Why a short fence loses money at the same price per foot

Two fence jobs in the same week. Same wood, same height, same price per foot.

The first is 200 feet straight down a back property line. The second is 24 feet across a side yard, with a walk gate in the middle and a corner where it meets the house.

Say your posts go every 8 feet. The long run takes 26 posts. That's about one every 8 feet, which is what your price per foot was built on.

The short run takes 5 or 6. A corner post, an end post, a post each side of the gate, and a line post or two. On 24 feet, that's a post every 4 or 5 feet.

Posts are where the work is. Every one is a hole, a bag or two of concrete, and the time to set it plumb. Pickets and rails go up fast. Posts don't.

So the short fence carries more than half again as many posts per foot as the long one, at the same price per foot. You make your money on the long run and give some of it back on the short one.

Gates do the same thing. A gate is two heavier posts, the hardware, and the time to hang it so it still closes right in ten years.

Count the posts before you count the feet

Raising your rate per foot won't fix it. Then the long runs stop winning. What works is pricing the posts and the gates on their own, so a 24 foot run pays for the holes it really takes, and a long straight run stays competitive.

A short run doesn't lose money on the gate alone. It loses it in the ground, one hole at a time.

Yardstick counts the posts on every run and prices gates separate from the feet.