// AUSTRALIAN TRADIE RATES AND BENCHMARKS 2026

How much does fencing cost per metre in Australia?

As of August 2026, fencing in Australia costs about $30 to $350 per metre supply and installed for common types: chain-link runs $30 to $90, Colorbond $75 to $160, timber paling $80 to $190 and glass pool fencing $300 to $800. Fencers charge roughly $50 to $100 per hour on small jobs and repairs.

Last updated: 18 August 2026. Sources: 11 industry datasets.

Gloved hands driving a screw through a timber fence rail with an impact driver, lit by a single orange light

// THE DATA

Hourly rates in detail

Fencing is priced by the metre, not the hour: 59% of Australian fencing and gate quotes are per metre and only 12% are hourly (ServiceSeeking, 24 Feb 2026). Fence type sets the price. WhatsTheDamage, verified August 2026, puts chain-link and wire fencing at $30 to $90 per metre supply and installed with $55 typical, Colorbond at $75 to $160 with $110 typical, treated pine paling at $80 to $190 with $130 typical, hardwood paling at $100 to $180, and picket fencing at $100 to $250 with $160 typical. Pool fencing runs higher, $100 to $350 per metre for aluminium and $300 to $800 for glass, and brick or block walls run $300 to $700 per metre.

Other 2024 to 2026 guides land inside the same bands. ServiceTasker lists standard Colorbond at $70 to $100 per metre, treated pine paling at $75 to $120 and hardwood at $100 to $150 (19 Jan 2024), while Longain Fencing, a 2026 vendor guide, has Colorbond at $100 to $180, treated pine paling at $80 to $140, chain wire at $60 to $120 and rural post-and-wire at $20 to $60 per metre. On the marketplace side, ServiceSeeking's 2026 fence-installation average is $105 per metre from a $16 minimum, with the average installation quote at $2,822 (30 Jul 2026).

The hourly market is the secondary one, and it is thinner on published data. Trusted Tradie Network puts fencers at $50 to $100 per hour, Longain Fencing lists $50 to $75, and Service.com.au has a general fencing contractor at $50 per hour or more (14 Apr 2026). ServiceSeeking's marketplace averages sit at the top of that band and agree with each other closely: $106 per hour on installation work (30 Jul 2026), $107 on repairs (31 Jul 2026) and $98.25 at company level (24 Feb 2026).

Fencer hourly rates, Australia, compiled August 2026
Rate	Figure	Source
National range	$50 to $100 per hour	Trusted Tradie Network, undated; Longain Fencing 2026 and Service.com.au, 14 Apr 2026 corroborate the $50 floor
Marketplace average	$106 per hour	ServiceSeeking, 30 Jul 2026 (average from $40 per hour; 12% of quotes are hourly)

Fencing cost per metre by fence type ($/m, supply and install)

Bars: WhatsTheDamage per-metre supply-and-install ranges by fence type, verified August 2026 (single source for the by-type table). The shaded band is the $30 to $800 span of the rows above, not a published national range.

Prices are what customers are quoted, including GST where the business is registered.

Location moves the per-metre price as well as the type. WhatsTheDamage's city ranges across common fence types run $86 to $220 per metre in Sydney, $79 to $200 in Melbourne and $75 to $190 in Brisbane. For whole-job scale, the same guide prices a 30-metre Colorbond boundary fence at $2,500 to $4,500 and a 30-metre treated pine paling fence at $2,250 to $3,600, while Service.com.au bands a new fence installation at $2,200 to $4,000, replacing an old fence at $1,600 to $3,100 and fence repairs at $750 to $1,400 (14 Apr 2026).

Watch the extras, because they are quoted separately: old fence removal runs $15 to $50 per metre, a single gate $250 to $650 installed and a double or driveway gate $500 to $1,500 (WhatsTheDamage, August 2026). Two low figures are deliberately excluded from this page's headlines: Airtasker's per-city fencing "labour rates" of roughly $21 to $45 per hour read as employee wages rather than charge-out rates, and ServiceSeeking's company-level $45.13 per metre average (24 Feb 2026) mixes gate-only and repair jobs, so the dated installation average of $105 per metre is used instead.

Quick fence cost estimator

Fence length: 20 metres

$1,600 to $3,800 around $2,600 at the typical rate

Slider estimate uses the sourced $80 to $190 per metre supply-and-install range for a standard treated pine paling fence, around $130 typical (WhatsTheDamage, verified August 2026). Fence type moves the rate: chain-link starts near $30 per metre while glass pool fencing runs up to $800, and removal, gates and sloped ground are quoted on top.

// CALL-OUT FEES

Call-out fees

Fencers do not charge call-out fees, and no published minimum-charge market exists either: fencing is quoted per metre. ServiceSeeking's 2026 company data has 59% of fencing and gate quotes priced per metre against 12% per hour (24 Feb 2026), and quoting a fence means measuring the boundary, so attendance is folded into the quote rather than billed separately.

The floor small jobs actually meet is the repair market. Fence repairs average $1,229 per total job, with repair pricing from $70 per metre and hourly repair work averaging $107 (ServiceSeeking, 31 Jul 2026). Hourly rates mostly appear on repairs, gate adjustments and short runs of fencing, which is where the $50 to $100 hourly band does its work.

Worked example: replacing a 20-metre timber paling boundary fence

20 m of treated pine paling at $80 to $190/m installed: $1,600 to $3,800
Same run at the $130/m typical rate: $2,600
Old fence removal, 20 m at $15 to $50/m: $300 to $1,000

Likely quoted price, removal included $1,900 to $4,800

Illustrative worked example combining the sourced figures above; it is a derivation, not a published statistic.

// THE COST FLOOR

Why rates are what they are: the cost floor

An employed fencer's award minimum wage, including all-purpose allowances, is $29.47 per hour (Fair Work, Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020 (MA000020), 2026). The rate a fencer business charges customers is $50 to $100 per hour. The difference pays for the ute, insurance, tools, super, unbillable hours and the business's risk.

The gap pays for the ute, insurance, tools, super, unbillable hours and the business's risk.

Under the building award a fencer is a CW/ECW 1 broadbanded classification, and the experienced level d minimum of $29.47 an hour becomes $33.01 once 12% super is added, before the ute, post-hole gear, concrete, insurance or a single unbillable quoting hour is funded. A fencing contractor charging $40 an hour keeps about $7 an hour to cover all of that, which is why quoted rates start near $50 and marketplace averages run close to $100.

The $33.01 employee-cost figure is a derivation, the award hourly rate multiplied by 1.12 for the Superannuation Guarantee, not a published statistic. Award classification: Level 1 (CW/ECW 1) level d, weekly hire, residential, incl. industry allowance (Schedule A lists "Fencer" as a CW/ECW 1 broadbanded classification; no tool allowance at this level).

// FREE TOOL

Work out your own rate

A per-metre quote is an hourly rate and a materials bill wearing one number, which is exactly where undercharging hides. The calculator rebuilds the hourly floor your fencing business needs from your wage target, vehicle, tools and billable hours, so you can sanity-check what each metre of fence actually pays you.

Charge-out rate and day rate calculator Opens with the fencer preset loaded

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// COMMON QUESTIONS

Fencing cost questions

Straight answers to the questions people actually search, from the same dataset as the tables above.