In my experience in a large townhouse development with many trees, high hundreds of dollars is the cost to remove smaller trees. A moderate gum tree might be around $1200-$1500 and a big one about $2500. On over 11Ha with a lot of trees planted in the 1970s and some remnant bush, our trees budget has stabilised at around $8,000 but can vary up and down by 50% depending on what happens in a particular year, but there is always something.