A deck is three jobs measured three different ways, which is why deck bids drift. The floor prices by the square foot, railing and ledger by the foot, stairs and footings per each — and the part homeowners ask about, the boards, is the only part that changes between a cheap deck and an expensive one. Put a real deck in below. Everything but the decking is held constant and you get the same job bid three ways, the way you would actually send it. The starting rates come from BidTorch's own starter deck catalog where it has them; the three decking rates are placeholders for yours.
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The values below are starting points. Replace every one of them with your own — the answer is only as good as what you put in.
Length x width of the deck surface. The 280 is a 14x20 freestanding deck — a placeholder, put in the one you are bidding.
What you CHARGE per square foot of finished PT decking, boards and fastening labor together. A placeholder only — this number is yours and it varies more by market than by anything else on this page.
Same surface, better boards. Placeholder — replace with your cedar rate.
Placeholder. Composite usually carries hidden fasteners and a slower install, so the labor inside your rate is not the same as PT.
Linear feet of railing around the open sides. Measured by the foot, not by the deck's area — a long skinny deck has far more railing per square foot than a square one.
BidTorch starter-catalog rate for installed railing. Yours moves with the material and the baluster style.
Total risers, not flights. Stairs are per-each work — stringers, treads and the landing do not scale with deck area.
BidTorch starter-catalog rate per step.
Count them off the beam layout. This is the line that moves most with height above grade — a deck 8 ft up needs deeper, bigger footings than the same deck 2 ft up, and that delta is invisible if you bid off surface area alone.
BidTorch starter-catalog rate per pier.
Feet of ledger where the deck attaches to the house. Zero on a fully freestanding deck — which is why a freestanding build is not simply a cheaper attached one.
BidTorch starter-catalog rate. Flashing detail is where callbacks come from, so this is not the line to shave.
Square feet of existing deck coming out, including haul-off.
BidTorch starter-catalog rate for tear-out and haul.
Getting the crew, tools and a dumpster to the job. Flat, and it does not shrink because the deck is small — which is why small decks need it stated rather than absorbed.
Decks over a certain height almost always need one. A pass-through that belongs on the bid.
$8,411
The whole job with PT decking. Everything below the boards is identical in all three options.
The same deck, the decking line swapped to your cedar rate. Nothing else moved.
The same deck in composite. This is the option homeowners talk themselves into once they can see it beside the other two.
Best minus Good. The single most useful number in a deck conversation, and the one a single-price bid never surfaces.
YOUR bid divided by YOUR deck area — a sanity check against your own past jobs, not a market rate. It rises on small decks because mobilization and stairs do not shrink.
Same division, cedar option.
Same division, composite option.
Railing, structure and prep — the work that is identical across all three options. If this is most of the bid, the deck is being driven by its frame and not by its floor.
Linear feet at your railing rate.
The per-each and per-foot work under the deck. This is the line that grows with height above grade while the square footage stays exactly the same.
The work that happens before a board is cut, plus the permit. Flat costs that a per-square-foot bid quietly eats.
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The most expensive mistake in deck estimating is treating the deck as an area. Take the same 280 square feet at two feet above grade and at eight feet above grade: the floor area is identical, the decking line is identical, and the job is not remotely the same. The footings get deeper and wider, the posts get longer, the bracing changes, and the stair run roughly quadruples. All of that lives in the per-each and per-foot lines under the surface — which is precisely why this calculator makes you count footings and steps instead of inferring them from area. A price per square foot is a fine way to check a bid you already built. It is a bad way to build one.
A deck is the clearest example of why a single unit of measure does not survive contact with real work. The floor is an area and prices by the square foot. Railing and ledger are runs and price by the foot. Stairs and footings are counted and price per each. Mobilization is flat. Five different shapes of money in one backyard, and the bid is only honest if each one is measured the way it actually behaves. That is also why a deck quote reads well as line items: the homeowner can see that the stairs are a real number rather than a rounding of the total.
Hold everything constant and change only the decking rate, and you get three bids that differ by exactly the decking delta — nothing else. That is what makes a three-option deck quote persuasive rather than confusing: the homeowner is not comparing three different decks, they are comparing three surfaces on the same deck. It also protects you, because the frame you priced is the frame you build regardless of which option they sign. The calculator enforces this by construction — the common subtotal is computed once and reused.
It does the arithmetic of a bid from rates you supply. It does not do a lumber takeoff: no board counts, no joist spans, no fastener schedules, and no materials price feed. That is deliberate — a takeoff that guesses your supplier's pricing produces a number you cannot stand behind in front of a customer. What you get here is the structure of the estimate and the three-option shape, with every rate under your control.
Measure it in the units the work actually uses: the floor by the square foot, railing and ledger by the linear foot, stairs and footings per each, and mobilization as a flat cost. Price each at your own rate, then present the decking as the variable — pressure-treated, cedar, composite — so the homeowner is choosing a surface rather than choosing between you and another contractor.
Per square foot is an output, not an input. Build the bid from the units above and let the per-square-foot figure fall out of it, then compare that against your own completed jobs. Bidding a deck at a flat rate per square foot systematically underprices tall decks, small decks and anything with a long stair run.
Because everything under the deck grows while the deck itself does not. Deeper and wider footings, longer posts, more bracing, and a stair run that gets longer with every foot of rise. Two decks with identical floor area and a six-foot difference in height are different jobs, and only the per-each lines show it.
No, and deliberately. It uses the rates you charge, not a supplier feed. Lumber pricing moves too fast and varies too much by yard for a number we fetched to be one you would defend in a customer's kitchen.
This page does the arithmetic. In BidTorch the same job is built as a line-item quote — floor by the sqft, railing by the foot, stairs and footings per each — sent as good/better/best on one branded link, signed on the homeowner's phone with a deposit that funds the material order.
Turn this estimate into a sendable quote: three decking options on one branded link, everything under the boards held constant, e-signature and a deposit from the homeowner's phone.
Quoting these jobs for customers? See quoting software for deck builders.
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