Four things set the number — scale and materials, power, site access, and plumbing. We build them recirculating and water-wise, and they can run off-grid on solar. The real number is set at the free Site Read.
Recirculating · water-wiseSolar-pump capableFree Site Read
A fountain is the one feature people expect to find on a price tag, and there isn't one. The number swings with what you want and where it goes, and nobody can honestly quote it from a photo.
So here's the honest version: what actually sets the price, why a vessel costs less than a built spillway, and why the real number gets set on your site — not from a catalog.
§ 1 · What sets the price
The four drivers.
Scale & materials. Basin volume and what the fountain is made of. A pre-formed vessel is one price; carved stone or a cast piece built on site is another.
Power. A low-voltage line-fed pump near the house is the simple case. Off-grid solar with a panel and battery is a different build — cleaner the farther the fountain sits from power.
Site access. A spot the machine and the crew can reach is a fraction of one you have to hand-carry stone and concrete to.
Plumbing & structure. A simple basin recirculates with little buried work. Spillways and anything at scale need more structure and more buried plumbing — that's where the cost climbs.
§ 2 · Vessel to spillway
From a vessel to a spillway.
The form you pick is most of the price. At the simple end is a vessel or basin fountain — a sealed bowl that recirculates with a small pump, set on a prepared pad. Less material, less buried work, faster to build.
At the other end is a built stone spillway — water moving across multiple drops, carved or cast in place, with structure and plumbing buried to carry and return it. That's more stone, more concrete, more days on site, and a bigger basin to feed it. Same idea, very different scope.
Most fountains land somewhere between those two. Where yours lands — and what it costs to get there — is what the Site Read settles.
§ 3 · No catalog price
Why there's no catalog price.
We don't quote a fountain blind, because the four drivers above can each swing the number more than the fountain itself. The honest answer is that the price is set at the Site Read, on your ground, against what you actually want built.
What we will commit to is how it runs. A built recirculating fountain cycles the same water through a sealed basin for years — the pump pulls from the basin, pushes it up, and it falls back to be used again. The only loss is evaporation, and we build for hard Hill Country water so the basin and pump handle the mineral load. It can run on off-grid solar, so there's no trench to the panel and no line to run out across the yard.
There's no catalog price, because four things set the number: scale and materials, power, site access, and plumbing. A small vessel fountain on low-voltage line power near the house is a different project than a carved-stone spillway with off-grid solar at the back of a property. We don't quote a fountain blind — the real number is set at the Site Read, on your site, against what you actually want built. The first Site Read is free.
Do fountains waste water?
No. A built recirculating fountain cycles the same water through a sealed basin for years. The pump pulls from the basin, pushes it up, and the water falls back into the same basin to be used again — the only loss is evaporation. We build them for hard Hill Country water, so the basin and pump handle the mineral load instead of clogging.
Can a fountain run on solar?
Yes. A fountain can run on off-grid solar with a panel and battery, so there's no trench to the panel and no line-fed power to run out to it. That's often the cleaner build the farther the fountain sits from the house — you skip the cost and disruption of digging an electrical run across the yard.
Is the estimate free?
The first Site Read is free — an on-site reading of your property, where the fountain goes, how it gets power, and what it takes to build it, plus a written diagnosis and price range. It's the honest version of an estimate: you get a real plan and a real number whether or not you build with us.
Start here
Get your real number.
We read your site, settle where the fountain goes and how it gets power, and write the price range. No charge — the first Site Read is free.