Cost data reviewed September 2026 · 2 sources
How Much Do Gutters Cost Per Foot? (2026)
Aluminum K-style gutter costs $2.90 to $4.52 per linear foot as material at trade prices (Gutter Supply, September 2026), and installation labour adds about $5.00 per linear foot (This Old House, August 2026). But “cost per foot” is three different numbers depending on where you buy, and mixing them up is why quotes seem to disagree wildly. Trade material, retail material and fully installed are not comparable figures, and the gap between them is not markup for its own sake.
The three numbers, and why they differ
Trade material is what an installer pays a supplier, bought by the foot. It is the lowest of the three and you generally cannot access it without an account.
Retail material is the shelf price for pre-cut sections at a home centre. Higher per foot than trade, because you are buying ten-foot lengths in ones and twos rather than coil by the roll.
Installed is material plus labour plus the contractor’s overhead, insurance, vehicle and profit. This is the only one of the three that is a price you would actually be quoted.
A homeowner comparing a trade material figure to a quote and concluding they are being overcharged has compared two different things. The difference is mostly labour and business cost, not margin.
What we can verify
Aluminum K-style, material only (trade)
$2.90–$4.52USD/linear foot (material only, trade)
Aluminum K-style, .027-.032 gauge. $3.60/ft is the confirmed mid-point for .027. This is trade-channel pricing: a homeowner buying pre-cut sections at a home centre pays more, and a contractor's quoted material line may differ again.
Checked against 1 source
| Source | Figure | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Gutter Supply — aluminum K-style gutter, per footTrade supplier list pricing, fetched and read directly 2026-09-16 with gauge .027 and Length 'Per foot' selected. The page confirms per-foot is a purchasable option: 'Enter your total footage needed and our system will prompt you for individual lengths.' Material only, trade channel. | $2.90–$4.52 | September 2026 |
Installation labour, per linear foot
$5USD/linear foot (installed labour)
An average rather than a range, for seamless installation. One caveat, found on 16 September 2026: this figure cannot be reconciled with the vinyl row of the same publisher's per-material table, which puts vinyl installed at less than this labour rate alone. It reconciles with that table's aluminum, steel and copper rows, so the vinyl row looks like the broken one rather than this figure.
Checked against 1 source
| Source | Figure | Published |
|---|---|---|
| This Old House — seamless gutter costsNationwide homeowner surveys (a 2026 survey of 1,000 homeowners and a 2025 survey of 1,484 respondents) for satisfaction data. PRICING PROVENANCE, confirmed by re-fetch 2026-09-16: the page states 'The cost data featured in this guide was sourced using Homewyse and Angi, unless otherwise stated.' So its prices are NOT independent of Homewyse. | $5 | August 2026 |
Cost data needed
Aluminum K-style 5in, retail sectional
We have not yet checked this figure against its source, so we are not publishing it.
What to do instead
- Ask each installer to itemise this line in a written quote, so you are comparing the same work rather than two totals. It is the figure we would want in front of us before agreeing to anything.
- See how we check a figure, and what has to be true before one appears here.
We would rather leave a gap here than publish a number we cannot stand behind.
Cost data disputed
All materials, installed
Our sources disagree on this figure, so we are not publishing one until that is resolved.
What to do instead
- Get this line itemised in more than one written quote. Published sources genuinely conflict here, and a line the trade does not agree on is usually a line where quotes vary most — which makes it the one worth comparing rather than accepting as given.
- See how we check a figure, and what has to be true before one appears here.
We would rather leave a gap here than publish a number we cannot stand behind.
The last two are shown as gaps rather than numbers, and it is worth saying why rather than quietly omitting them.
The retail figure comes from a national retailer whose pages block automated re-checking, so we have a price but nobody has confirmed it against the source. The installed figure is worse: two pages from the same publisher give $4–40 per foot and $12–62 per foot, and both cite the same underlying pricing guide, so we cannot even use independence to prefer one. Publishing either would mean publishing a number we have not stood behind.
Other materials
We now have verified trade figures for two materials: aluminum, above, and copper.
Copper K-style, material only (trade)
$13.79USD/linear foot (material only, trade — supplier's stated floor)
The supplier's starting price, for the cheapest copper K-style configuration it stocks. Heavier copper, larger profiles and shorter runs all cost more, so treat this as the bottom of what copper costs rather than what it will cost you. Trade channel, material only.
Checked against 1 source
| Source | Figure | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Gutter Supply — copper K-style gutter, per footTrade supplier list pricing, fetched and read directly 2026-09-16. The same supplier and the same channel as the aluminum per-foot figure, which is what makes the two comparable — the copper-against-aluminum multiple on this site is one supplier's own pricing, not two publishers' averages compared across channels. | $13.79 | September 2026 |
Read that one as a floor rather than a range — it is the supplier’s starting price for the cheapest copper configuration it stocks, and the listing says so. Set beside the aluminum figure from the same supplier and the same channel, copper starts at roughly three to five times aluminum as raw material. That multiple is our arithmetic on their two prices, and it is worth more than most published copper-versus-aluminum comparisons precisely because both sides come from one supplier’s own list rather than from two publishers averaged across different channels.
Zinc, galvanised steel and vinyl are still not sourced at trade per-foot pricing, and we are not going to scale the aluminum number by a ratio we invented.
What can be said about those three without a figure attached is the ordering, which is stable across every source we have looked at: vinyl is cheapest, aluminum is the default, galvanised steel is somewhat more, and zinc is the most expensive — dearer than copper. Use that for shortlisting, and get quotes for the actual number. The full comparison of the two materials we can price is on aluminum vs copper gutters.
What moves the per-foot figure
Gauge. Aluminum comes in .027 and .032 most commonly, and that alone is most of the trade range above. The thicker gauge resists ladder dents and holds up better under ice loading.
Profile. K-style is the default in the US. Half-round uses more metal for the same capacity and generally costs more per foot — the comparison is on K-style vs half-round gutters.
Width. Five-inch is standard; six-inch carries substantially more water and costs more per foot in both material and the brackets that hold it.
Seamless versus sectional. Seamless is formed on site from coil, so its material cost is coil priced by the foot plus the machine time. Sectional is bought in lengths. Seamless costs more and leaks less, because the joints are where gutters fail.
Colour and finish. Standard colours are cheapest. Copper-look finishes and speciality coatings carry a premium over mill finish.
Working out your own total
Multiply your gutter run by a per-foot figure and you have the material line — but that is not the job. A complete estimate needs downspouts, corner mitres, hangers, end caps, and labour, each of which is priced per unit rather than per foot.
Our gutter installation cost calculator itemises all of it from the same sourced figures used on this page, and shows which lines it cannot fill.
For the length itself: the perimeter of your house footprint, 2 × (length + width), is the usual approximation. Most homes fall between 125 and 200 feet.
Common questions
How much do gutters cost per foot installed?
We are not publishing a figure, and the reason is on purpose. The two published sources we can reach disagree by a factor of three and share an upstream pricing guide, so neither corroborates the other. What we can tell you is the build-up: trade material of $2.90–$4.52 per foot plus about $5.00 per foot of labour, before any contractor overhead or profit.
Why is the material cheaper than the sections at the home centre?
Different channel. Trade pricing is by the foot from a supplier; retail is pre-cut sections sold in small quantities. The retail premium is real and it is the price of being able to buy four lengths on a Saturday.
Is six-inch gutter worth the extra per foot?
It is, where roof area or rainfall intensity means five-inch would overflow — which is a sizing question rather than a cost one, and the sizing calculation is the thing that should decide it.
Does a longer run cost less per foot?
Somewhat, on labour. Set-up time is spread over more feet, and a seamless machine running a long straight run is efficient. Corners are where the time goes, not length.
How we check our figures
Every figure on this page is traceable to a named, dated source shown beside it. Where a figure is not verified, the page shows a gap and says what is wrong with the source rather than filling it in. Our full approach, and the verification status of every value in the cost model, is on how we calculate costs.
Related reading
To turn a per-foot rate into a job total, use the gutter installation cost calculator. For the profile decision, see K-style vs half-round gutters. For whether you need gutters on a given elevation at all, see are gutters necessary.