How much does it cost to deal with something is running down my trunk — sap, or dark wet streaks?

The main cost driver is telling these apart, so the site visit is the purchase. Confirming a bleeding canker usually means excavating the root collar to inspect it, priced by area and by whether an air spade is used, and may add a lab sample. Decay evaluation on a large trunk may add sounding, resistance drilling, or tomography as separate charges. Treatment costs then diverge sharply: nothing at all for wetwood; a soil drench or trunk injection priced per inch of trunk diameter for a confirmed root pathogen; a correctly timed insecticide application for an identified borer. The specific thing to refuse on this symptom is a drain tube installation, and the specific thing to question is any injection quoted before a diagnosis — injections are wounds, and they earn their cost only against a named target.