Repairs are where fence contractors either make easy margin or bleed time. The jobs are small, the surprises live underground, and the truck costs the same to roll as it does for a 300 ft install. Price repairs on their own model, not as tiny installs.
Hourly plus parts beats guessing
Most repairs are a labor problem with a parts receipt attached. Set an hourly rate that carries your overhead and margin, then bill materials on top. Our calculator’s example rate is $75 an hour: a leaning post that takes three hours to dig out, reset in fresh concrete, and re-hang runs 3 x $75, or $225 plus parts at that example rate. What your hour actually costs you is a number worth working out once, the same way you’d build a per-foot rate in how to price a fence job.
The minimum charge is non-negotiable
On repairs, the minimum is not a nice-to-have. Between the drive, the loading, and the cleanup, a one-picket fix still burns half a morning, and no hourly rate survives being multiplied by one. Set a minimum that makes the smallest visit worth taking, say it up front on the phone, and hold it. If the customer balks, offer to bundle other small fixes into the same visit so the minimum buys them more. There’s a full method in how to set a minimum job charge.
Diagnose the lean before you promise a price
A leaning post has a short list of causes: rot at the grade line, a cracked or heaved footing, or a gate post that was never sized for its load. From the surface they all look the same, and you often can’t tell which you’ve got until you dig. So quote the diagnosis honestly: an hourly visit to open up the hole, then a firm number once you can see the failure. Committing to a flat price before you’ve seen what’s below grade is how a two-hour repair becomes a free afternoon.
Know when to sell the replacement
If you’re resetting the third post on the same stretch of fence, the fence is telling you something. Widespread rot or a failing frame means every repair dollar buys a season, not a fix. That’s the moment to quote both: the repair the customer asked for, and the replacement priced per foot with removal as its own line (the example removal rate is $5 a linear foot). Customers respect being shown the math, and half of them take the bigger job.
Run your own numbers in the fence repair cost calculator. PriceDesk puts that hourly rate, your minimum, and your parts markup on your phone, free for 14 days.