Labour hours, return visits and warranty claims all land later in the job, and they come out of your margin rather than the client's budget. A per-metre comparison never picks that up. Here's how the two materials stack up across the things that decide what you actually keep from a fence run.
Aluminium costs more per metre than treated timber, and if a client is weighing two quotes on price alone, timber takes it every time. Worth being straight about that before anything else.
The gap matters most on small, simple jobs. One boundary run on a standalone build, in and out inside a day, with an owner who plans to stay twenty years, is a job where timber's lower material cost is hard to beat.
It closes on anything with volume, repetition or a tight programme attached, because that's where the costs sitting behind the sticker price start compounding job after job.
Aluminium arrives pre-fabricated, so crews spend less time cutting, nothing needs sealing on site, and no other trade is held up waiting on a finish to dry. Timber wants preparation at every stage: cut it, treat it, then wait for it.
Pace is where that shows up on the invoice. Aluminium fencing goes up 30 to 40% quicker than a comparable timber run, and on fixed-price work every hour saved on site is margin you keep.
Pricing the job gets more predictable too. Pre-fabricated components come in set quantities, so your order lands close to what you use, while timber brings cuts, waste and whatever the site throws at you on the day.
If you've already settled on aluminium, the next decision is who supplies it, and that has more effect on your margin than most builders expect. Our builder's checklist for choosing an aluminium fencing supplier covers what to check before you commit.
A return trip to a finished job is the quickest way to give back the margin you earned on it, because that visit is on you.
Timber keeps moving after handover, and most of what it does is your problem while the job is still under warranty:
A fair bit of that surfaces inside the first year, when the build is still fresh in the client's mind, and the fix is still your responsibility.
Aluminium mostly sidesteps the problem. The powder-coated surface holds up against rot, rust and sun, and the panels keep their shape, so callbacks on the fence are rare. Expect 25 years or better out of it, against 10 to 15 before timber is due for replacement.
Client satisfaction is worth pricing in, because it decides whether you get the next job and what gets written about you afterwards. A finish that still looks new in a year does a lot of that work for you.
Aluminium comes powder-coated in one consistent colour across the run, so panels match at handover and still match twelve months later. Buyers reading it as low-maintenance is part of the appeal, particularly on new builds.
It also leaves less to explain. A fence with no maintenance schedule attached is one less thing a client can forget about and then hold against you when it starts looking tired.
Plenty of clients want timber, and on the right project they're right to. Grain and warmth are things aluminium doesn't replicate, whatever the maintenance argument says.
On character homes, rural properties and planting-led landscape designs, timber usually suits the setting better, which is why architects keep specifying it. Push aluminium onto those jobs, and it reads as the wrong material for the place.
Budget is the other honest case for it. When a client can't stretch to aluminium, timber done properly beats aluminium done cheaply, provided you have the maintenance conversation before you start rather than in year three.
For volume builders and landscapers, aluminium is the stronger commercial choice. Multi-unit developments, subdivisions and repeat residential work all reward a product that installs faster, prices predictably and stays quiet after handover.
On one-offs where the client wants a natural look, or the budget is genuinely tight, timber can still be the right call. Specifying aluminium there to protect your own margin tends to end with an unhappy client and a fence that doesn't suit the property.
Running the numbers on your own jobs is easier with current rates sitting next to your timber pricing. Request the 2026 Urban Group fencing price list and price your next run both ways.