Estimate the cost of painting or staining a fence.
A fence is priced from its face area — length times height — doubled if you are doing both sides, then increased by about 10% because rough sawn timber, picket edges and rail undersides swallow more coating than a flat measurement suggests. That roughness also crushes the spread rate: wall paint covers 350 sq ft per gallon but fence stain on bare timber often manages only 150 to 200, and the first coat on new wood can be worse. Labour is charged per square foot and is usually the larger half of the bill for spray or brush work. Bare or weathered timber wants two coats; a maintenance recoat over sound existing stain needs one.
Fence Painting Cost
Paintable area = length x height x sides x 1.1; gallons = area / spread rate, rounded up; total = gallons x price + area x labour rate
On labour, substantially — three to four times faster. On material, no: spraying uses 20-30% more product through overspray, and it needs masking and calm weather.
Two to three years for a translucent stain, five or more for solid stain or paint. South and west faces weather first, so check those rather than the whole fence.