Fence Installation Cost: Materials, Posts, and Crew Wages

What fence installation cost is actually made of

Almost every fence installation cost figure online is one blended dollar per linear foot with nothing under it. Useless on a bid, because a fence is four buys and a wage line, and all five move for different reasons.

Pickets are a face line, priced by the run each board covers. Rails are a span line, priced by section. Posts are a count line, one every eight feet plus one. Concrete is a hole volume line, labor a time line.

Fence installation cost per linear foot, by material

The model is the common one: a 6 foot wood privacy fence, dog ear pickets, three rails, 4×4 posts eight feet on center. Every dollar figure comes from two suppliers, captured Aug 28, 2026.

A nominal 1×6 picket presents a 5.5 inch face, so a linear foot takes 2.18 pickets. Treated pine dog ear boards publish at $1.90 to $3.49 each, western red cedar at $3.31 to $4.49. Treated 2×4 by 8 foot rails run $4.29 to $5.99, three per section.

SimplyWise Cost Estimator prices material and labor line items from one photo.

Fence installation cost by run length

Treated pine, 6 feet tall, three rails, posts eight feet on center. The materials column is pickets, rails, and posts only. Bags are 50 pound fast setting mix, four per post, counted here but not priced.

Swap in western red cedar on that 100 foot run and materials go to $1,022 to $1,399, or $10.22 to $13.99 per linear foot. Only the picket line changed. Chain link runs the other way: 48 inch by 50 foot galvanized fabric at 12.5 gauge publishes at $89.99 to $119.99 a roll, or $1.80 to $2.40 per linear foot before posts, rail, and ties.

What the wage data says about the labor line

The government publishes an occupation for this trade and most fence installation cost guides ignore it. Fence erectors, code 47-4031, numbered 24,480 workers in May 2025 and earned a median of $23.07 an hour, mean $24.29, tenth percentile $17.22, ninetieth $33.66. Median annual pay was $47,980.

Two erectors over an eight hour day is $369 to $389 in wages. Nobody bills that. Burden, insurance, truck, auger, and profit ride on top, and the multiplier is yours.

No allowed source publishes a productivity rate, linear feet of fence per crew hour. So this page prints no installed dollar per linear foot for labor, and you should distrust any fence installation cost guide that does.

Posts and concrete, the line that decides how long it lasts

QUIKRETE sets the hole rule: diameter three times the post, depth one third of the post length plus six inches of gravel base. A 4×4 post is 3.5 inches actual, so the hole is 10.5 inches across and an 8 foot post goes 32 inches into concrete.

That ring holds about 1.38 cubic feet. A 50 pound bag yields 0.375 cubic feet per QUIKRETE and 0.38 per Sakrete, so four bags per post. On the 100 foot run that is 56 bags, a pallet to move, and the line most fence installation cost estimates skip.

Price a fence run in this order

1. Walk the line and count corners

   A count line, not a length line. Corners, ends, and gates each add one.

2. Pick the picket before anything else

   Cedar against treated pine is the biggest swing on the page.

3. Price posts and bags together

   Four 50 pound bags per post. Count the pallet, not the post.

4. Add gates last, and separately

   Hardware kits publish at $36.99 to $42.99 before the frame.