About DeckCalc

I built my first deck in 2020 with pressure-treated pine and spent $3,800. The contractor quote for the same 280 square feet was $9,200. I wrote this calculator so people could do the same math before they decided.

That first quote shocked me. $9,200 for a rectangle of boards at ground level, no railings, four wood stairs. I asked the contractor to itemize. He wouldn't. He said "it includes everything." So I got two more quotes: $7,400 and $11,600. Same job, same yard, same material. The spread on deck pricing in the same zip code is wild, and the only way to spot the padding is to understand the math yourself.

I spent three weekends over Memorial Day weekend 2020 building it myself. Home Depot and Menards for materials, $3,800 total. Simpson Strong-Tie joist hangers, Quikrete in the footings, CAMO hidden fasteners on the boards, cedar stain at year-end. One trip back to Home Depot because I bought LUS26 hangers instead of LUS28. A July 4th cookout deadline I almost missed because the Ridgid brad nailer died mid-fascia and I had to drive back for a replacement.

That deck is still standing. Straight. No sag. I wrote DeckCalc so the next homeowner looking at a $9,000 quote for a $4,000 job has the same math I wish I'd had when I started.

How the formula was built

The DeckCalc formula pulls from Homewyse's line-item cost database (the gold standard for itemized home-improvement pricing), Fixr's 2025 material and labor tables, Decks.com (owned by Trex), and the specific per-foot ranges Trex, TimberTech, and Azek publish in their own calculators. Then I validated three test cases against real contractor quotes I\'d collected. Full math lives on the guide page. No hidden logic, no black-box pricing, no brand lock.

Who this is for

Homeowners pricing a deck for the first time. People who want to know whether a $15,400 quote for 320 square feet of composite is fair or padded. DIYers running materials estimates before a Home Depot run. Real estate investors budgeting a property upgrade. Anyone tired of email-gated calculators that dump their contact info into three sales CRMs.

If you're a contractor, you already know your numbers cold. But if you want to send a homeowner a sanity-check link before they start shopping three bids, feel free.

What's coming

Per-material deep guides (Trex vs TimberTech vs Azek, cedar by region, PT by treatment chemistry). A stair-rise calculator. A hot-tub load planner. A ledger-board safety checker. A permit-by-state lookup. If there's a feature you want, drop a note on the contact page.

About the ads

This site runs Google AdSense. No lead-gen forms. No "a local pro will reach out." The ads pay for hosting and keep the calculator free. If a link happens to point to Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, or Tractor Supply for tools and materials I actually use, that's an affiliate link and we get a small commission at no cost to you. I've built two decks with Simpson Strong-Tie hardware and CAMO hidden fasteners; those brands I'll recommend all day. Thanks for reading.