Should You Restain, Resurface, or Rebuild Your Deck?
Restaining a deck costs $2 to $4 per square foot professionally, about $850 for a typical 300 to 400 sq ft deck. Resurfacing and full rebuilds are carpentry work with no verified national ranges, so get local quotes for those tiers.
Planning figures, not contractor quotes. How we calculate
Short answer
If your deck is structurally sound, plan $2 to $4 per square foot for professional restaining, about $850 for a typical 300 to 400 square foot deck. Resurfacing means new boards on the old frame, and a full rebuild means starting over; both are carpentry work and none of our sources publish verified national cost ranges for them, so get local quotes for those two tiers. Most decks that look tired but feel solid are a staining job, not a rebuild.
Cost summary
Estimates per square foot. See the cited sources and methodology before using these figures for a decision.
| Cost level | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Low | $2.00 |
| Typical | $3.00 |
| High | $4.00 |
Calculate your planning range
Enter rates from your own quotes or research. We do not supply unverified local prices.
The short version: three tiers, one inspection
Your deck job falls into one of three buckets. Restaining keeps the whole deck and refreshes the surface: $2 to $4 per square foot professionally, about $850 for a typical 300 to 400 square foot deck. Resurfacing replaces the deck boards and railings but keeps the frame and footings. A full rebuild tears everything out and starts over. The last two are carpentry work, and none of our sources publish verified national cost ranges for them, so get local quotes for those.
Here is the rule the data supports: if the boards are worn but solid and the frame is sound, you are a staining job. HomeGuide and Fixr both note that condition drives cost, and their staining ranges cover cleaning, staining, and sealing, not carpentry. If a quote starts talking about replacing boards or posts, you have left staining territory and are pricing a different project.
Sources: Angi: How Much Does It Cost to Stain a Deck? | Angi, Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr, HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide
Tier 1: restain and refinish ($2 to $4 per sq ft)
Professional restaining plans at $100 to $1,465 nationally, with an average of $850, per Angi's July 2026 update. Per square foot pricing runs $2 to $4 according to Angi, $2 to $5 including light sanding and sealing according to Fixr, and $1.50 to $4.00 according to HomeGuide. Most decks fall between 300 and 400 square feet. Our deck staining cost guide covers tier 1 in full detail.
Labor runs $1 to $2.50 per square foot (Angi), or $35 to $90 per hour for roughly 10 hours of work. Fixr splits it as $1.50 to $3 per square foot for labor with another $0.50 to $2 for materials. The stain itself is cheap: $25 to $35 per gallon for latex, $25 to $45 for oil-based, and $40 to $80 for water-based, per Fixr. Railings cost extra at $4 to $12.50 per linear foot, per Angi. What moves the total is prep: Fixr's high end of $1,000 reflects deep cleaning plus moderate to serious repairs before staining, while its $300 low end assumes a small deck with no repairs and minimal cleaning.
Sources: Angi: How Much Does It Cost to Stain a Deck? | Angi, Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr, HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide
Tier 2: resurface (new boards on the old frame)
Resurfacing means pulling up the old deck boards and laying new ones, often with new railings, while the posts, beams, joists, and footings stay. It is the middle option when the walking surface is worn out but the structure underneath is still sound.
Here is the honest part: none of our sources publish a verified national cost range for resurfacing. The staining datasets stop where carpentry starts. HomeGuide and Fixr both note that board replacement and structural repairs are priced separately, outside the staining ranges. Do not trust a single national number from a random blog for this job. Get two or three local quotes that break out materials and labor separately.
Sources: HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide, Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr
Tier 3: full rebuild (start over)
A full rebuild tears the deck down to the footings, or replaces those too, and builds new. It is the right call when the frame, posts, or ledger board are rotted, the footings have shifted, or the deck predates modern codes and nothing underneath is worth saving. Rebuilding as part of a bigger exterior overhaul? Our exterior house painting cost guide prices the house exterior.
Same honest note as tier 2: we have no verified national range for rebuilds in our data. A rebuild involves permits, footings, framing lumber, and disposal, and every one of those varies wildly by market and deck size. This is a get-multiple-contractor-quotes-with-itemized-breakdowns job, not a plan-around-one-national-average job.
How to inspect your deck and pick your tier
Walk the deck and press a screwdriver into several boards, posts, and the ledger board where the deck meets the house. If the wood resists and the boards are just gray, splintery, or stained unevenly, you are looking at tier 1. If a few boards are soft or split but the frame is solid, you may need minor repairs before staining, which Fixr's data already expects at the high end of its range. If the screwdriver sinks in easily, posts wobble, or boards feel spongy across large areas, you are in tier 2 or 3 territory.
Check the ledger board and joists, not just the walking surface. Staining quotes do not include carpentry, so a contractor who finds rot will price that separately. Knowing your tier before you call anyone keeps the quotes comparable: ask for staining quotes if the deck qualifies for tier 1, and resurface or rebuild quotes if it does not.
Sources: Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr, HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide
What these numbers can and can't tell you
Confidence in the tier 1 figures is MEDIUM: three national publisher datasets agree on the $2 to $4-ish band for professional staining of a typical deck. Angi's figures carry a July 2026 update date; the Fixr and HomeGuide pages reviewed did not display an explicit publication or update date in the fetched text, so their currency is less certain. The $100 low end reflects small, simple decks, not a typical full-size project, and none of the ranges include carpentry repairs.
Tiers 2 and 3 carry no verified national figures in this guide at all. That is deliberate: we would rather show a gap than publish a number we cannot back up. These are 2025 to 2026 nominal US dollars with no regional multipliers, and the tier 1 figures are due for re-verification by October 2027.
Sources: Angi: How Much Does It Cost to Stain a Deck? | Angi, Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr, HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide
Sources
- Angi: How Much Does It Cost to Stain a Deck? | Angi (accessed 2026-10-01)
- HomeGuide: 2026 Deck Painting Cost | HomeGuide (accessed 2026-10-01)
- Fixr: Deck Staining Cost | Fixr (accessed 2026-10-01)
Frequently asked questions
How much does a painting project cost?
If your deck is structurally sound, plan $2 to $4 per square foot for professional restaining, about $850 for a typical 300 to 400 square foot deck. Resurfacing means new boards on the old frame, and a full rebuild means starting over; both are carpentry work and none of our sources publish verified national cost ranges for them, so get local quotes for those two tiers. Most decks that look tired but feel solid are a staining job, not a rebuild.
Why is there a cost range instead of a single price?
Project costs move with scope, finish level, and local labor rates. This guide splits the national planning range into low, typical, and high levels, and the scope sections explain what pushes a project toward each end. Use the range to budget, then collect itemized contractor quotes for your exact project.
Are these figures contractor quotes?
No. They are national planning ranges compiled from published, cited sources, shown with their assumptions and limitations. Treat them as a budgeting starting point, not a bid. Our methodology page explains how every figure is sourced and reviewed.
