The honest answer is about an acre per eight-hour machine day. But that median hides a range from a fifth of an acre to five acres, and the size of the job moves it more than almost anything else. The numbers below are not estimates. They come from every job we have logged since October 2023: 241 finished jobs across 57 Florida counties, 564.5 acres, 404.9 machine days.
The short version
- The median machine day covered one acre.
- 176 of 241 jobs (73%) finished inside a single eight-hour machine day.
- The range runs from 0.2 to 5 acres per machine day.
- The bigger the job, the more ground each day covers: 0.38 acres a day on lots of half an acre or less, 3.19 acres a day on tracts over ten acres.
Most jobs are one day
Nearly three quarters of the jobs on our record were finished in a single machine day. Here is how big those single-day jobs were:
| Size of the single-day job | Jobs | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Up to a quarter acre | 24 | 14% |
| A quarter to half an acre | 34 | 19% |
| Half an acre to an acre | 94 | 53% |
| One to two acres | 14 | 8% |
| Over two acres | 10 | 6% |
More than half the time, one machine day covered between half an acre and a full acre. That is the planning number we would use for an ordinary Florida parcel of brush, palmetto and small trees. If somebody promises you three acres a day without seeing the ground, ask what they are planning to leave behind.
Bigger ground goes faster per acre
This is the part that surprises most people. Split every job into five size bands and the ground covered per machine day climbs steadily:
| Job size | Jobs | Acres | Machine days | Acres per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to half an acre | 62 | 23.0 | 61.1 | 0.38 |
| Half an acre to an acre | 101 | 98.5 | 110.0 | 0.90 |
| One to three acres | 57 | 125.0 | 109.8 | 1.14 |
| Three to ten acres | 15 | 72.0 | 47.0 | 1.53 |
| Over ten acres | 6 | 246.0 | 77.0 | 3.19 |
Most of the difference is work that does not shrink with the acreage. On a small lot, a good part of the day goes on unloading, working tight against fences, driveways and the trees you are keeping, and finishing the edges cleanly. On a large tract the machine spends most of the day simply cutting.
That is why a quarter-acre lot and a full acre usually come out at the same price, because the day is the unit, and why small lots are the most expensive ground we clear per acre. There is more on that in our guide to clearing a vacant lot in Florida.
What the extremes look like
- The largest single tract on the record is 66 acres at Hawthorne in Alachua County, June 2025. It took 15 machine days with the dedicated mulcher, a little over four acres a day.
- The next largest, also at Hawthorne that month, was 64 acres in 18 machine days with the skid steer mulcher, about 3.6 acres a day.
- The longest single job was 50 acres at Cottondale in Jackson County, November 2023: 22 machine days, about 2.3 acres a day.
- The smallest was a tenth of an acre in Winter Park, done in half a machine day.
Does the machine matter?
Across 19 jobs, the dedicated mulcher averaged 2.58 acres per machine day. The skid steer mulcher, across 144 jobs, averaged 1.09. That gap is real, but it flatters the bigger machine. The dedicated mulcher gets sent to the biggest and most open tracts, and those are exactly the jobs that run fastest per acre anyway. Part of the difference is the machine, and part is the ground it was sent to.
Which machine your land needs comes down to the thickest stems on it. The skid steer mulcher takes stems up to 8 inches, the dedicated mulcher up to 24, and the excavator mulcher up to 30 inches and pulls roots. All three day rates are on our land clearing cost page.
What moves your number
- What is standing now, and how thick the biggest stems are.
- How many seasons it has stood. Ground left for fifteen years is a different job from ground left for two.
- Where a machine gets in, and how wide the frontage is.
- Trees you want kept. Working around a tree is slower than going through it.
- Wet ground and soft edges.
- Whether the roots have to come out. That is grubbing, a different machine and a different rate. Our guide to grubbing versus clearing explains the difference.
How to use these numbers
For a rough idea before you call anyone, take your acreage, assume about an acre per machine day for ordinary brush and small trees, and round up. Under half an acre, plan for a day. Heavy, long-neglected ground, or a lot full of trees you want kept, will run slower. Open ground with light palmetto will run faster.
Then send us photographs, from the road, from inside, and with something in frame for scale, along with the acreage. We will give you a day count against the published rates, usually the same day. Every job behind these numbers is published with its town, size and day count on the county pages, starting from our job record.
How these numbers were made
Every finished job since October 2023 is logged with its town, acreage, machine and time on the ground. Acreage is as the owner described it at quote time. Machine days are hours on the ground divided by eight. The median and the range are worked out job by job across all 241 jobs. The figures for each size band divide the total acres by the total machine days within that band.
Call or text 813-733-6607.
