Around here 'lopping' gets used for any tree cutting, and we quote plenty of jobs described that way. But in arborist terms lopping means something specific: cutting limbs back to stubs, or taking the top off a tree, without regard for where the tree can actually recover from.
The problem is what happens next. A lopped tree panics. It throws out fast, weakly attached regrowth from the stubs, and in a few years you've got a denser, heavier, worse-anchored canopy than you started with, sitting on cuts that are slowly decaying.
Proper pruning to the Australian Standard (AS 4373) cuts back to unions and laterals the tree can heal over and grow from. Done right, the tree ends up lighter, better shaped and genuinely safer, and it stays that way.
This is also why quotes vary. Topping a tree with no thought for what grows back is fast, and it prices accordingly. Pruning it properly takes longer and shows its value in year three, not day one.
If a tree really needs that much height gone, it's usually a conversation about removal rather than repeated hard cutting. We'll always tell you which conversation you're in.
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