First of all, the math shows the issue with that assumption—the numbers presented wouldn’t line up. But more importantly, we ALL need to understand what an “acre per hour” data point actually represents.
Acres per hour is a two-dimensional data point. It covers area (the acre) and time (the hour), but it doesn’t factor in the volume of work completed. That makes it only an indicator of production, not a definitive measurement.
Inch-acres (invented by Jeremiah Anderson for TreeShop), on the other hand—which is what the TreeShop Forestry Mulching Score technically represents—captures the actual volume of work you’re going to process with your forestry mulcher on a specific project.
Projects are typically tied to a specific parcel of land, which sits within a specific vegetation region. The carrying capacity of that land is dictated by several factors, but you’ll generally find predictable vegetation densities across different regions. Yes, there are project factors that can prove that statement wrong, but TreeShop has systems in place to accommodate those—so don’t worry about that yet. Let’s focus on the simple side and understand the concept at a base level before diving into project factors.
Why Acres Per Hour Doesn’t Work
Let’s use an example we’ll stick with throughout this article.
You have two five-acre jobs. Same acreage. Same equipment. Same operator.
• Job A: Open pasture with scattered brush, nothing over 4” in diameter
• Job B: Dense oak hammock, trees up to 12” in diameter
If you measured your production in acres per hour, you might knock out Job A in four hours. That’s 1.25 acres per hour. Feeling good.
Job B? That same five acres might take you twenty hours. Now you’re at 0.25 acres per hour.
Same machine. Same operator. Wildly different “production rates.”
So which number is real?
Neither.
Both.
It depends.
And that’s exactly the problem. Acres per hour is not a stable metric. It changes based on what’s growing on the land, not just how much land there is. When operators throw around acres-per-hour numbers, they’re usually talking about their best days—the easy jobs, the bragging rights. It’s a vanity metric. It makes you feel productive without telling you anything useful about the work itself.
You can’t price off vanity. You can’t build a business on a number that shifts every time the vegetation changes.
The Missing Dimension: Volume of Work
Here’s what acres per hour leaves out—the trees.
Acreage tells you the footprint. Time tells you the duration. But neither one describes what you’re actually mulching.
Think about it this way. If someone asked you to mow a five-acre lawn, you’d have a rough idea how long that takes. But what if that lawn was waist-high brush? What if it was full of saplings? What if half of it was mature trees?
“Five acres” stops meaning anything useful when you ignore what’s standing on those acres.
This is where diameter comes in.
The DBH—diameter at breast height—is the standard measurement for tree size. When we talk about a “6-inch DBH package” or a “12-inch DBH package,” we’re describing the upper limit of what you’re processing on that job.
Job A from our example? That’s a 4” DBH package. Light stuff.
Job B? That’s a 12” DBH package. Three times the diameter means dramatically more volume—more wood fiber, more time, more wear on your machine, more fuel, more everything.
Introducing Inch-Acres
Now we can define the metric that actually matters.
Inch-acres is the product of the DBH package and the acreage.
It’s simple multiplication:
• Job A: 4” DBH × 5 acres = 20 inch-acres
• Job B: 12” DBH × 5 acres = 60 inch-acres
Same five acres. But Job B is three times the work—and now we have a number that reflects that reality.
This is what the Forestry Mulching Score represents in TreeShop. It’s not a made-up complexity. It’s the actual volume of work you’re quoting, scheduling, and getting paid for.
Why This Unit Is Stable—
Here’s what changes when you measure work in inch-acres instead of acres per hour.
Your production rate becomes consistent. Which is all we want as business owners. Doesn’t have to be a high number even… just stability!
Let’s say you track your jobs and find that you process 1.14 inch-acres per hour with your setup. That number holds whether you’re on Job A or Job B.
•Job A: 20 inch-acres ÷ 1.14 inch-acres/hour = 17.5 hours
•Job B: 60 inch-acres ÷ 1.14 inch-acres/hour = 52.63 hours
Now your estimates are based on the actual work, not a guess about how “easy” or “hard” a property looks.
In TreeShop, this production rate gets calculated automatically. It’s simply your score divided by your time to complete. The more jobs you log, the more accurate your rate becomes—tuned specifically to your machine, your style, and your region.
No more gut feelings.
No more hoping you guessed right.
The math works because the metric works.
Understanding Vegetation Density and Carrying Capacity
You might be wondering—how do I know what DBH package a property needs before I’ve walked it?
This is where vegetation density and carrying capacity come in.
Every region has patterns. The land can only support so much growth based on soil, water, climate, and history. This is carrying capacity—the natural limit of what will grow in a given area.
In Central Florida, for example, you’ll find that undeveloped residential lots in certain counties look remarkably similar. Same mix of oak, pine, and palmetto. Same general density. Same diameter ranges. Drive two hours north or south, and the mix shifts—but it shifts predictably.
Most operators work within a two-hour travel radius. That’s actually a small area compared to vegetation regions. Within your service area, you’re likely seeing the same handful of land types repeatedly.
This means you can learn your region. You start to recognize that a five-acre parcel in a particular area is probably going to be a 6” job. Or that properties backing up to conservation land tend to run heavier, more like 10” packages.
You’re pattern-matching based on real characteristics of the land—characteristics that don’t change much from parcel to parcel within the same vegetation zone.
TreeShop has systems to accommodate variations and project-specific factors, but at the base level, regional vegetation density is more predictable than most operators realize. You just have to start paying attention to it.
What This Means for Your Business
Pricing per hour, per day, or per acre are all legacy systems. They worked when forestry mulching was new and nobody had better options. But they’re fundamentally disconnected from the work itself. From time to time you will need to use them still so don’t forget them, but reshape how you deploy those methods in relation to the TreeShop Forestry Mulching Score.
Inch-acres connects your price directly to the volume of work.
•The customer sees a price that reflects their actual property—not an average, not a guess
•You see a margin that holds steady whether the job is light or heavy
•Your estimates get more accurate over time, not less
This is the only accurate way to do it.
To know this option exists and not deploy it—to keep pricing off acres per hour because it’s familiar—is a direct disservice to your customer. They deserve a price that matches their project, and you deserve a business that doesn’t rely on hope.
That’s what TreeShop is built for.
Summary
•Acres per hour only measures two dimensions—it ignores what’s actually growing on the land
•Inch-acres captures volume for a stable production KPI
•Your production rate in inch-acres per hour is stable across different job types specific to you and your company
•Regional vegetation patterns are predictable within your service area
•TreeShop calculates your production rate automatically as you log jobs
•This is the accurate way to price—anything less shortchanges you or your customer
Originally published on TreeShop Substack