Fence panel calculator: perimeter to panels, stands, clamps and cost

Divide your fence line by 10 and round up: a 300 ft line needs 30 panels, a 1,000 ft loop needs 100. Rent is billed on the measured installed footage at $3.50/LF/mo, so the calculator below turns feet into panels, stands, monthly rent, installation, removal and the total for the months you plan to keep the line.

How does the calculator count panels?

The calculator takes one of two inputs. Either you know the linear feet of fence line from a site walk, or you know the two sides of a rectangle and let it compute the perimeter as twice the length plus twice the width.

Every panel is a 10 ft section, so the panel count is your footage divided by 10 and rounded up to the next whole panel. There is no half panel: 301 ft is 31 panels, and 310 ft is also 31 panels.

The calculator rounds once, on the total. In the linear-feet mode it rounds the footage you typed; in the rectangle mode it adds the four sides and rounds that sum. It does not know where your corners fall, so a 95 ft × 95 ft pad shows 38 panels for its 380 ft perimeter when the line actually needs 40, because each 95 ft side takes 10 whole panels. Round every side or segment up to a multiple of 10 yourself and type that total into the linear-feet field, 400 ft in this case, so the panel and stand counts match what the crew will set; rent is still billed on the line as measured at installation, and the layout review is where the two are reconciled.

The gates field does not change the panel count. A gate occupies one panel slot in the line, so the calculator shows how many of your panels are gate panels and leaves the total alone. Gate hardware is not part of the published price, which is why it does not appear as a line.

Stands and clamps are reported as one figure: the number of joints. A closed rectangle has one joint per panel, so its stand count equals its panel count. An open run, measured in linear feet, needs one more stand than it has panels because the last panel has an unsupported end.

The months field starts at the 1-month minimum and goes to 60. It multiplies monthly rent for the term total, and nothing else. The footage cap is 20,000 ft, which is well past any single jobsite we fence from Gypsum.

Calculate your run

The figures update as you type, and every dollar in the panel above comes from the same price list as the temporary fence page. Type your best footage now, then read the rest of the page to see what the number does not include and how to make it accurate before you reserve.

What do the outputs mean on your invoice?

Rent per month is footage multiplied by $3.50/LF/mo. It recurs every month from installation until we remove the line, and it is billed monthly in advance to the card on file under Rental Agreement §4.

Install is footage multiplied by $1.75 and is charged once, when our crew sets the panels. Removal is footage multiplied by $1.75 and is charged once, at pickup. On the invoice, both use the measured installed line rather than the number you typed, so a line that grows on installation day grows on the invoice too.

First invoice is the first month of rent plus installation. The $500 reservation deposit is applied to that invoice under Rental Agreement §2, so the amount actually charged on delivery day is the first-invoice figure less the deposit you already paid.

The term total adds rent for every month you entered to installation and removal. It is a planning figure for a bid, not a quote; if the line stays up an extra month, rent continues month to month until we receive 15 days' written pickup notice and retrieve the panels under §16.

Four things are not in any of those numbers: delivery and pickup for your zone, the damage waiver or the certificate-of-insurance route, the 5% environmental fee and sales tax. Each is covered below.

How many panels per 100 feet?

Ten panels cover 100 ft, and the count scales in a straight line from there. The table gives the panel count for common footages together with the stand count for a closed loop and for an open run, using the calculator's one-stand-per-joint rule.

A 100 ft × 50 ft laydown yard is a 300 ft perimeter, which is 30 panels. A 200 ft × 150 ft building footprint with a 20 ft setback all around is a 240 ft × 190 ft loop, 860 ft of fence and 86 panels. The setback is where most estimates go wrong: the fence goes around the work zone, the crane swing and the material staging, not around the building outline on the civil sheet.

Rent follows footage, not panel count. Two sites with 30 panels each pay the same monthly rent only if their measured lines are the same; a 295 ft line and a 300 ft line both take 30 panels but are billed at 295 ft and 300 ft.

How do you measure the fence line?

Walk it with a measuring wheel along the route the panels will actually stand on. A plan scaled at 1 in = 20 ft rounds badly, a GIS measurement follows the property line rather than the fence, and neither sees the spoil pile that pushes the line 15 ft out.

Break the route into straight segments between corners and openings. Write each segment down, round each one up to whole panels, then add them; rounding the grand total once understates a line with many short legs because every corner that lands mid-panel needs a full panel to close.

Measure to where the panel stands will sit, not to the edge of the excavation. A stand needs a firm, level strip of ground, and a line set on the lip of a cut will move when the cut does. Keep the line off drainage swales, out of the plow route and clear of the crane pad.

Mark the openings while you are walking. Most truck entrances are planned at 20 ft to 24 ft clear so a tractor-trailer can turn in, which is two panel slots, and a pedestrian gate uses one slot even though the leaf is narrower. The jobsite theft answer explains why fewer, better-placed openings are the whole point of a fence.

Send us the footage, a marked plan and the address when you reserve. We check the layout before the truck is loaded, and the measured line on installation day controls the rent, so the closer your walk is to reality, the closer the calculator is to your invoice.

How do gates and openings change the count?

Every opening is a gap in the panel run, and the panels on either side of it still need stands. If you plan a 20 ft truck gate in a 300 ft loop, the loop still has 30 slots; two of them are the opening, and 28 are fixed panels.

Gate hardware, wheels, drop rods and padlocks are not part of the published per-foot price, and neither is windscreen or privacy screen. If the site needs a swinging or rolling gate leaf rather than a planned gap, raise it when you reserve so we can review it with the layout.

Put the truck opening where a rig can pull straight in from the street and where a spotter can see both directions. Put the crew gate near the office and the hand-wash station so the daily path does not cross the truck route, and keep one opening only if the site can live with it; every extra opening is a place the fence is open at 6 a.m. because someone forgot the chain.

An event site works the same way with different names. Back-of-house, vendor load-in and an emergency access lane are each openings, and the events and festivals solution covers why one person should own the current fence drawing when production keeps adding tents.

What about corners, slopes and curves?

Panels are rigid rectangles, 6 ft tall and 10 ft wide, and they do not bend. A corner is two panels meeting at an angle in a shared stand, so a rectangle has no corner penalty beyond the rounding rule: a 95 ft side needs 10 panels, and the tenth panel either runs 5 ft past the corner or is angled in, but the count is 10 and never 9.5. The calculator's rectangle mode does not apply that rule side by side, which is why a pad with sides that are not multiples of 10 should be entered as the rounded per-side total in linear feet.

On a slope, panels step rather than rake. Each panel stays level in its stand and the next one starts higher or lower, which leaves a wedge-shaped gap at the bottom of each step on steep ground. Measure the slope along the surface, add a panel where a grade break falls mid-panel, and expect to place a stand on the uphill side of each step.

A curve is a series of short chords. A 90 ft arc around a cul-de-sac bulb uses ten panels rather than nine because each straight 10 ft panel cuts a chord shorter than the arc it replaces and the ends meet at small angles; measure along the curve with the wheel and round each segment up.

Where the line has to follow a retaining wall, a creek setback or a tree-protection fence, walk it twice. Those are the runs that change between the plan and the day the truck arrives.

What does the fence cost beyond the calculator?

Delivery and pickup are charged per leg by zone, from $400 each way in Zone A to $1,200 each way in Zone E. A line in Frisco or Breckenridge is Zone C — $750 each way, and a line in Lakewood is Zone E — $1,200 each way; the delivery zones page lists every town, and Zone F towns are quoted in writing for pickup.

The damage waiver is 12% of rent and recurring upgrades each month, or you decline it and provide a refundable security deposit of one month's rent plus a certificate of insurance that meets Rental Agreement §10. Either way, missing clamps and stands at removal are billed per item under §9, which is one reason to count the set with our crew at handoff.

The 5% environmental fee and sales tax apply to every recurring invoice. Rates rise 5% on each anniversary of delivery under §3, which matters for a two-season civil job but not for a three-month site.

Screen is not included. If you need windscreen or privacy mesh on the line, say so at reservation, because covered panels carry wind load that open chain link does not and the layout review has to account for it. Nothing may be attached to the panels without our written consent under §7.

When should you run it again?

Run the calculator once for each phase that changes the perimeter, not once for the project. A site that fences 600 ft around excavation and shrinks to 300 ft around the building once the pad is poured has two different rent lines, and the second line has its own installation labor if panels move.

Run it again when the drawing changes. A tower crane pad, a second laydown yard for the mechanical contractor or a temporary access easement each add legs, and the difference between 42 and 48 panels is a full month of rent on 60 ft of line that nobody priced.

Run it before the pickup notice. Rent continues until we retrieve the panels under §16, so the term total in the calculator is only right if the site can actually give up the line on the last day you entered; add a month if closeout tends to slip.

If the perimeter has to move mid-rental, the panels stay where they are until we move them. The customer may not move, alter or reinstall the equipment under §5.5, so a phase change is a call to 970-279-1015 and a re-measured line, not a Saturday job for the laborers.

What should you reserve?

Reserve the footage from your site walk, rounded up per segment, with a marked plan that shows every opening. The $500 deposit holds the panels and a delivery window; the standard window is 2–4 weeks from reservation, and JOLT Express does not apply to fence, so schedule backward from the day the perimeter has to be closed.

If the fence protects a laydown yard, put a 20 ft storage container inside it for the tools and copper, because a chain-link panel keeps honest people out and slows the others down. A WATCH camera on that container covers the gate for $129/mo, and the temporary fence cost guide walks an estimator through the whole bid line.

Check the local rules before you set the height and the screen. The Colorado fence requirements answer separates what OSHA, the building code and the town's construction plan actually ask for, and the pricing page has every number on one sheet.