Trex Decking Cost: What to Budget in 2026

Pricing out a new deck and keep seeing the same brand name pop up? You're not alone. Trex decking cost is one of the most-searched questions among homeowners planning a composite deck, and for good reason: composite has become the default choice for anyone tired of sanding, staining, and replacing rotten boards every few years. The trouble is that "how much" depends on tier, region, and who's swinging the drill. This guide breaks composite decking costs into honest, representative ranges, explains what separates a budget board from a premium one, and shows where the real savings show up over a decade of ownership.

How much does composite decking actually cost?

Nationally, a fully installed deck runs somewhere between $30 and $60 per square foot in 2026, according to Angi and corroborated by NerdWallet. Composite materials themselves — the boards, hidden fasteners, and fascia — typically fall between $5 and $14 per square foot, compared with roughly $3-6 per square ft for pressure-treated pine. Labour adds another $15-35 per square ft on top, depending on your region, deck height, and how complicated the framing underneath turns out to be.

Those numbers are a starting point, not a quote. A 320 sq ft deck built with mid-tier capped composite could reasonably land anywhere from $11,000 to $19,000 once framing, footings, and railing are included. Run your own numbers through the deck cost calculator and the material calculator before you settle on a budget, then get two or three written local quotes to confirm. Prices move with resin and lumber markets, local labour rates, and how far the supplier has to truck your boards to reach your postcode.

The three tiers of composite decking, explained

Not all composite is the same product wearing different colours. Boards generally split into three tiers, and the price gap between them explains most of the confusion homeowners run into when comparing quotes side by side.

Uncapped composite

This is the entry point — a blend of wood fibre and recycled plastic with no protective outer shell. It's the cheapest composite option and still a step up from PT pine because it won't splinter or need annual staining, but the exposed surface can absorb moisture, stain, and fade faster than capped products. Expect it to sit near the bottom of that $5-14 materials range.

Capped composite

Capped boards wrap that same wood-plastic core in a polymer shell, usually on three or four sides. That cap resists staining, fading, and moisture far better, which is why capped composite dominates the mid-to-premium end of the market and is what most homeowners picture when they hear a brand name like Trex. It costs more than uncapped composite but generally needs nothing beyond an occasional wash with a garden hose.

PVC decking

PVC boards skip wood fibre altogether and are made from cellular PVC through and through. They're typically the priciest tier, but also the lightest and most resistant to moisture and mould, which matters near pools, hot tubs, or humid coastal climates. If uncapped composite is the budget option, PVC is usually the ceiling.

Colour and finish add a further wrinkle. Boards marketed as mimicking exotic hardwood grain, or finished in deep, heat-absorbing tones, sometimes carry a small premium over plainer colourways within the same tier. It rarely moves the needle much on a whole-deck budget, but it's worth asking your supplier whether a specific shade is a standard stock item or a special order, since special orders can add both cost and lead time.

Trex and the composite decking market

Trex is the name most homeowners reach for first, and it's worth understanding why. As one of the longest-running composite decking manufacturers in the US, it effectively created the category and still anchors it, with product lines that span from value-tier capped composite up to premium boards that behave much like PVC. That doesn't mean any one brand is automatically the cheapest or most expensive option on a given job — plenty of competitors sit in the same tiers with comparable specs and similar warranties. What it does mean is that mainstream capped-composite pricing is a reasonable benchmark for the whole category: expect quotes for established brands to land in a similar ballpark, and treat any specific number you see quoted online as a snapshot that's likely already out of date. Resin and framing lumber costs both move constantly — framing lumber prices were up 4.7% month-over-month and 5.1% year-over-year in early July 2026, the highest reading since August 2025 — and that kind of volatility ripples through overall project quotes even when the decking itself is composite.

Is composite decking worth the extra money?

Here's a worked example. A homeowner replacing a tired pine deck gets quotes for both PT pine and capped composite. The pine deck comes in about $4,000 cheaper upfront. But pine needs stripping, sanding, and restaining every 1-3 years — call it $400-700 in materials and labour each time if it's hired out, or a full weekend of your own labour if you do it yourself. Over fifteen years, that's five to seven refinishing cycles, which can easily erase the upfront saving and then some. Composite doesn't eliminate maintenance entirely — you'll still want to sweep debris out of the board gaps and hose it down a couple of times a year — but it removes the recurring stain-and-seal cycle altogether, which is where most of the long-term value shows up.

Composite vs pressure-treated pine over ten years

For a fuller breakdown of composite against wood over the life of a deck, see our composite decking vs wood cost comparison. It's also worth checking current pressure-treated lumber pricing if pine is still on your shortlist, since framing costs have been climbing across the board this year. Resale value matters too: the 2025 Cost vs Value Report found deck additions return between 65.8% and 82.9% of their cost depending on material, and composite frequently edges out wood in buyer perception even where the raw payback percentage is similar — one reason composite's share of the wider decking and railing market keeps growing faster than wood's.

What actually drives your quote up or down

• Deck height and whether stairs are involved, since more framing and more footings mean more labour hours.
• Railing choice — composite or metal railing kits typically add more to the bill than a basic wood baluster rail; see our best deck railing kits guide for a sense of the range.
• Removing and hauling away an old deck before the new one goes in, which many quotes list as a separate line item.
• Local permit fees — most jurisdictions require one; see our guide on whether you need a permit to build a deck.
• Regional labour rates, since coastal and major metro markets typically run well above the national average.

“The boards rarely fail first — it's almost always the substructure underneath that decides whether a composite deck lasts twenty years or five. Spend your budget on proper joist spacing and hardware before you spend it on a fancier board colour.”

The honest answer to what composite decking costs is that it depends on the tier you pick and the deck you're building, so treat every figure in this guide as a planning range rather than a quote. Run your project through our calculators, gather a few written bids from local pros, and weigh them against what you'd actually spend keeping a pine deck looking sharp for the same fifteen years.