Wood Fence Costs in 2026: Per Foot, Per Project, DIY vs Installed
Published June 12, 2026
A 6-foot wood privacy fence costs $30 to $60 per linear foot professionally installed in mid-2026, with most quotes landing near $45 to $55 in metro areas. Built yourself, the same fence runs $15 to $30 per foot in materials. On a typical 150-foot backyard, that’s the difference between roughly $2,800 and $7,000, which is why fencing sits right behind painting on the list of projects homeowners take on themselves.
The labor you’d be replacing is digging, leveling, and repetition rather than fine craft, and that’s genuinely learnable in a weekend. The catch is that fence mistakes are buried: a post set shallow or out of plumb looks fine the day you finish and leans by year three. This guide breaks down current material prices per section, the three ways to set posts, gate costs, and a full 150-foot worked example.
Per-foot prices in 2026
Installed pricing varies more by region than by anything else. The same pressure-treated privacy fence quoted at $35 per foot in the Southeast can come in at $65 in coastal metros, a spread driven almost entirely by labor.
| Build | 2026 cost per linear foot |
|---|---|
| DIY, pressure-treated pine materials | $15–$25 |
| DIY, cedar materials | $22–$35 |
| Installed, pressure-treated | $30–$50 |
| Installed, cedar | $40–$65 |
Labor alone accounts for $10 to $20 of the installed price. National survey data puts the average professionally installed wood privacy fence project around $4,500 for 150 feet, with the broad range running $2,000 to $7,500 depending on height, wood, terrain, and zip code.
Pine versus cedar is the first fork in the road. Pressure-treated pine is cheaper and rot-resistant but arrives wet, then shrinks and sometimes twists as it dries; it wants a year before staining. Cedar costs 40 to 60 percent more, stays straighter, and looks better bare, weathering to gray instead of green-tinged brown.
What’s in an 8-foot section
A standard privacy fence is built in 8-foot bays: posts on 8-foot centers, three horizontal rails, and pickets nailed or screwed to the rails. Pricing one bay tells you the whole project. Mid-2026 big-box prices for pressure-treated material:
| Component | Quantity per section | 2026 price |
|---|---|---|
| 4x4x8 PT post | 1 | $14–$20 |
| 2x4x8 PT rails | 3 | $5–$8 each ($15–$24) |
| 5.5-in dog-ear pickets, 6 ft | 17–18 | $2.30–$5 each ($40–$85) |
| Concrete, two 50 lb bags | 2 | $11–$14 |
| Screws or ring-shank nails | — | $4–$6 |
| Section total | $85–$150 |
That works out to $11 to $19 per linear foot in materials, matching the DIY range above. Pickets dominate the cost, roughly half the total, which is why picket price swings (and sales) matter more than anything else on the list. Buy a few extra; every bundle hides two or three warped or split boards.
Two upgrades worth considering at build time because they’re miserable to retrofit: a 2x6 rot board run horizontally at grade, which sacrifices itself to ground moisture instead of your pickets ($6 to $9 per section), and exterior screws instead of nails, which cost more but let you swap damaged pickets in minutes years from now.
Setting posts: concrete, gravel, or foam
Posts are the entire structural story of a fence, and there are three legitimate ways to set them. Holes should be 24 to 30 inches deep (below frost line where applicable) and about three times the post width.
Concrete is the default. Two 50-pound bags of fast-setting mix per post at $5.50 to $7 a bag, poured dry into the hole and watered in. Strongest option and the only right answer for gate posts and corners. The drawback is water: concrete collars can trap moisture against the post, so slope the top of the pour away from the wood. Figure $11 to $14 per post.
Gravel costs about the same per post ($10 to $14 for three or four bags of 3/4-inch crushed stone) and drains beautifully, which is why farm and ranch builders prefer it; posts set in well-tamped gravel often outlast concrete-set posts because they stay drier. The tradeoffs are labor (tamping in 4-inch lifts is slow) and somewhat less rigidity in soft soil. Replacement is far easier, too. If you’re buying stone in bulk for a bigger project, the gravel calculator converts hole counts and dimensions to bags or tons.
Expanding foam (Sika Fence Post Mix and similar) runs $15 to $22 per post, sets in minutes, and weighs two pounds per hole instead of a hundred, which matters when you’re carrying material across a big yard. It costs 25 percent to three times more than concrete and has less mass for leverage, so skip it for gates and windy exposures. For straight line posts on a calm site, it’s a legitimate back-saver.
Gates
Gates are the most failure-prone part of any fence and the place pros earn their money. A basic 4-foot walk gate built from matching fence material costs $60 to $120 in lumber and pickets plus $30 to $60 for hinges, latch, and an anti-sag kit. Prebuilt wood gates run $150 to $400 at the box stores. Installed by a contractor, expect $200 to $600 for a walk gate and $400 to $1,200 for a double drive gate.
Whatever you spend on the gate itself, spend on its posts: gate posts carry cantilevered load every time the gate swings, so use a 6x6 or at minimum a concrete-set 4x4 with an extra bag, set 6 inches deeper than line posts. A diagonal brace or cable kit ($15 to $25) is cheap insurance against the sag that makes every old gate drag.
Worked example: 150 feet of 6-foot privacy fence
Say the yard needs 150 linear feet with one 4-foot walk gate, on flat ground, pressure-treated pine, posts in concrete.
Count the parts. 150 feet at 8-foot spacing means 19 sections (one short bay) and 20 posts. Each section needs 3 rails and about 18 pickets, so roughly 57 rails and 340 pickets, plus gate material.
Materials, mid-2026 prices:
| Item | Quantity | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 4x4x8 PT posts | 20 | $280–$400 |
| 2x4x8 rails | 57 | $285–$455 |
| Pickets | 350 (incl. spares) | $800–$1,600 |
| Concrete, 50 lb bags | 42 | $230–$295 |
| Gate lumber + hardware | 1 | $100–$180 |
| Fasteners, string line, misc | — | $60–$100 |
| DIY total | $1,755–$3,030 |
Add a one-day auger rental ($60 to $110 for a two-person gas auger, or about $300 for a towable hydraulic one) unless you enjoy digging twenty 30-inch holes by hand. Realistic DIY total: $1,900 to $3,200, or about $13 to $21 per foot. Time: two to three weekends for two people. Posts go in weekend one; rails and pickets are fast once the line is set.
The same fence installed at $30 to $50 per foot is $4,500 to $7,500 plus $200 to $400 for the gate. So DIY saves roughly $2,500 to $4,500, the largest absolute savings of any common yard project.
Run your own layout, including corners, slopes, and gate openings, through the fence calculator to get exact post, rail, picket, and concrete-bag counts before you price anything. And before the first hole: call 811 for utility marking (free, legally required in most states, takes a few days), check local height limits and HOA rules, and confirm the property line. Fences built a foot onto the neighbor’s land get rebuilt at your expense.
When to hire it anyway
Sloped yards are the honest dividing line. Racking a fence down a grade, or stepping panels cleanly, is where amateur fences go visibly wrong, and pros do it daily. Rocky or root-bound soil that defeats an auger, long runs over 300 feet, and tight timelines also favor the contractor. So does anywhere with deep frost lines, where a post that heaves takes a section of fence with it.
If you’re pricing the whole backyard project, mulch beds along the new fence line and all, the rest of the estimators are at all calculators, including the mulch calculator for finishing the planting strip.
FAQ
How long will a pressure-treated fence last? 15 to 20 years, longer if pickets stay off the ground and the fence gets stain or sealer every 2 to 3 years. Cedar is similar; the posts fail first either way.
Can I set posts and build the same day? With fast-setting concrete, you can hang rails in 4 to 6 hours. Waiting until the next morning costs nothing and risks less.
Panels or stick-built? Preassembled panels ($60 to $120 each) go up much faster on dead-flat ground. Stick-building follows grade better and usually costs slightly less. On any slope, stick-build.