Excavation is one of the trickier trades to price because "excavation" covers everything from a half-day drainage repair to a week-long basement dig. Anyone quoting you a flat per-yard rate over the phone without seeing the site is guessing, and their guess protects them, not you.
In our service area — Frontenac, Lennox & Addington, Leeds & Grenville — most residential excavation projects fall into three broad price bands.
Small jobs (drainage repairs, small trenches, single-day skid steer work) typically run $800–$2,500. These are usually one-day jobs with a mini excavator or skid steer and little material to haul away.
Medium jobs (driveway rebuilds, foundation repairs, weeping tile replacement, pool digs) generally sit between $3,500 and $12,000. Cost varies with how easy the site is to reach, soil conditions, how much excavated material has to be hauled away, and any rock we run into.
Large jobs (new basement excavation, full site prep for a new build, major drainage overhauls) start around $10,000 and can run past $25,000 for large or complex sites.
The three biggest cost drivers on almost every job are soil conditions (rock or wet clay slows everything down), what happens to the excavated material (trucking it off-site is expensive), and access (tight lots need smaller machines and more time).
When you compare quotes, look for line-item breakdowns: what's included, what's assumed, what's extra. A cheap number with vague scope will almost always cost more in the end than a well-scoped quote at a fair price.