One pool cost guide puts aluminium fencing at $80 to $150 per metre↗ and glass at $350 to $600 per metre↗. Another puts aluminium higher, at $200 to $350 per metre↗, and frameless glass at $450 to $650 per metre↗. 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 twelve metre run against the house and a thirty metre run around a back yard in Toowoomba 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 metre↗ from one guide against $200 to $350 per metre↗ 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 |
| Aluminium, guide two | $200 to $350 per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia |
| Glass, guide one | $350 to $600 per metre | What's The Damage: Swimming pool cost Australia 2026 |
| Frameless glass, guide two | $450 to $650 per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia |
| Custom steel, guide two | $600 to $900 or more per metre | Three Birds Renovations: cost of a swimming pool in Australia |
Read the chart as two opinions rather than one answer. The pattern both agree on is the ranking: aluminium is the budget option, glass costs several times more per metre, and custom steel sits above both at $600 to $900 or more per metre↗.
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: ledges on the outside face must be 10 mm or less↗, and a panel with any sign of fracture is a replacement, not a repair. 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. Powder-coated aluminium meets the same rules, costs less per metre, is easier to replace one panel at a time, and disappears visually if you pick a colour close to the planting behind it.
The compliance detail to watch is the spacing. Where the rails sit far enough apart, vertical members can be up to 100 mm apart↗, and a fence needs at least one gap of 900 mm or more↗ between rails so a child cannot climb it like a ladder. Where the rails are closer, Queensland requires gaps under 10 mm, or a fence over 1800 mm↗ instead.
The rules both materials have to meet
The finish changes the invoice. It does not change the barrier requirements: at least 1200 mm↗ high, no more than 100 mm↗ underneath, a 900 mm↗ non-climbable zone kept clear, and a gate that will self-close and self-latch from any open position↗ with the latch at least 1500 mm↗.
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 inside↗, 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. For quotes from fencers who work in your area, use the quote form, and if the fence is going up because something failed, read what fails a pool inspection first.