How much does a fence cost in 2026?

Chain link is the cheapest at $10 to $25 per linear foot installed. Wood runs $20 to $50, with pressure-treated pine at $18 to $40 and cedar at $25 to $48. A six-foot solid-board privacy fence, the most common residential request, typically lands at $25 to $35 per foot. Vinyl is $30 to $60. Across all materials the full range is $10 to $65, and a typical 150-foot residential job comes to $1,500 to $9,750 depending entirely on what you pick.

Fencing is quoted per linear foot of run, not by area, so the number that matters is the perimeter you want enclosed. Gates are priced separately and are the most commonly under-budgeted item on a fence quote: a walk gate and a drive gate cost far more per foot than plain fence because of the posts, hardware and hanging. Decide gate positions and widths before asking for quotes, and get them itemised, or you will be comparing quotes that assume different gate counts.

A two-person crew installs about 150 linear feet of wood or vinyl privacy fence in two to three days on flat ground in clay or loam. Rocky ground, meaningful slope or tree roots push the same job to four to six days, and the quote moves with it. Chain link goes faster — one to two days for the same run — because there are no individual pickets to hang. If your line crosses a slope or old tree roots, expect a site visit before any firm number, and be suspicious of a fixed price quoted without one.

Two things cause more fence disputes than cost. First, the property line: if you are not certain where it runs, a survey beforehand is far cheaper than moving a finished fence. Second, local rules — many municipalities and most HOAs restrict height, material and which side the finished face must point. Check both before ordering material. Neither is the contractor's job to verify for you, and neither is recoverable once the posts are set in concrete.

Replacing a few pickets or resetting one leaning post is genuinely small work and worth doing. The decision point is the posts: pickets and rails are cheap to swap, but once posts are rotted at ground level the fence is failing structurally and patching individual sections becomes a rolling cost. A useful test is how many posts move when pushed. One or two, repair. A third of the run, price a replacement — you will otherwise pay for the same fence twice.