A 2026 pool cost guide puts aluminium fencing at $80 to $150 per metreSource: What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 (a quote-referral site) and glass at $350 to $600 per metreSource: What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 (a quote-referral site). A 2025 guide puts aluminium higher, at $200 to $350 per metreSource: Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025), and frameless glass at $450 to $650 per metreSource: Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025). Both are industry figures. Measure your fence line, then get quotes.
Start with the tape, not the catalogue. A pool fence is priced per linear metre, so a short run that uses the house wall and a long run around the whole back yard are different projects even with identical panels.
Why do the published rates disagree?
Because "aluminium fencing" is not one product, and because guides survey different installers in different markets. The gap is largest at the cheap end: $80 to $150 per metreSource: What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 (a quote-referral site) from one guide against $200 to $350 per metreSource: Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025) from another is a difference of thousands across a full fence line.
Neither is wrong. Flat-pack aluminium panels installed on a flat, accessible site sit at the bottom of that spread. Custom heights, raked ground, core-drilled posts into existing concrete and anything involving a crane sit at the top. When you collect quotes, ask which of those describes your yard.
See this chart as a table
| Item | Published range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminium, guide one | $80 to $150 per metre | What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 (a quote-referral site) |
| Aluminium, guide two | $200 to $350 per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025) |
| Glass, guide one | $350 to $600 per metre | What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 (a quote-referral site) |
| Frameless glass, guide two | $450 to $650 per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025) |
| Custom steel, guide two | $600 to $900 or more per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025) |
Read the chart as two opinions rather than one answer. Both put aluminium at the budget end and glass well above it, though the gap is much wider in the first guide than in the second, which also puts custom steel above both, at $600 to $900 or more per metreSource: Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia (published 28 August 2025).
What does glass actually buy you?
A view, and not much else. That is not a criticism: if the pool is the centrepiece of a renovation, chopping the yard in half with pickets undoes the effect you paid for. Frameless glass keeps the sightline from the kitchen to the water.
What it does not buy is an easier compliance conversation. Glass has its own catch at inspection: in Queensland, ledges on the outside face must be 10 mm or lessSource: QBCC: Pool fences, and a panel with any sign of fracture has to be replaced. Spigot-fixed panels also need the ground to cooperate, which is why sloped sites push the price up.
What does aluminium give up?
Very little that matters to a regulator. Aluminium has to meet the same barrier rules as glass, costs less per metre in both guides, and a dark colour close to the planting behind it does a lot to hide it.
The compliance detail to watch is the spacing. Where the rails sit far enough apart, vertical members can be up to 100 mm apartSource: QBCC: Pool fences, and a fence needs at least one gap of 900 mm or moreSource: QBCC: Pool fences between rails so a child cannot climb it like a ladder. Where the outer rails are closer, Queensland's options are gaps of 10 mm or less, or a fence over 1800 mmSource: QBCC: Pool fences. Those figures are Queensland's; check your own state's standard with your installer.
The rules both materials have to meet
The finish changes the invoice. It does not change the barrier requirements: the height, the gap underneath, the non-climbable zone and a self-closing, self-latching gate all apply whatever the panels are made of. The figures, and which standard your state applies, are in pool fence rules.
Two decisions that quietly cost more than the panel choice: whether your fence line can use the existing dividing fence, which is allowed with nothing climbable within 300 mm on the insideSource: QBCC: Pool fences, and where the gate goes, because every gate is hardware that will eventually need adjusting.
How to work out your own number
- Walk the fence line with a tape and write down the metres, including the gate opening.
- Multiply by both ends of the published rate for your material, so you have a low and a high.
- Add a gate. Ask each installer what their gate and hardware cost, separately from the per-metre rate.
- Ask whether the quote includes core drilling, raked panels or a site survey, because those are the usual extras.
The calculator on the home page adds your fence line to the pool and the permits, so you can see what the barrier does to the total, and the pool installation cost guide covers the rest of what sits outside a builder's quote. If the fence is going up because something failed, read what fails a pool inspection before you ask anyone to quote.
Install pool fencing yourself? See our website plan for pool fencing contractors.