A picket fence is bought with the eyes. Nobody installs one for security or privacy; it’s a curb appeal purchase, usually on the front of the house, and the whole job faces the street. The calculator above prices it the standard way, length times a per-foot rate, with an example rate of $26 per linear foot.
Small jobs where every board shows
Picket jobs run short. A front yard might be 60 feet of fence, which at the example rate is $1,560, and all of it sits at eye level in front of the house. That changes the work: cull the twisted boards, keep the picket tops on a clean line, and expect the customer to look at every foot of it. Corner lots are the exception to “short”: the fence wraps two street frontages, often double what the owner pictured, and every foot is still display-grade. Measure the line yourself before quoting.
The gate makes the job
On a job this size, the gate is not a detail. Add the example $350 walk gate to that 60 foot run and the quote is $1,910, with the gate carrying almost a fifth of the total. The gate is also the part the customer touches every day, and the first part to sag if it’s built like four feet of fence instead of a gate. Frame it square, hang it on a properly set post, and price it as its own line. How to price a fence job covers why gates never ride along free.
Paint, stain, and the maintenance talk
The classic white picket look means paint, and paint is a commitment: it peels, and repainting a picket fence means cutting in around every picket. Stain fades more gracefully and recoats with less prep, but it isn’t white. Settle this before you quote, because if you’re delivering the fence finished, prep and finish labor belong in the price as their own line, not buried in the per-foot rate.
If the conversation drifts toward a taller backyard fence while you’re there, the wood privacy fence calculator has those numbers.
A picket quote is small enough that customers expect it fast. PriceDesk runs this calculator with your own rates on your phone, so the number goes out while you’re still in the driveway, free for 14 days.