Type fence company into your phone in Arlington, Grand Prairie, Crowley or Benbrook and the same handful of names comes back, each with a star rating beside it. A rating is a report on the last job a company finished. It says nothing about what happens if a post moves in year two, or whether a crew shows up on the day it promised.
Four things do answer that, and all four are questions you can ask out loud before you sign anything.
There Is No Single Best Fence Company in Dallas-Fort Worth
Star ratings across this metroplex sit so close together that they cannot pick for you. 92% of consumers say star ratings factor into which local business they choose (BrightLocal, 2026), so nearly everyone is deciding on the one number that separates these companies least. Four things do separate them, and a company either publishes them or answers for them on the phone.
- The warranty, and exactly what it covers. One year of the crew’s work and the mill’s coverage on the material are two different promises, and most buyers are handed one and told it is both.
- The review record, read for volume and dates. A score is a summary. The count under it and the date on the newest one are the parts that tell you something.
- The crew depth behind your start date. A date is only as real as the number of crews standing behind it.
- Where the wood comes from. Two bids for the same cedar fence can be built on two different boards at two different costs.
Know These Five Terms Before You Read a Fence Bid
Five words carry most of a fence bid, and three of them decide what you actually get. Workmanship, manufacturer, grade, ground contact and crew show up on quotes all over the metroplex, and two companies can use the same five words to describe two different fences. Learn them once and the bids stop looking identical.
| Term | What it means on your quote |
|---|---|
| Workmanship warranty | Covers the crew’s work: posts set plumb, gates hung square, boards fastened |
| Manufacturer warranty | Comes from the mill or the coater on the material itself, never from the crew |
| Picket grade (#1 to #3) | The board’s quality class. A #1 picket has fewer and tighter knots than a #3 |
| Ground contact | The buried part of the post, treated to a standard written for in-ground service |
| Crew | The 3 to 5 person team that builds your fence, separate from the office that sold it |
A quote that names a grade is a quote you can hold someone to. A quote that says cedar is a quote about a tree.
Most Fence Warranties Cover the Crew’s Work and Leave the Wood to the Mill
Ask for the warranty page before you ask for the price. Almost every warranty in this market covers one year of the crew’s work, and the boards, coatings and hardware are covered, if at all, by whoever made them. Both halves matter on a replacement, because the crew decides how deep the post goes and the mill decides what the board is made of.
Ours runs one year and covers craftsmanship. Across more than 20,000 projects last year we had zero craftsmanship warranty callbacks. That is a record of finished work, and we publish it as history. Kodiak Fence Company states a workmanship warranty on its own listing. You will not find most warranties in this metroplex written anywhere you can read them before the estimate, so ask for the page and read what it names.
| What fails | Who covers it | What to ask before you sign |
|---|---|---|
| Post leans in year one | The crew, under a workmanship warranty | Does the warranty name post setting and depth |
| Gate sags or drags | The crew, under a workmanship warranty | Is gate hardware named in writing |
| Pickets cup, warp or grey | The mill, and often excluded entirely | Which grade of picket was quoted |
| Metal coating peels | The coater or manufacturer | Who files that claim, you or the contractor |
| Fence blows down in a storm | Your homeowners insurance carrier | What wind spec the posts were set to |
Read the Review Count and the Dates Before the Average
Sort the reviews by newest before you look at the score. The average consumer checks six different review sites before deciding (BrightLocal, 2026), and what those sites are worth sits in the count and the dates. Volume tells you a rating has settled. Dates tell you the crew that earned it still works there.
A rating that holds across a couple hundred reviews has been tested by every kind of Saturday. A rating that stopped updating a year ago describes a company you cannot be sure still exists in the same form. Then read for detail. A review that names the salesman, the number of days, and what changed on the quote is worth ten that say great fence.
In a June 2026 SoTellUs review, a customer wrote: “Their price was competitive and lower than the other 2 but what sealed the deal was Matt called back the same day I initially contacted them for an appraisal. It was a good decision and Matt was quick to reply with the cost estimate and each time I had a question. In addition the crew showed up promptly per schedule and Matt came by early to coordinate some changes I requested after accepting the original quote. The fence was installed in just 2 days and looks great!”
Crew Depth Decides Whether Your Install Date Holds
Ask how many crews a company runs in this metroplex, then ask what happens when one of them is out sick. Specialty trade contractors average fewer than ten workers per establishment across about 599,000 U.S. firms (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), which is one or two crews for most companies. One flu week and a promised Tuesday slides into the following one.
That matters more on a replacement than on anything else you will buy for your yard. The old fence comes down before the new one goes up, so a slipped date is an open yard, a loose dog, or a pool nobody can leave unwatched. We run over 100 crews across Texas, with 5 to 15 in each market outside Houston. A logged lead gets a callback almost always the same day, 95% of real leads get a quote the same day, work starts within about 4 days, and most jobs finish the day they start.
Whoever you hire, get the answer in numbers. A company with three crews can be excellent and still owe you a straight answer about what happens when one of the three is down.
Where a Company Buys Its Pickets Shows Up in Your Quote
Two bids for the same cedar fence can differ by hundreds of dollars because the wood behind them was bought at two different prices. U.S. fence construction runs about $20.4 billion in 2026, and the industry’s growth is credited to contractors passing higher material and labor costs straight through to customers (IBISWorld, 2026). The buyer who asks where the wood comes from is asking about their own price.
We buy more wood pickets than anyone else Master Halco sells to. They named us their 2026 Largest Volume Customer for the Southwest Region and for the World, and that picket cost goes into the quote instead of into the margin. It is also why we will name the grade, #1 through #3, on the page. A cheap number written against a #3 picket and a fair number written against a #1 look like the same fence for about a week.
In a June 2026 SoTellUs review, a customer wrote: “Johnson Services provided a great estimate to replace our backyard fence beating out all other quotes. They were quick to replace and remove the old fence. The fence looks great and well built.”
