Tree Planting Providers Compared: Ecologi, Digital Humani, One Tree Planted, and More

What to Look for in a Tree Planting Provider

Not all tree planting providers work the same way. Before you compare individual organizations, it helps to know what actually matters when choosing one. There are six factors worth evaluating, and the weight you give each one depends on your business, your budget, and how you plan to talk about tree planting with your customers.

Cost per tree. The most obvious starting point. Prices typically range from $0.50 to $1.50 per tree depending on the provider, the project region, and whether you are buying through an API integration or a manual program. Lower cost does not always mean lower quality. Tree planting costs vary by geography: planting mangroves in Madagascar costs less than planting native hardwoods in the Pacific Northwest, but both are legitimate reforestation work. What matters is that the price is transparent and you know what you are paying for.

Project transparency. Can you see exactly where your trees are being planted? Some providers give you a general region (“East Africa”), others name the specific project (“Eden Reforestation Projects in Mozambique”), and a few offer GPS coordinates for individual trees. The level of detail you need depends on your audience. For most B2B use cases, project-level transparency (country, partner organization, and planting timeline) is sufficient. GPS-per-tree tracking is a nice feature but rarely determines whether a provider is trustworthy.

Geographic reach. Some providers plant across 40+ countries. Others focus on a single region or a single country. If your business cares about planting in a specific area (US forests, for example, or tropical rainforest restoration), geographic coverage matters. If you just want trees in the ground through verified projects, breadth is less important than project quality.

API access. This is the dividing line between providers built for developers and providers built for donors. An API lets you automate tree planting: trigger plantings from a webhook, record them in your own system, and display real-time counts on a dashboard. Without an API, you are placing manual orders or relying on the provider's portal. For businesses that want to integrate tree planting into their product or service (planting a tree for every customer sign-up, for example), API access is non-negotiable.

Verification and reporting. How does the provider prove trees were actually planted? Reputable providers work with on-the-ground reforestation organizations and publish impact reports. Some offer third-party audits. Others provide photo and satellite verification. The baseline you should expect: a named reforestation partner, a verifiable project location, and periodic reporting on planting progress and survival rates.

Minimum commitments. Some providers let you plant one tree at a time. Others require annual minimums of 10,000 trees or more. For small and mid-size businesses, high minimums are a dealbreaker. Pay attention to enrollment fees, annual commitment requirements, and whether there are volume thresholds for API access.

For a broader look at how tree planting fits into your sustainability strategy, see Tree Planting for Businesses: The Complete Guide.

Ecologi

Ecologi is based in Bristol, UK, and has funded over 80 million trees since its founding in 2019. It operates as a climate action platform rather than a pure tree planting service: in addition to reforestation, Ecologi funds broader climate projects including renewable energy installations, ocean conservation, and community resilience programs. But trees are the core of what most businesses use it for.

Ecologi takes a portfolio approach to reforestation. Rather than planting through a single partner in a single location, it distributes funding across multiple projects in Madagascar, Kenya, Mozambique, the UK, Nicaragua, and other countries. This diversification means your trees are not all in one place, which reduces the risk of a single project failure wiping out your entire impact. The reforestation partners include Eden Reforestation Projects, WeForest, and several smaller regional organizations.

Cost: approximately $0.80 per tree at API integration rates (as of 2026). Volume discounts may apply for larger commitments. Consumer-facing gift purchases are priced higher.

API: Ecologi offers a REST API with Bearer token authentication. You can trigger tree plantings programmatically, query your impact data, and pull project information. The API is well-documented and straightforward to integrate. One caveat: rate limits are unofficial. Based on observed behavior, the API allows roughly 100 requests per 60-second window, but this is not published in the documentation and could change without notice. Any integration should include backoff handling and error recovery.

Reporting: Ecologi provides a public-facing impact profile for every business account, showing total trees funded, CO2e offset through climate projects, and a breakdown by project. Monthly impact reports are available. The data is real-time via the reporting API, though it refreshes on approximately a 10-minute cycle.

Strengths: strong API, portfolio diversification across multiple countries and partners, established track record with thousands of business customers, and a clean dashboard that your team and customers can browse. The broader climate project portfolio (renewable energy, ocean conservation) gives businesses a wider impact story if they want it.

Limitations: UK-based, which matters for US businesses that specifically want domestic tree planting or a US-headquartered provider. The unofficial rate limits require defensive coding. And because Ecologi bundles climate projects with tree planting, the total cost per tree is slightly higher than providers that only do reforestation.

ForestMatters uses Ecologi as its primary tree planting provider. Trees are planted through Ecologi's verified reforestation partners across their portfolio of global projects. When Ecologi is unavailable, ForestMatters fails over to Digital Humani automatically. This multi-provider approach reduces the risk of a single provider outage affecting your planting schedule.

Digital Humani

Digital Humani is a Quebec-based nonprofit with a different model than most providers on this list. It operates as infrastructure rather than a brand: its mission is to make tree planting accessible to any developer through a free, open-source API. Digital Humani does not plant trees itself. Instead, it acts as a payment rail that sends your money directly to reforestation organizations across 43+ countries.

The direct-funding model is worth understanding. When you pay $1 per tree through Digital Humani, that dollar goes to the reforestation organization you select (or Digital Humani selects based on the project region). Digital Humani itself is funded by donations and grants, not by taking a cut of tree planting payments. This means 100% of your per-tree cost goes to actual reforestation, which is a transparency advantage over providers that bundle overhead into the per-tree price.

Cost: $1 per tree, flat rate (as of 2026). No volume discounts, no enrollment fees, no minimum commitments. You pay for exactly the trees you plant.

API: REST API with X-Api-Key authentication. Open-source SDKs are available for several languages. The API is simple: you send a POST request with the number of trees, the enterprise ID (your account), and optionally a project ID. Digital Humani handles the rest. The documentation is clear and the integration is typically faster than Ecologi's because there are fewer configuration options.

One important caveat: Digital Humani does not publish rate limits. There is no documentation on how many requests per second or per minute the API accepts. In practice, the API handles moderate volumes without issue, but any production integration should self-impose conservative rate limiting (ForestMatters uses a self-imposed cap of 10 requests per 60 seconds for write operations) and include retry logic with exponential backoff.

Reporting: Digital Humani provides enterprise-level impact reports showing total trees planted, a breakdown by project and month, and details on the reforestation organizations involved. The reporting is functional but less polished than Ecologi's public-facing profiles.

Strengths: nonprofit transparency (you can see exactly where your money goes), open-source SDKs, zero overhead on per-tree costs, no minimum commitments, and a developer-first approach that makes integration straightforward. The 43+ country coverage provides broad geographic options.

Limitations: smaller organization with less brand recognition than Ecologi or One Tree Planted. The lack of published rate limits is a gap for production integrations. The reporting dashboard is more basic. And because Digital Humani is a nonprofit with a small team, response times on support inquiries can be longer than commercial providers.

ForestMatters uses Digital Humani as its failover provider. If Ecologi's API is unavailable (maintenance, rate limiting, or outage), tree planting requests automatically route to Digital Humani. This ensures that your monthly planting schedule stays on track regardless of any single provider's availability.

One Tree Planted

One Tree Planted is a Vermont-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Shelburne, VT. It is probably the most recognizable consumer-facing tree planting brand in North America. The name is the value proposition: one dollar, one tree. Since its founding in 2014, One Tree Planted has funded hundreds of millions of trees across North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

For individual donors and consumer-facing campaigns, One Tree Planted is an excellent choice. The $1/tree pricing is simple, the brand is well-known, and the project portfolio is extensive. Where it gets complicated is API access for businesses that want to automate tree planting.

Cost: $1 per tree for individual donations and small business contributions (as of 2026). Business partnerships with API-level integration require a significantly higher commitment.

API: One Tree Planted does offer API access for business partners, but it is not self-service. Business API partnerships require a minimum commitment of 10,000+ trees, which translates to $10,000+ per year at minimum. The API is not publicly documented in the way Ecologi and Digital Humani are. You need to contact their partnerships team, negotiate terms, and go through an onboarding process. For companies planting at enterprise scale, this works fine. For a small business planting 10–50 trees per month, the minimum is prohibitive.

Reporting: One Tree Planted provides detailed impact reports for business partners, including project-specific data, planting timelines, and photo documentation. They also produce polished annual impact reports. The reporting quality is high, partly because the organization invests heavily in storytelling and partner communications.

Strengths: the strongest brand recognition of any tree planting provider in the consumer market. Excellent project documentation and impact storytelling. Broad geographic coverage. The $1/tree simplicity resonates with customers.

Limitations: the API access barrier is the primary issue for small businesses. If you are planting fewer than 10,000 trees per year, you cannot directly integrate with One Tree Planted's API. You would need to use their web portal for manual donations or work through a third-party aggregator. The enterprise focus means smaller businesses are not the target customer for their technology partnerships.

If your business has the volume and budget for a direct One Tree Planted partnership, it is a strong option with proven credibility. For businesses at smaller scale, the other providers on this list offer more accessible integration paths.

National Forest Foundation (NFF)

The National Forest Foundation is a Congressionally chartered nonprofit created in 1993. It is the official nonprofit partner of the US Forest Service, and it plants trees exclusively in US National Forests. If your business specifically wants to support reforestation on American public lands, NFF is the only provider on this list that offers that.

NFF's Sapling Program is the mechanism for business tree planting. It is straightforward: you enroll, commit to a minimum annual contribution, and NFF plants trees in National Forests that have been damaged by wildfire, disease, or insects. The program has planted millions of trees in forests like the Lolo National Forest in Montana, the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, and the Angeles National Forest in California.

Cost: $1 per tree, plus a one-time $50 enrollment fee, with a $200 annual minimum commitment (as of 2026). The enrollment fee is small but adds friction for businesses that want to start quickly. The $200 annual minimum is manageable (equivalent to about 200 trees per year, or roughly 17 trees per month).

API: NFF does not offer an API. The Sapling Program is a manual batch process. You make your contribution, and NFF allocates your trees to upcoming planting projects. Planting happens seasonally (typically spring and fall), not in real-time. This means you cannot trigger a planting from a webhook or display a live tree counter based on NFF data. Your contribution funds a pool that gets planted in batches.

Reporting: NFF provides annual impact reports showing where trees were planted, which National Forests received plantings, and the total number of trees funded by your business. They also provide a Sapling Program certificate that businesses can display. The reporting cadence is annual rather than real-time.

Strengths: the Congressional charter gives NFF institutional credibility that no other provider on this list can match. Planting in US National Forests resonates strongly with American customers and employees. The direct partnership with the US Forest Service means trees go into public lands that belong to every American. For businesses with a patriotic brand or a domestic focus, this is a powerful story.

Limitations: US-only (no international projects). No API, so automated integration is not possible. The batch planting model means there can be a significant delay between your payment and actual trees going into the ground. Seasonal planting windows (you cannot plant in a National Forest in January) add further delay. And the enrollment fee, while modest, adds a step that API-based providers do not require.

NFF works best as a complement to an API-based provider rather than a standalone solution. A business could automate monthly planting through Ecologi or Digital Humani for real-time impact tracking, and separately contribute to NFF for US-specific reforestation. This is the approach ForestMatters takes: Ecologi and Digital Humani handle automated API-driven planting, and NFF serves as an additional channel for US forest restoration. For more on how these approaches fit into a broader sustainability plan, see Carbon Offsets vs. Tree Planting.

Tree-Nation

Tree-Nation is a Spain-based reforestation platform founded in 2006, making it one of the oldest dedicated tree planting services still operating. It focuses primarily on projects in Africa and Latin America, with some projects in Southeast Asia and Southern Europe. The organization has planted over 40 million trees across 80+ project sites.

Tree-Nation's distinguishing feature is individual tree tracking. Some projects offer GPS coordinates for every tree planted, along with species identification and planting date. You can see your specific trees on a map, which is a level of granularity that most other providers do not offer. This is useful for businesses that want to give customers a “your tree” experience, where each purchase or action corresponds to a specific, trackable tree.

Cost: variable by project. Tree costs range from roughly $0.10 to $30+ depending on the species, the project, and the region. Tropical reforestation projects tend to be cheaper. Native species projects in Europe or specialized agroforestry projects cost more. Most businesses will find options in the $0.50–$2.00 range for standard reforestation projects (as of 2026).

API: Tree-Nation offers API access for business integrations. The API allows you to plant trees, retrieve your forest data, and access individual tree information. However, the API documentation is less comprehensive than Ecologi's or Digital Humani's, and the developer experience reflects a platform that has historically been more consumer-focused than developer-focused. Businesses considering Tree-Nation for automated integration should plan for a longer integration timeline and test thoroughly.

Reporting: Tree-Nation provides a public forest profile for each business, showing total trees, species breakdown, CO2 compensation estimates, and (for supported projects) a map with individual tree locations. The platform also estimates CO2 sequestered per tree based on species and age, though these estimates should be treated as approximations rather than verified carbon accounting.

Strengths: individual tree tracking with GPS data is a unique selling point. The per-tree detail is unmatched. The public forest profile is well-designed for customer-facing communications. Project selection gives businesses control over where trees are planted, and the range of projects is broad within the supported regions.

Limitations: geographic focus is narrower than Ecologi or One Tree Planted, with the strongest coverage in Africa and Latin America. API documentation is less polished, which can slow integration. The variable pricing model (different costs per project) makes cost forecasting less straightforward than flat-rate providers. And GPS tracking is only available on select projects, not all of them.

Tree-Nation is a good fit for businesses that want to offer customers individual tree tracking or that specifically want to plant in Africa or Latin America. For businesses that need reliable, well-documented API integration with predictable costs, Ecologi or Digital Humani are typically smoother choices.

Provider Comparison Table

This table summarizes the key differences. All costs and program details are as of 2026 and may change. For a broader comparison of sustainability programs beyond tree planting, see B2B Sustainability Programs Compared.

DIY Integration vs. Managed Service

Once you have evaluated the providers, there is a practical question that most guides skip: should you build the integration yourself, or use a managed service that handles it for you?

Building it yourself means choosing a provider (or multiple providers), writing API integration code, handling authentication, managing error states, building retry logic for failed requests, storing planting records in your own database, and maintaining the integration as providers update their APIs. It is entirely doable. The APIs from Ecologi and Digital Humani are well-designed and a competent developer can have a basic integration running in a day or two.

But “basic integration” and “production-ready integration” are very different things. A production system needs to handle rate limiting (especially with Ecologi's unofficial limits), implement exponential backoff for failed requests, detect and prevent duplicate plantings if a webhook fires twice, gracefully degrade when a provider is down, and store planting records in a way that supports auditing and customer-facing reporting. You also need monitoring: if your tree planting API starts failing silently, you want to know about it before your customers notice their impact dashboard stopped updating.

Then there is the multi-provider question. If Ecologi goes down for maintenance, do you want your tree planting to stop? Or do you want it to automatically fail over to Digital Humani? Building reliable failover between two different APIs with different authentication methods, different request formats, and different response schemas adds meaningful engineering complexity.

Using a managed service means someone else has already solved these problems. ForestMatters, for example, handles multi-provider failover (Ecologi as primary, Digital Humani as backup), idempotent planting records to prevent duplicates, automatic retries for failed plantings, a subscriber dashboard with real-time impact data, quarterly impact certificates, embeddable badges and widgets, and listing in a partner directory (on higher-tier plans). Trees are planted through verified reforestation partners, and the planting pipeline is monitored for failures around the clock.

The honest trade-off: if your company has developers who are already building integrations with external APIs, adding a tree planting provider is not a massive lift. The core integration is straightforward. What takes time is all the production hardening, the monitoring, the failover logic, and the customer-facing reporting. And that engineering time has an opportunity cost. Hours spent building and maintaining tree planting infrastructure are hours not spent on your core product.

DIY makes sense when you have specific requirements that no managed service covers (custom planting triggers, unique reporting needs, provider preferences that are not offered), or when your engineering team has spare capacity and genuinely wants to own the integration.

A managed service makes sense when tree planting is important to your business but is not your core competency, when you want multi-provider reliability without building it yourself, or when the cost of the service is less than the engineering time you would spend building and maintaining a DIY solution. For most small and mid-size businesses planting 10–200 trees per month, that math favors the managed approach.

Whether you build it yourself or use a service, the key is choosing providers that match your scale, your geography preferences, and your transparency requirements. The providers on this list all do legitimate reforestation work. The right one depends on your specific situation.

Ready to see how ForestMatters handles multi-provider tree planting for your business? View plans and pricing.