What actually moves the price In rough order of how much each one matters:
The frame. Substructure and labor together are most of any deck build.Height off the ground. Drives footings, stairs, guards and whether you need a permit.Material tier. Roughly a 2–3× spread from pressure-treated to PVC.Railing. Metal railing runs a meaningful cost per linear foot, and there’s a lot of linear foot.Site access. If a truck can’t get near it, everything costs more. Local size bands Two footprints cover most projects: a replacement deck on a
production home, usually 190–300 sq ft, and an entertaining deck of
550–700 sq ft that runs long and shallow along the back of the house.
Square decks are rare — the shape follows the elevation.
Two that catch people A 45-degree board layout needs joists at 12 in on center rather
than 16 — about a third more framing, and a decision that has to
be made before the frame goes up. And a picture-frame border needs
extra framing the standard layout does not provide, because the border
lands on joist ends rather than crossing them.
How we price Every total we publish is a per-square-foot range multiplied by your
area, so you can check the arithmetic yourself. Where a number depends on
something we haven’t seen — your soil, your access — we’ll
say so rather than bury it in the range.