Home & Energy calculator
Turn a fence run’s length, height, and post spacing into posts, rails, and pickets, or switch to Materials & Cost for region-aware wood, vinyl, or chain-link pricing, chain-link mesh and rolls, and a stain calculator.
Free, no signup — not a substitute for a licensed installer’s quote.
Pick a mode below: posts, rails, and pickets from your fence’s dimensions, or materials and cost by region and fence type. Every figure is adjustable — replace any default with your own measurement or quote.
6-8 ft is standard for wood; 10 ft for residential chain link.
0 for a butted privacy fence; wider for a picket-style fence.
Posts needed
20
~9.0 ft posts (1/3 buried)
Rails needed
57
3/section x 19 sections
Pickets needed
344
incl. 5% waste
Concrete (50 lb bags)
40
2/post + 2/gate
At a glance
Posts
Posts = ceil(Length / Spacing) + 1Post length = 1.5 x fence height, so exactly a third is buried.
Rails
Rails = Rails per section x (Posts − 1)2 rails/section under 6 ft, 3 at 6 ft and taller, as a starting default.
Pickets & concrete
Pickets = ceil(Length / (Width + Gap) x (1 + Waste%))Concrete: 2 bags/post + 2/gate. Board-on-board adds ~30% more lumber.
Wood. Privacy (butted, no gap) or picket (with a gap) styles both use the same post/rail/picket math; board-on-board adds roughly 30% more lumber for its double-layer, alternating-side coverage. 2026 US installed costs run about $15-30/ft for pressure-treated pine and $25-45/ft for cedar.
Vinyl. Typically sold as pre-assembled panels rather than individual pickets, so its cost is estimated by length rather than picket count — about $30-60/ft installed in the US in 2026, CA$38-65/ft in Canada.
Chain link. Sized by mesh area (length x height) and roll count at your supplier’s roll length, with line posts at roughly 10 ft spacing for residential jobs (commercial jobs often tighten to 8 ft) and larger-diameter terminal posts at every corner and end. The cheapest common fence type at about $10-25/ft installed in the US and A$40-65/m in Australia in 2026.
UK, Canada & Australia. Choosing a region switches the unit to metres where standard (UK, Australia) and pre-fills a regional starting cost — UK garden fencing commonly runs roughly £50-180/m installed, Australian timber paling about A$70-105/m, and Canadian wood about CA$27-50/ft, all before a local quote.
Posts, rails & pickets. A 150 ft privacy fence, 6 ft tall, posts every 8 ft, no gates: Posts = ceil(150 ÷ 8) + 1 = 20, each about 9 ft long (a third buried). At 6 ft tall, 3 rails per section across 19 sections gives 57 rails. With 5.5 in pickets butted with no gap and a 5% waste allowance, that’s about 344 pickets. Concrete: 20 posts × 2 bags = 40 bags.
Materials & cost. The same 150 ft in pressure-treated wood at $22/ft installed comes to an estimated $3,300.
It turns a fence run's length, height, and post spacing into the number of posts, rails, and pickets or boards needed, plus concrete for setting the posts. Posts = (length ÷ spacing, rounded up) + 1; each post should be about 1.5 times the fence height so a third of it is buried; rails run between each pair of posts; and pickets are spaced by their width plus any gap along the full length.
Divide the fence length by your post spacing, round up, then add one for the final post at the end of the run: Posts = ceil(Length ÷ Spacing) + 1. A 150 ft fence at 8 ft spacing needs 20 posts (19 sections plus one).
A widely used guideline is the one-third rule: bury at least a third of the total post length. This calculator sizes each post at 1.5 times the fence height, so exactly a third of that length sits below ground — a 6 ft fence uses roughly a 9 ft post, about 3 ft of it buried. Frost-prone areas need holes below the local frost line regardless of this rule, and sandy or loose soil often needs extra depth — check your local building code.
6 to 8 feet on center is standard for residential wood fencing — 6 ft for taller fences, high-wind areas, or softer soil, 8 ft to match standard lumber lengths and reduce post count. Residential chain-link typically uses about 10 ft line-post spacing (commercial jobs often tighten this to 8 ft).
Divide the fence length by the picket width plus any gap between pickets, then add a waste allowance (5% is a common default for defective or miscut boards): Pickets = ceil(Length ÷ (Width + Gap) x (1 + Waste%)).
Board-on-board alternates boards on the front and back of the rails so each gap on one side is covered by a board on the other, giving full privacy from both directions with no sightline gaps. It uses roughly 30% more lumber than a single standard layer — a commonly cited rule of thumb this calculator applies as a multiplier when you select the Board-on-Board style, rather than modelling the exact overlap width.
Yes — set the gap between pickets to 0 for a standard butted privacy fence (boards touch, no sightline gaps), or select Board-on-Board for the alternating-side style that fully blocks sightlines even as wood shrinks over time.
Yes — a traditional picket fence just uses a gap greater than 0 between pickets (commonly 2-4 inches) instead of a butted privacy layout; enter your picket width and desired gap and the calculator does the rest.
Yes — select Chain Link in Materials & Cost for mesh area (length x height), the number of rolls at your supplier's roll length, and an estimated line-post count at your chosen spacing (commonly around 10 ft for residential jobs), alongside a cost estimate.
Yes, for cost — select Vinyl in Materials & Cost for a region-aware cost-per-length estimate. Vinyl fencing is normally sold as pre-assembled panels rather than individual pickets, so the Posts, Rails & Pickets mode's picket count is most relevant to wood fencing specifically.
No — this is an independent calculator built by Calculator Matters and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced by The Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, B&Q, Bunnings, or any other retailer. It uses its own published fence-building formulas and general cost data, not any one retailer's specific product catalog or pricing.
Yes — choosing a region in Materials & Cost switches the unit to metres where that's standard (UK and Australia) and pre-fills a regional cost per unit length for wood, vinyl, and chain-link; choose "Other / custom" to enter your own figures for any other country. The post, rail, and picket formulas in the other mode work in feet or metres everywhere.
Very roughly in 2026: chain-link runs about $10-25/ft in the US (A$40-65/m in Australia); wood runs about $15-45/ft in the US, CA$27-50/ft in Canada, and £50-180/m in the UK depending on style and timber; vinyl runs about $30-60/ft in the US and CA$38-65/ft in Canada. Materials & Cost pre-fills a starting figure per region and material — replace it with a local quote for an accurate total.
Turn on "Calculate stain needed" under Wood in Materials & Cost. One gallon typically covers 150-300 sq ft depending on the stain and wood porosity (check your product's label); the calculator multiplies your fence's length x height x sides (1 for one face, 2 for both) and divides by that coverage figure.
This is a free, online calculator — no app, signup, or download required. It works the same in any modern browser on desktop or mobile.
The post, rail, picket, and concrete formulas follow commonly published fence-building rules of thumb, cross-checked against an independently published worked example. Regional cost figures are general, sourced 2026 starting points, not a live data feed.
Home & energy disclaimer
This calculator estimates posts, rails, pickets, concrete, materials, and cost from the length, height, spacing, and figures you enter — it does not account for slopes, obstacles, soil conditions, frost depth, or local fence-height and boundary regulations, and it is not a substitute for a licensed fencing contractor's on-site quote. Material coverage, waste needs, and costs vary by product, region, and supplier, and change over time — confirm current figures with a local supplier or installer before purchasing.
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