple is not a $500 job and a 40 inch elm is not a $200 one. The client can also check it with a tape, which builds trust in a way a flat number does not.

The exception is anything you apply to foliage. Spray volume depends on canopy size, not trunk size, and a spray on a 30 foot tree takes roughly the same time whether its trunk is 12 inches or 18. Those services price per tree by height or canopy class, or per property for a hedge or a bed.

How the price is computed

For a per-inch service, the app multiplies the rate by the DBH on the plant record and compares it to the minimum; the client pays the larger. For a flat-rate service, the base price applies regardless of DBH, and the minimum still acts as a floor. If the DBH is missing on a per-inch service, the minimum applies rather than a guess. That logic lives in one place so a tech quoting from the truck and the owner quoting from the office get the same number.

Setting the minimum

The minimum covers the visit: drive time, setup, the label check, the record, the invoice. Most PHC operations land between $125 and $250 per visit and adjust by market. A minimum that is too low turns small-tree jobs into losses; one that is too high loses the crabapple that would have become a program client. Set it once, write it on every quote, and revisit it in January.

Multi-tree visits are where the minimum earns its keep in the other direction. Three 8 inch trees at one address is $600 at $25 per inch and one drive, and the client gets a per-property number that feels fair.

Product cost and margin

Trunk injection is the highest-margin service most tree companies run. The product in a 22 inch ash on emamectin benzoate at the label's medium rate is roughly $50 out of a $550 price at the default rate. Labor is 45 minutes to an hour with setup and uptake. The tree injection pricing guide works the whole job. Soil applications carry cheaper product and more time; sprays carry cheap product, more time, and weather risk.

Where programs lose margin is the return visit that was never priced: the follow-up inspection, the efficacy check, the retreatment reminder call. Price the program, not the visit, or put the follow-ups on the calendar as billable events.

Programs and annual agreements

The pricing sheet is per service. The business runs on programs: a property with its trees on a plan, priced annually, billed in installments or per visit. A program price is the sum of the per-inch services on the schedule plus the sprays by tree count, with a small discount for the commitment and the certainty. The starter guide covers how the first thirty programs get sold; the pricing sheet is what they are built from.