Downspout installation cost

By Gutter Report Editorial. Last reviewed August 2026. How we research this.

In brief

1.0What a downspout job costs

Start with the whole job, because that is what a quote will be for. Three publishers price it three ways, and their middle estimates run from $400 to $1,527.

Fixr's high end is twelve copper downspouts on a large house, which pulls its top number up. Angi's typical range came off a widget that may adjust by area, so treat that band as softer than the $670 average beside it. HomeGuide's $220 to $625 is the tightest of the three and also the lowest.

Fixr is the only publisher that shows its work, so its worked jobs are the most checkable numbers here.

That last row is the useful one. Four downspouts of 12 feet is 48 feet of pipe, so $768 is $16.00 per foot. We did that division, so call it derived, not measured. It sits inside Fixr's own $15 to $28 band and inside Angi's $6.50 to $22.25, and it is four to eight times HomeGuide's $2 to $4.

Downspout size follows gutter size, so the two decisions are one decision. If the run is 6 inch the outlets and the pipe both step up with it, and how many you need is set by roof area rather than by the length of the gutter. Material matters here too: aluminum and copper downspouts are priced nothing like each other.

2.0Cost per foot, and why the sources are so far apart

Contractors also quote by the foot. Here is every per foot figure we read at its source.

Two things stand out. Angi contradicts itself: its downspout page says $6.50 to $22.25 per foot and its gutter installation page says $5 to $8 for the same vinyl and aluminum. Cite the page the number came from. And HomeGuide is not an outlier by accident, because its material table agrees with its own headline. Do not average these four. An average of $2 and $28 describes no real job.

By material, the same gap shows up again, at every material.

Angi and Fixr land close to each other on all four shared materials. HomeGuide sits far below both every time. If you are sanity checking a quote, HomeGuide is the floor and Fixr is the ceiling, and a fair aluminum quote can honestly sit anywhere between them.

Size moves the price too. Angi puts a 2 by 3 inch downspout at $6 per foot, a 3 by 4 inch at $8, and a 4 by 5 inch at $11. No other source we read prices by cross section, so that stands on one publisher alone.

3.0Materials against labor

HomeGuide is the only publisher that splits a single downspout into parts and time.

Look at HomeGuide's own split. Labor of $20 to $45 inside a total of $30 to $75 is about 60 to 67 percent of the job, well above the 20 to 50 percent Angi reports. And an hour of handyperson time is $37 to $68 at Fixr, which on its own eats most of HomeGuide's total. That is the clearest sign HomeGuide's numbers assume a downspout swapped while a crew is already on site for something else.

Height is the other big mover. HomeGuide prices the same four to five downspout job three ways.

One story to three stories is about 2.3 times. Angi describes a smaller effect: up to 50 percent more when a tall job needs a crane or a lift. Both agree height costs money. They do not agree how much.

4.0How many downspouts a house needs

This is the number that moves your total more than any material choice, and it is the number the sources agree on least. Here is the full spread.

The last column is our arithmetic on each source's own rule, rounded up. It is derived, not published by any of them.

The two ends are not answering the same question. Amerimax makes downspouts, and its 20 foot rule is drainage advice. Berger says plainly that its 50 feet is a limit on thermal expansion in the gutter, not a limit on water. This site uses 40 feet, the top of the band HomeGuide and Angi publish and under the 50 foot cap from the CDA and Berger, and labels it derived because that is what it is.

What that costs you: at HomeGuide's $30 to $75 each, three downspouts is $90 to $225 and nine is $270 to $675. That is our arithmetic again. The count, not the metal, is where the money on a small job goes. So when you read a quote, check how many downspouts it includes before you check anything else.

5.0Elbows, extensions and the small parts

A downspout is a pipe plus a few parts. The parts are cheap, and knowing the prices keeps a line item on a quote from looking strange.

Elbows are the one part everyone agrees on: HomeGuide and This Old House both say $4 to $8 for a rigid elbow, and This Old House read that off Home Depot. Screens cluster at $3 to $15 across four publishers, with Fixr's $27 as the ceiling. Diverters agree at neither end, so ask which kind a quote means.

6.0Burying the downspout: the biggest disagreement here

Running a downspout underground is the most expensive thing on this page, and the sources are not close.

Four downspouts buried is $600 to $1,400 by HomeGuide's per downspout figure and $2,400 to $3,400 by Angi's table. Angi is two to four times higher for the same work. We cannot tell you which is right, so get the trench length, the pipe size and the outlet type written on the quote and compare like for like.

Angi's $3 to $8 per foot needs a warning of its own. It cannot be squared with Angi's own $800 to $2,000 for a single extension. The $800 low end alone would need 100 to 267 feet of pipe at $3 to $8 a foot. Read it as the extra over an above ground extension, not as the whole cost. HomeGuide also disagrees with itself on dry wells, listing $300 to $1,500 in one table and $50 to $700 in another section on the same site.

7.0When you do not need a new downspout system

We do not sell gutters and we do not install them, so here is the part that costs us money to write. Most people who land on this page after watching a gutter spill over do not need a new downspout system. They need one of four smaller things.

A clog. Water going over the front edge in every storm is usually debris, not design. Clearing a clogged downspout during a cleaning is $50 to $100 at Angi and at Fixr, and $60 to $150 at HomeGuide. Fixr adds that if the downspout is not clogged, clearing it is already inside the flat cleaning price. That is the cheapest possible answer and it is the first one to rule out.

A loose downspout. A pipe swinging off the wall is straps. HomeGuide puts handyman work like that at $50 to $80 an hour, and Fixr's handyperson rate is $37 to $68. Amerimax calls for two bands per 10 feet of pipe, which is a thing you can count from the ground.

A damaged section. You do not have to replace a whole run. HomeGuide prices replacing a section of aluminum or vinyl downspout at $3 to $5 per foot and seamless at $6 to $17. Fixr instead quotes downspout repair flat, at $20 to $100 per repair.

One more downspout. This is the big one. If a long gutter run spills at the same spot every storm, the run is draining more roof than one outlet can take. Fine Homebuilding's rule says a second downspout doubles what that section can drain. HomeGuide prices adding a downspout to a gutter you already have at $2 to $4 per foot, and a full installed downspout at $30 to $75. Against a whole gutter replacement, that is the cheapest real fix available to you.

Three things do point the other way. Rotted fascia behind the gutter, because nothing you hang will hold. A gutter that is simply too small for the roof, which is a gutter problem and not a downspout problem. And copper or zinc, where the price of matching a single new piece to an aged run can cost more than the fix is worth. See gutter repair cost and gutter replacement cost for those cases, or run your own footage through the cost calculator.

Rev

RevAugust 2026

Source

SourceHomeGuide, Angi, Fixr, Thumbtack, Copper Development Association (read 2026-08-21)