Fence Installation Pricing Guide: Feet, Posts, and Gates

Short answer: A fence installation pricing guide has to price three things separately: bays, posts, and gates. The linear foot hides the post count, and the post count tracks the number of runs, not the length. A 4x4 in a 10 in hole 30 in deep takes about 1.15 cubic feet of concrete, which is two 80 lb bags. Gates are priced each, always. The same 180 ft back yard below runs 34 crew-hours flat and 81 on a stepped, rocky lot.

Fence work gets sold by the foot because a homeowner can count feet. The trouble is that almost nothing in the job is consumed by the foot. Holes are dug one at a time. Concrete goes in by the bag. Gates are built one at a time and they are where the callbacks live. A per-foot number is a summary of all that, and the moment the yard stops being a straight line on flat dirt, the summary stops being true. What follows is how to rebuild it. The write-off side of the same truck is in fencing business expenses.

What is actually inside a per-foot fence price?

Three cost families that scale on three different things.

Cost family	Scales with	Examples
Bay material	Linear feet	Rails, pickets, chain link fabric, panels, top rail
Post work	Post count	Posts, holes, concrete, caps, digging time, plumbing and bracing
Openings	Each	Gate frames, hinges, latches, drop rods, drive-gate bracing

Only the first family behaves like a foot. The second is a count, and the third is a count of very expensive items. That is why two yards with identical footage can differ by a third in cost before you get to soil or slope.

Underneath all three sits site condition, which does not scale with anything. It multiplies.

How do I count posts, and why does the count track runs instead of length?

Walk the line as a set of runs, not as a total.

For each straight run: bays = run length ÷ maximum spacing, rounded up. Posts = bays + 1. Six-foot privacy panels and vinyl generally want 6 ft on center, stick-built wood tolerates up to 8 ft, and chain link line posts commonly go up to 10 ft. Every run terminates in its own post, and corners are shared between two runs.

Two yards with 180 ft of fence:

• Three 60 ft runs. Each run is 8 bays at 7.5 ft and 9 posts. That is 27 posts, minus 2 shared corners, so 25 posts and 24 bays.
• Nine 20 ft runs jogging around a deck, an AC pad, and a retaining wall. Each is 3 bays and 4 posts, so 36 posts minus 8 shared corners, giving 28 posts and 27 bays.

Three more posts is the small half of that difference. The large half is that all 27 bays in the second yard are 6.67 ft, which means every bay is a cut bay. With stick-built pickets that costs rail cutting. With pre-assembled panels it costs a full panel plus the labor to cut it down, and the offcut is scrap.

Material by the foot is straightforward once bays are set. A 6 ft privacy fence takes three rails per bay, so 180 ft is about 540 linear feet of rail. Dog-ear pickets at 5.5 in wide, butted side by side, run 2.18 per foot — 393 pickets over 180 ft. Spaced at a half inch, the module becomes 6 in and the count drops to 360. That half inch is 33 pickets.

How much concrete goes in each hole?

More than most estimates carry, and it is easy arithmetic.

Hole volume is π × radius² × depth, minus the volume the post occupies. An 80 lb bag of mix yields about 0.6 cubic feet; a 60 lb bag yields about 0.45.

Post	Hole	Net concrete	80 lb bags
4x4 line post	10 in dia × 30 in deep	1.15 cu ft	2
4x4 walk-gate post	12 in dia × 36 in deep	2.10 cu ft	4
6x6 drive-gate post	14 in dia × 42 in deep	3.00 cu ft	5

Twenty-six posts on a straight 180 ft yard with one walk gate is roughly 56 bags — 4,480 lb of material that somebody carries to the line. If the only access is a 36 in side gate, that is a labor line all by itself, and it belongs on the estimate rather than in your evening.

Depth is set by the greater of two rules: about one third of the post’s above-grade height, or below the local frost line. Frost depth is a local code number, and it ranges from nothing in the Gulf South to several feet in the northern tier. A 6 ft fence in a 42 in frost zone is a different job from the same fence where the ground never freezes, and the per-foot price should say so.

Does the fence step or rack down a slope?

This is the single largest labor variable in the trade, and homeowners never mention it.

Stepping keeps every bay level and drops each one down the grade, leaving a triangular gap under each bay at the low end. Pre-assembled panels and vinyl systems generally have to step. The costs are longer posts on the downhill side, gap treatment underneath — fill, a kickboard, or a graded trench — and a lot of layout time getting the step increments consistent enough to look deliberate.

Racking lets the rails follow the grade while the pickets stay plumb. Stick-built wood racks well. There are no gaps, but every rail is cut on an angle, every picket bottom needs a cut, and the crew is working the line twice.

Seven feet of fall across 180 ft is about 3.5 in per 7.5 ft bay. Racked, that is a manageable angle and a slow build. Stepped in 6 in increments, it means taller posts, a running gap calculation, and fill under a dozen bays. Either way the answer is not the same per-foot number you used on the flat yard next door.

Why is a gate priced each and never per foot?

Because a gate is a machine and a fence is not.

A 4 ft walk gate is a welded or bracketed frame, hinges, a latch, a self-closing device where a pool code requires one, and two posts set deeper and heavier than the line posts around them. A 12 ft double drive gate adds a diagonal brace or truss rod on each leaf, a drop rod and a receiver sleeve set in concrete, a cane bolt, and 6x6 posts in oversized footings. It also adds the thing nobody prices: a return visit when the gate sags in the second summer.

Gates carry your warranty exposure. Price them as their own line, itemize the hardware, and specify the opening width on the estimate so there is nothing to argue about later. What belongs on that document is covered in what to include on an invoice.

What has to happen before the first hole gets dug?

Four things, and three of them have legal weight.

Utility locates. Every state runs a one-call notification center reachable at 811, and PHMSA’s call before you dig guidance is the federal front door to it. States set their own advance-notice window, commonly two to three business days, and marks expire — a job that slips two weeks needs a fresh ticket. This is not a courtesy. Hitting a gas service line with an auger is a life-safety event and a bill you cannot absorb.

Property line. Fence disputes are boundary disputes. If there is no pin, no survey, and no agreement, the customer decides where the line is in writing before you dig, or you get a survey.

Permit and HOA. Height limits, setbacks, which side the finished face must go, corner-lot sight triangles, and pool-barrier requirements are all local. Some of them will change the material list.

Removal. Old fence is priced separately, and old posts set in concrete are the expensive part. Budget real time per footing plus the weight of the spoil at the transfer station.

What does the same 180 ft back yard cost on two lots?

Six-foot cedar privacy, three rails, dog-ear pickets, one 4 ft walk gate.

Yard A — three straight 60 ft runs, flat, sandy loam, nothing to remove, the truck parks 30 ft from the line.

Yard B — the same 180 ft in nine jogging runs, 7 ft of fall front to back, ledge rock at about 20 in on the high side, an existing chain link fence with 24 concreted posts to pull, one added 12 ft double drive gate, and a 36 in side gate as the only way in.

Operation	Yard A	Yard B
Layout, string line, spacing and step plan	1.5 hr	3.5 hr
Remove old fence and concreted footings	—	12.0 hr
Haul and tip spoil	—	2.5 hr, ~1.5 tons
Dig post holes	6.5 hr, 26 holes	13.0 hr, 30 holes, 8 in ledge
Carry material to the line	1.0 hr	5.0 hr through a 36 in gate
Set and plumb posts	8.0 hr, 56 bags	9.0 hr, 70 bags
Rails	4.0 hr	7.5 hr, stepped over 7 ft of fall
Pickets	9.0 hr, 393	14.0 hr, every bay cut
4 ft walk gate	2.0 hr	2.0 hr
12 ft double drive gate	—	6.5 hr
Fill under steps, cleanup	2.0 hr	6.0 hr
Crew hours	34.0	81.0
Posts set	26	30
80 lb bags	56	70

Same footage. Same fence style. Two and a half times the hours, four more posts, fourteen more bags, and a tipping ticket. A single per-foot rate applied to both means Yard A is paying for Yard B, and the customer who gave you the easy yard is the one who tells their neighbors your prices are high.

What is a published per-foot fence price worth, and where do markup and margin go?

Treat any published range as a sanity check after you have built your own number, never as the number itself. Post depth requirements, soil, cedar and vinyl availability, and labor cost swing fence pricing enough between regions that a national average says nothing useful about your yard.

Build it in this order: material by bay, post, and opening at your real cost; crew hours at your loaded labor rate, which is wage plus payroll tax plus comp plus the unbilled hours; overhead per hour from your own annual truck, insurance, tools, and phone; then profit.

Then keep markup and margin straight, because on a per-foot number the two get swapped constantly. Markup is added to cost; margin is taken out of price. A yard that costs you $5,600 with a 20 percent markup invoices at $6,720, and that is a 16.7 percent margin. If 20 percent margin is what you wanted, divide: $5,600 ÷ 0.80 = $7,000. The formula is price = cost ÷ (1 − margin), and on a 180 ft yard the difference between the two is $280 you either kept or gave away.

What do I write down once the last picket is on?

The record that settles the argument you have not had yet.

Photograph the locate marks before you dig, the property pins or the signed line agreement, the hole depth with a tape in it on at least a few posts, the old fence before removal, and the finished run from both ends. Keep the permit and the HOA approval with the job. Save the transfer station ticket for the spoil.

Keel is where a lot of fence crews park that pile, mostly because it never leaves the phone. No account, no login, no bank connection, and the App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected. Photograph the lumberyard receipt and the 70 bags of mix at the counter — they are read on-device with Apple Intelligence — log the runs between the yard and the job for mileage, and send the invoice from the truck with your logo and a payment QR on it. Free is unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription. The mileage side of it is in independent contractor mileage log, and how long the whole pile has to survive is in how long to keep tax records.

Frequently asked questions

How far apart should fence posts be spaced?

It depends on the system. Pre-assembled 6 ft privacy panels and vinyl generally want 6 ft on center because the panel is built to that width. Stick-built wood commonly runs up to 8 ft, and chain link line posts often go to 10 ft. Divide each run by the maximum spacing, round bays up, and add one post per run.

How many bags of concrete does one fence post take?

A 4x4 line post in a 10 in hole 30 in deep needs about 1.15 cubic feet after the post displaces its share, which is two 80 lb bags. A 4x4 gate post in a 12 in hole 36 in deep takes about four, and a 6x6 drive-gate post in a 14 in hole 42 in deep takes about five. An 80 lb bag yields roughly 0.6 cubic feet.

How deep do fence post holes have to be?

Whichever is deeper: about one third of the post’s above-grade height, or below the local frost line. For a 6 ft fence that is commonly 24 to 36 in, but frost depth is set by local code and can be considerably more in northern regions. Confirm the number with your building department before you price the digging.

Should I charge more for a fence on a slope?

Yes, and the reason depends on which method the material forces. Stepped panels need longer downhill posts, a running step calculation, and gap treatment under each bay. Racked stick-built fences need every rail cut on an angle and every picket bottom trimmed. Both add hours per bay, and neither shows up anywhere in the footage.

How do I price a fence gate?

Each, never per foot, and itemized. Price the frame, the two oversized posts and their deeper footings, the hinges, the latch, any self-closing hardware a pool code requires, and for drive gates the diagonal brace, drop rod, receiver sleeve, and cane bolt. Add time for the adjustment visit, because gates are where fence callbacks come from.

Do I have to call 811 before digging fence posts?

Yes. Every state runs a one-call center reachable by dialing 811, and marking is free. States set their own advance-notice window, commonly two to three business days, and locate marks expire, so a delayed start needs a new ticket. Digging without a ticket exposes you to repair costs, fines, and a genuine life-safety risk on gas services.

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This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.