T post cost comes down to one number: roughly $7 to $14 a post, as of this writing, for a 1.33 pound-per-foot post, depending on how long it is. That's the pallet price divided by 200, because a full pallet is a bundle of 200 and that's the unit I sell them in.
Here's what moves the price inside that range, and how to buy at the bottom of it.
T-post cost: what you should pay
A bundle of 200 runs around $1,450 to $2,850 on our floor right now. The spread is length. A short post is less steel than a tall one, and steel is what you're paying for. So the low end of the range is the short posts and the high end is the tall ones.
Weight matters too. T-posts come in two common weights, and the difference is how much steel is in each foot. The posts I stock are 1.33 pounds per foot, which is the heavier of the two. A lighter post is cheaper and bends easier. On a line that'll see a bull or a snow load, the light one is the expensive one. On an interior line that's mostly there to carry a hot wire, it's fine, and so is a fiberglass rod at a fraction of the price.
So before you compare a price, compare the post. Same length, same weight, same coating. A per-post price with no length attached isn't a price. It's a guess.
How pallet buying changes the T-post math
The bundle of 200 is where the per-post price comes from. Buy them ten at a time and you pay a shelf price for the ten. Buy the bundle and you pay for the bundle, and the margin on each post goes somewhere else.
The question is whether you need 200. Here's the quick arithmetic. On a woven wire fence with posts every ten feet, 200 posts is 2,000 feet of line. A square five-acre pasture has around 1,870 feet of perimeter. So one bundle fences a square five acres with a few posts left over for the gate. Wood corners and braces are a separate buy and aren't in these numbers.
Spread the posts to twelve feet, which a hi-tensile fence doesn't mind, and the same bundle covers 2,400 feet. That's most of the way around ten acres.
| Post spacing | Feet of fence per bundle of 200 |
|---|---|
| 8 feet | 1,600 |
| 10 feet | 2,000 |
| 12 feet | 2,400 |
| 16 feet | 3,200 |
Pick your spacing, count your feet, and you'll know how many bundles you're buying. For anything over a quarter mile the answer is at least one.
Splitting a bundle with a neighbor
If your job is 80 posts, a bundle of 200 is too many to buy and too good a price to walk past. That's what neighbors are for.
A bundle splits clean. One of you takes delivery, the other brings a trailer the same week, and you each write a check for half. Settle the split before it ships, in a text message you can both find later. Who stores it, who hauls, and what happens to the odd count. 100 and 100 is easy. 120 and 80 is easy too, as long as it's written down first.
The same trick works inside your own place. Fence this pasture now and the next one in the fall, and the second half of the bundle is already in the barn, paid for at the bundle price instead of the April price.
How to pay less for T-posts
- Buy the bundle. The per-post price is the bundle price divided by 200. Ten at a time is a different price.
- Buy the length the fence needs, not the longest one. Every six inches you don't need is steel you pay for and then drive into the ground.
- Put the heavy posts where the pressure is. Corners, gates, the road side. Run fiberglass on the interior hot lines for a couple of dollars a post.
- Buy in the fall for spring. Nobody is lined up for posts in October, and a post doesn't rust in the barn any faster than it rusts in the ground.
- Check the scratch and dent floor. A pallet with a torn wrap and a bent strap is still 200 posts.
The bottom line
A 1.33 pound T-post should cost you somewhere around $7 to $14 depending on length, and the way to get there is to buy the bundle of 200. If you can't use 200, find the neighbor who can use the other half. The per-post price is the same either way.
Here's what's on the floor in permanent fence posts right now.