A 100 linear ft, 4 ft wood fence with no gate runs $1,500–$2,500 in DIY materials on this calculator, or $2,300–$4,000 professionally installed. Material choice moves the number more than any other input — aluminum runs nearly three times chain link at the same length — and going from 4 ft to 6 ft adds a flat 30% across material and labor alike, since taller fencing needs heavier posts and more panel per foot regardless of what it's made of.
How this calculator prices a fence
Everything scales off linear feet, with two multipliers layered on: a height multiplier that applies to material and labor together, and gates, which are priced flat per gate regardless of fence length.
| Material | Material rate | Material cost | Labor | Pro total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chain link | $10–$20/ft | $1,000–$2,000 | $800–$1,500 | $1,800–$3,500 |
| Wood | $15–$25/ft | $1,500–$2,500 | $800–$1,500 | $2,300–$4,000 |
| Vinyl | $20–$35/ft | $2,000–$3,500 | $800–$1,500 | $2,800–$5,000 |
| Aluminum | $25–$45/ft | $2,500–$4,500 | $800–$1,500 | $3,300–$6,000 |
Computed from this calculator's own per-foot rates at the 1.0 height multiplier. Labor is flat across materials — the calculator prices post-setting and panel installation the same regardless of what the panel is made of.
The labor line staying flat is worth noticing: it means the material spread — $1,000 to $4,500 for the same 100 feet — is the entire reason one fence estimate looks nothing like another. A homeowner comparing two quotes for the "same" fence should check the material spec first; a big price gap on an identical footprint usually traces back to gauge, panel thickness, or coating grade rather than a padded labor number.
Why 6 ft costs 30% more than 4 ft, and what a gate really adds
The calculator applies a single 1.3 multiplier to a 6 ft fence, hitting material and labor identically. That's a modeling simplification worth understanding: it isn't that a 6 ft picket costs 30% more per square foot of panel, it's that a 6 ft fence line needs deeper-set, heavier posts to resist wind load on the extra surface, and post-setting is the labor-intensive part of any fence job. The multiplier folds post upsizing into a single number rather than pricing posts separately.
Gates are the one line that doesn't scale with the fence at all — a single gate costs the same $150–$400 whether it interrupts a 50 ft run or a 500 ft one. On a short fence that's a meaningful share of the total; on the 200 ft aluminum example above it's under 3% of the pro total. Multiple gates simply multiply that flat cost, with no discount modeled for adding a second or third opening.
Reading the DIY-vs-pro verdict
The verdict starts "diy-friendly," moves to "conditional" for any 6 ft fence over 150 linear feet, and moves to "pro-recommended" for any fence — at either height — over 300 linear feet. Height alone doesn't force the pro-recommended tier; length does, because post count and the cumulative time of digging, setting, and leveling every post is what actually consumes a weekend on a fence project, more than the height of any individual panel.
That length threshold is a reasonable rule of thumb rather than a hard physical limit — a determined DIYer can set 40 posts, and a professional crew is sometimes worth hiring for a 100 ft run on a steep or rocky lot. What the verdict captures is time, not difficulty: post-hole digging is repetitive, and repetition is what a 300+ ft fence line has in abundance.
Who prices the install
Fence installation is carpentry-adjacent work, typically priced by the same trade that frames a deck or builds a shed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts national carpenters (SOC 47-2031) at a mean $31.55 per hour and $65,630 per year in its May 2025 estimates — a wage that sits close to the all-construction mean and underlies the calculator's $8–$15 per foot labor band across every material and height option.
What that wage doesn't show up as a separate line item for is property-line accuracy. A fence set a few inches over a boundary is a labor cost the calculator doesn't model at all — a survey or a neighbor dispute — and it's the single most common reason a fence project runs over budget that has nothing to do with material or height.
Two things to settle before anyone digs
Fencing is one of the few home projects with a genuine legal dimension, and both of the questions that matter are cheap to answer in advance and expensive to answer late.
The first is where the boundary actually is. A fence built on a neighbour's land is their fence, and the remedy is removal. If the line is uncertain, a survey costs a fraction of rebuilding, and it settles the question permanently.
The second is what is buried. Utility locating is free in most of the United States and is required before digging in many places. Post holes are exactly deep enough to find services, and the consequences range from an expensive repair to a genuinely dangerous one.
Beyond that, check for local height limits, setback rules and any HOA restriction on materials or colour before ordering. These vary too much to publish here, but they are the reason a completed fence occasionally has to come down.
How the material choice plays out over time
Fence materials differ less in what they cost to install than in what they ask of you afterwards, and the total over a decade can reverse the ranking you get on day one.
Timber is the cheapest common option to erect and the most demanding to keep. It wants treating on a cycle, and the posts are the part that fails first, usually at ground level where moisture sits.
Vinyl and metal cost more up front and ask for very little. Their failure modes are different too: vinyl is damaged by impact rather than by weather, and metal by corrosion at fixings and cut ends rather than across the panel.
The choice worth making deliberately is the post, whatever the panel is. Posts carry the whole structure, they are the expensive thing to replace once panels are attached, and a fence with good posts and ordinary panels outlasts the reverse by years.
Methodology
All dollar figures are computed directly from this calculator's own per-linear-foot material and labor rates and its height multiplier — no figure here is estimated or interpolated beyond that arithmetic. Carpentry wage data is the BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimate for SOC 47-2031. No post-hole depth, frost-line, or spacing figure is stated, because none is held by this calculator's module or independently verified for this page.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — OEWS Profile, Carpenters (47-2031), May 2025 — accessed 2026-09-07