How much does it cost to stain a fence?

Most 6 ft privacy fences in Greenville and Spartanburg cost $9.60 a foot to stain on both sides with our Essential level, Exotic Timber Oil. A 150 ft fence that needs a soft wash first usually lands around $1,650 to $1,925.

Those numbers come straight from our fence staining cost calculator, the same one our estimators use in the yard, so they change when our prices do. Here is what pushes a fence up or down from there, and how to sanity-check any quote you get.

What changes the price of staining a fence?

Five things move the number: height, one side or both, style, how weathered the wood is, and how easy the fence is to get to. Our base price is a 6 ft privacy fence stained on both sides.

Every foot of height over 6 adds about 20% to the rate, because there is that much more board to cover. Staining only the side that faces your yard takes about 35% off: a 150 ft fence on new wood, one side only, runs about $875 to $1,050.

Style changes the labor more than people expect. Shadowbox and board-on-board fences cost about 25% more, because the boards overlap or sit on both sides of the rail, so there is more wood and more edges in every foot.

A 150 ft shadowbox fence with a wash runs about $2,125 to $2,475, against $1,650 to $1,925 for plain privacy. A farm or rail fence costs about 15% less, since most of it is air.

Why two quotes for the same fence can be far apart

When two quotes for the same fence are hundreds of dollars apart, it is usually one of three things. One contractor priced both sides and the other priced one. One included a wash and the other planned to stain over grey wood.

Or one is quoting a cheaper stain. Ask each one which sides, what prep, and what product, then compare. A per-foot price only means something once you know those three answers.

The cheapest quote is often the one that skipped prep. Stain on dirty, wet, or mill-glazed wood fails. It peels, blotches, or washes thin in the first year, and then you pay twice: once for the cheap job and once for the fix.

A quote that includes a wash and a moisture check will rarely be the lowest number on the table. It is usually the lowest cost per year of the fence looking right.

Be wary of an old article or a flyer with a cheap per-foot rate. Those numbers were from a different year, different material costs, and often a job with no prep at all.

If a number only works when nobody washes the wood, it is not a real number. That is why our per-foot price always comes with the height, the style, the sides, and the prep spelled out next to it.

What does washing add?

Grey, mildewed, or weathered wood needs a soft wash and a brightener before any stain goes on, or the stain will not bond. On a privacy fence that adds $2.00 a foot ($3.00 on shadowbox and board-on-board, which have more faces to clean). New wood that reads dry on the meter skips it: a 150 ft fence on new wood runs about $1,350 to $1,600 instead of $1,650 to $1,925.

If the old finish is peeling, or you are switching from a water-based stain to oil, the wood needs stripping or sanding instead of a wash. That runs $4.80 a foot.

We check before we price it, and stripping is not always needed: recoating a similar stain in good shape usually takes a wash, not a strip. Very grey fences are fence restoration jobs first.

Adrian of Superior Stain Solutions did an outstanding job on two fences for us. One fence was brand new and only required staining while the other existing fence required it to first be washed. They both turned out excellent! We chose Barnwood stain and when it fully dried it was just the color we were looking for. Very happy with the end result.

What about access, water, and power?

Access matters. A fence along a flat, open backyard in Duncan is a faster job than the same fence on a slope in Greer, threaded behind a pool, or buried in landscaping. We need water and power for a wash.

Tell us if the job site has no power or water. That can change how we quote it. The calculator prices the fence itself; these are the things we look at when we come out.

Which stain is in the price?

The Essential price is Exotic Timber Oil, a penetrating oil that soaks in, moves with the wood, and weathers instead of peeling. The upgrades, EXPERT Stain & Seal at $11.20 a foot and EXPERT Log & Timber Oil at $13.80, come with manufacturer color warranties.

If your fence already has a water-based stain on it, we stay with water-based, since oil will not soak through it; that starts at $10.60 a foot. Plan on a restain every 2 to 6 years depending on the opacity you pick and how much sun the fence takes.