Assuming that you can be certain that anything you cut out of the trees will not fall on your house, car, garage or storage buildings, or your neighbor's property, etc. and that there are no wildlife babies making a home in the part of the tree you need to cut off, you might take a look at something like this:
Amazon.com
That one does not come with a rope so it is inexpensive and I only show it as an example. Search for "High Limb Chain Saw" to find more options. You may already have rope, or you can buy "truck rope" pretty inexpensively. Or you can buy them with ropes attached but very often they will give you low quality rope that breaks after one or two uses so be sure to read the reviews.
Some things to keep in mind:
You absolutely want teeth on both sides of the chain. Otherwise Murphy will get you ever time, and the chain will go over the limb, with the teeth pointing away from the wood. Having teeth on both sides makes that impossible (though it can still go over sideways, but usually you can correct that easily).
The more teeth the better, and
Safety first. It is best to have two people pulling on the two ropes so neither of you have to stand under the limb you are cutting. Wear a hard hat and safety goggles, sawdust in the eye is no fun. Wear gloves if you don't want rope blisters, or wrap the ends of the rope around a short 2x2 or similar sized cut off branch so you can pull on that rather than the rope. If you have two people it may take a few tries to get a rhythm going, where first one pulls and then the other.
The real trick is to get the rope over what you want to cut, especially if it is high in the tree. If you ever played baseball you may have the skills to throw the throwing bag over the limb. We have used a bow and arrow with a kite string taped to the arrow, then after getting the string over we connect it to strong twine or a small lightweight rope and pulled that over and then once we had that we tied it to one end of the rope from the high limb chain saw. Hope you have patience and are not easily frustrated, because if you try to tie the kite string directly to the larger rope and pull it over the string will almost always break. If archery is not your thing but fishing is, you may be able to cast fishing line over the branch and use that to pull the twine. Professional tree guys use a slingshot type contraption to get ropes over limbs but they are not real budget friendly. Or if you like to live dangerously you could build an air cannon and use it to launch a golf ball (or similar object) with string taped to it over the limb (just put "air cannon" into a YouTube search for examples) but if you do that definitely wear a helmet, eye protection and protective clothing in case you over-inflate the air cannon and it explodes - try real hard not to do that because it could send you to the hospital (or if you are very unlucky, the great beyond) which is why I do not recommend that except as an absolute last resort.
Anyway, once you get the rope high enough, HOPEFULLY you can pull it around the trunk (which should not be very thick if you get it high enough) and then saw back and forth until you hear it start to crackle and pop. Then flee! Get away from it. It may fall immediately with almost no warning, or it may crackle and pop for a while but once you hear noises it is almost certainly coming down within the next several minutes, so keep away and keep people and pets away. You can try making another couple of cuts to speed up the process but always make sure you have a clear escape route, you do NOT want to trip on loose brush or a branch or shrub when you are trying to escape a falling section of tree trunk. Those things always look a lot smaller when they are up in the tree than they do on the ground so BE CAREFUL. Tree guys always say that as a general rule anything with a diameter of 4 inches or more is considered dangerous, but personally I would not like to get hit in the head with a three inch trunk that has been falling for 40 or more feet, so that's a bit relative. If I started to hear the crackle and popping sounds I would just get away from the tree and let gravity and the laws of physics take their course.
One last thing, be aware of where electric lines and other utility services are, you don't want to drop part of a tree trunk on your power or internet connections, and also those falling trunk pieces can make quite a crater in your lawn when they land and if you are really unlucky one could hit a sprinkler head or line. If you know there is an underground sprinkling head below the fall area, try putting a thick piece of wood or something over the top of it to protect it.
This is the least expensive way I know of to do it but unfortunately it can be dangerous so proceed at your own risk. And it can be frustrating as you shoot the string or rope over the wrong limb several times before you get the right one, or when you lose an arrow in the tree (it happens, always have a few spares if you are using that method) or when your string get tangled in some small branch you can barely see from the ground. If you hire a tree guy you don't have to worry about any of that PROVIDED you make sure they are licensed and insured (and ask to see proof, some guys will lie about it), but that will cost a lot more. Still, if you are impatient or easily frustrated, that is the way to go.
(And as for drones, the one I want is the one that has a small chainsaw on an arm, so you can get it positioned and then just make your cuts. But you will probably never see that in the USA, too many idiots would use something like that to terrorize their neighbors, or they would get drunk and start cutting stuff indiscriminately until someone gets hurt and then they would sue the manufacturer!)
EDIT: I also found this article that may or may not be useful:
Best High Limb Rope Chainsaws For 2024 (Top 5 Picks)
