Deck staining prices
How Much Does Deck Staining Cost?
There’s no flat rate for deck staining, and an honest cost page has to start there. A standalone deck job starts at about $2,400, and a small deck added to a house we’re already painting can be as little as $1,200. The biggest deck we quoted this year came to about $24,000, for three tiers of decking down a steep hillside with over 3,000 square feet of boards and hundreds of feet of railing. Almost every deck lands well inside those numbers, and the shape yours is in decides where.
Any finish will look good on your deck in the beginning. How long it lasts depends on how much the people doing the work care about the outcome.
A deck takes more weather than anything else you own, so nothing punishes rushed prep faster. That’s also why deck prices spread so wide.
Before the number
What Moves the Price of Deck Staining
The condition of the boards, more than anything.
A deck that’s gone gray and splintery needs cleaning, sanding, and board repairs before any stain goes down, because a fresh coat over weathered boards won’t last no matter what you paid for it. Most of what separates a $2,400 deck from a much bigger job is how much of that catching-up the deck needs.
How much decking there is.
Square footage of boards sets the base of the job.
Railing.
Hundreds of feet of railing can carry as much labor as the deck floor itself, and the style matters: simple rails brush out fast, ornate ones don’t.
Levels and access.
One platform off a back door is one job. Multiple tiers down a slope, where every ladder move has to be made safe, is another.
The finish you choose.
A penetrating stain soaks into the grain and keeps wood looking like wood. A solid-color stain covers heavier when boards are too worn to show grain, and bringing back a deck with an old failing solid finish means cleaning, scraping, and sanding first, which is a bigger job than a simple refresh. We match the product to your boards and how the deck actually gets used, because the wrong product on the wrong deck is a big part of why finishes fail early.
The two real numbers
What Your Deck Might Cost
Decks vary more than anything else we do, so we won’t pretend yours comes with an off-the-shelf price. What we can tell you is the real spread: $2,400 for this year’s smallest job, about $24,000 for the biggest quote, and most decks landing well inside that. The only honest way to pin your number down is to get out there, measure it, and look at what the boards need.
This year’s smallest job
$2,400
A standalone deck job starts here.
This year’s biggest quote
About $24,000
Three tiers of decking down a steep hillside, over 3,000 square feet of boards and hundreds of feet of railing.
That’s what the estimate is: we come out, measure the decking and railing, check the boards, and hand you one written, fixed price for the deck you actually have.
Where the floor comes from
Why There’s a Minimum
A standalone deck job starts at about $2,400, and that number isn’t really about the size of the deck. It’s a trip out to wash it, two people on site for a day, and the material. Those costs show up whether the deck is big or small, which is why a very small deck on its own doesn’t come out much cheaper than a medium one.
That minimum is per visit, not per deck.
If your house has three small decks, they’re one trip and one setup, so they get priced together rather than each carrying a minimum of its own.
It’s also why the same deck costs less when we’re already painting your house. If the crew is on site anyway, a small deck can add as little as $1,200, because the trip and the setup are already paid for. If you’re weighing both, doing them together is the cheapest version.
Comparing quotes
Why Deck Quotes Land So Far Apart
Two deck bids can be thousands apart because they’re often not bidding the same job. One includes cleaning, scraping, sanding, and swapping out failed boards before staining; another means a quick wash and a coat over whatever’s there. One counts the railing; another discovers it later. The totals sit side by side looking comparable, and they aren’t.
The difference shows up after the money’s spent, when a finish laid over gray, unprepped boards starts letting go in the first hard season.
So ask any bidder, including us, to put it in writing: what prep is included, whether board repairs are in the number, whether railings are counted, and which product is going on. Our proposal names all of that, and if anything needs to change once we’ve started, you approve it in writing first.
We’re rarely the cheapest bid, and we’d rather you hear that from us now than feel blindsided by it later. And if your deck is honestly too far gone to refinish, we’ll tell you it’s time to replace it instead of selling you a coat of stain over a problem.
Straight answers
Deck Staining Cost Questions
Answered here the same way we answer them standing on your deck.
+How much does it cost to refinish a deck?
It depends on how big the deck is, how much railing it has, how many levels, and what shape the boards are in, so any honest number needs us to see the deck first. A standalone deck job starts around $2,400, and our biggest quote this year was about $24,000 for a large multi-level deck. If you have several small decks they get priced as one job, not three, and if we’re already painting your house a small deck can add as little as $1,200. We come out and put a fixed price in writing.
+How much do deck painters charge per hour?
Most established deck refinishers, us included, don’t price by the hour, because the hours are the unknown: a sound deck and a weathered one can look similar in photos and be days apart in prep. An hourly rate just moves that risk onto you. We quote the whole job as one fixed written price, and if it takes longer than we planned, that’s ours to absorb.
+Should my deck be stained or painted?
Stained. Paint sits on top of a surface you walk on and peels no matter how well it goes on, while stain is made for it. There’s more than one kind: penetrating stain soaks in and shows the grain, solid-color stain covers heavier on worn boards. We recommend the right one for your deck once we’re standing on it.
+How much does it cost to paint a fence?
We do, as part of a larger project. A fence costs more than most people are picturing, because there are two sides to every board and a lot of linear feet to cover, so as a job on its own it rarely lands where someone hoped. If we’re already staining your deck or painting your house, adding the fence is straightforward, and that’s the version that makes sense for most people.
+My deck is gray and splintering. Is it worth refinishing?
Usually, yes. We clean it, sand it, and repair or swap out boards that have failed before any finish goes down. If yours really is too far gone, we’ll say so plainly instead of staining over a problem, and refinishing a savable deck costs a fraction of rebuilding one.
The 90 second step
Get Your Number
Booking an estimate online takes about 90 seconds. We come measure the decking and railing, look at what the boards need, and hand you a fixed price in writing. If you hire us, 10% holds your project dates, never more than $1,000.
Want a number for your own place before you book? Get an instant quote.
Michael Hines Painting · Ione, CA 95640 · (209) 256-4587
The other guides
What Everything Else Costs
Same idea, same lack of a form. Every guide we publish is here.
How Much Does Interior Painting Cost?
Rooms from $700. Whole interiors $7,700 to $20,000.
Read the interior painting guideHow Much Does It Cost to Paint a House Exterior?
About $6,000 to $22,000 or more.
Read the exterior painting guideHow Much Does It Cost to Paint Kitchen Cabinets?
About $4,000 to $11,800.
Read the cabinet painting guideAll four sit under the painting cost guides hub. For how the work itself is done, see our deck staining and refinishing page, which also links the deck staining page for your own town.