Wood is the cheaper fence to build and the easier one to fix, and it will ask for stain every few years for the rest of its life. Vinyl costs more up front, then mostly leaves you alone. If the owner wants the lowest bid today, wood wins. If they want to never think about the fence again, vinyl is the pick.
Cost at the example rates
Here is a 100 ft run of 6 ft privacy fence at the example rates from our calculators. These are placeholders to show the math, not market prices.
| Fence | Example rate | 100 ft total |
|---|---|---|
| Wood privacy, 6 ft | $38 / linear ft | $3,800 |
| Vinyl, 6 ft | $42 / linear ft | $4,200 |
That is a $400 gap on a typical backyard run at the example rates. Your market sets the real spread; the point is that vinyl usually starts higher, not lower. Run your own numbers on the wood privacy fence calculator and the vinyl fence calculator.
Wood: cheaper in, work later
A wood fence fails a piece at a time, and that is a feature. A rotted picket or a board the mower kicked is a ten-minute repair with a few screws and one board off the rack at any lumber yard.
The cost of ownership is the staining. Wood needs cleaning and re-staining on a repeating cycle, and skipped cycles show up as gray, checked boards and a shorter fence life. Quote wood honestly by saying that part out loud.
Vinyl: pay once, hose it off
Vinyl’s upkeep is a garden hose. No stain, no paint, no rot. The catch is how it fails: cold makes vinyl brittle, and a hard impact in winter (a plow bank, a falling limb, a ball at the wrong angle) cracks a panel instead of denting a board.
Vinyl repairs come panel by panel, not board by board. If the panel line has been discontinued, matching the profile and color of the rest of the fence can be its own project.
Which yard gets which
Wood suits owners who want the lower price, plan to maintain it, and like that repairs are cheap and local. If they have already settled on wood, the next fork is the lumber itself: cedar vs pressure-treated fence. Vinyl suits owners who will pay more to skip the staining cycle, in a yard where hard winter impacts are unlikely. Either way, price the run by the foot with gates as separate line items, the same method as in how to price a fence job.
PriceDesk runs both of these calculators with your own rates, so the next wood-or-vinyl conversation ends with an itemized number texted from the truck. Free for 14 days, no card.