Methodology
A LandClearly estimate is a planning range, not a quote. It is produced by a rule-based model that reads your answers, decides which clearing method the property calls for, estimates how long that work takes, and prices that time against market day rates. The same answers always produce the same result — nothing is randomised and nothing is generated by a language model.
1. Property inputs considered
- Acreage to be cleared
- What is growing on the land, from grass and light brush to mixed growth and dense woods
- Largest tree diameter on the property
- Terrain and slope
- How equipment can reach and move around the site
- Whether stumps must be removed or may be left
- What should happen to the cut material
- How level and clean the ground must be when work finishes
- What the land is being cleared for
No name, address, email or phone number is needed to get an estimate, and none is collected unless you choose to request quotes.
2. Rule-based routing
Your answers are matched against explicit rules to choose a clearing approach — brush cutting, forestry mulching, traditional clearing, a combination, or site preparation. Each result lists the reasons in plain English. When the answers describe a property the rules cannot responsibly price, such as mature timber, the result says so and recommends a contractor assessment instead of inventing a number.
3. Production and market evidence
Time estimates use documented production rates in acres per day for the relevant machine class and vegetation density. Costs apply market day rates to that productive time. Rates and parameters are versioned, so any past result can be reproduced exactly with the parameter set that produced it.
4. Planning ranges, not quotes
Results are shown as ranges because real jobs vary. Where a figure can only sensibly be a starting point, it is shown as a floor rather than a range. Costs the model cannot quantify from your answers — permits, disposal or haul-off, long-distance machine transport, unusual site logistics — are listed as exclusions instead of being folded in silently.
5. Planning Confidence
Every result carries a Planning Confidence label rather than a percentage or a score. Confidence reflects how completely the property was described and how well the case fits the evidence behind the model. The model has not been validated against a published body of completed-project outcomes, so today no result is presented as highly certain — the honest ceiling is moderate.
6. Limitations
- Regional cost variation is not yet modelled in detail.
- Conditions only visible on site — wet ground, hidden debris, rock — are not known.
- Permitting, environmental and local regulatory costs are outside the model.
- Contractor pricing varies with demand, season and how the job is scheduled.
Estimate your project to see how this applies to your land.