In my experience, the wire was the most expensive part. My husband is quite handy, and he runs all of our out building electric here. Perhaps it is just our agricultural neighborhood being unique, but it is nothing around here to find a licensed electrician willing to "moonlight" for a little extra spending money. Truth is, you can buy the direct bury wire yourself, trench it, and have it come all the way up to the junction boxes then call in the electrician to handle the tie in. That puts some work on you, but saves money on the bottom line.

I can't comment on the cost of running the pond because we have so much other stuff running with the horse barn, hen house, and assorted other uses. We are more agricultural than residential.

I will say that having the electricity available to my pond is wonderful. It is doubtful I would want the pond without the benefit of being able to add extra o2 with a pump and also to have lighting. My filter isn't installed yet, but I am pretty heavily planted with very few fish. Can't wait to see how clear it all gets when the filter gets finished and cycled. Right now my water kind of looks like, well, pond water. I want aquarium water!
One more note on the electricity - installing it is a one time cost. You won't feel that installation cost or labor again, but the benefits and convenience of having it will go on and on.
Cheers
M

Cost depends on many things. Distance, whether your panel is full, whether there's another circuit that can be tied into. Prices vary by area. Also who you hire, a professional who pulls a permit will charge more than the guy who says he can do it as long as you don't pull a permit. You can pull the permit yourself, owners are allowed to do their own work, even if you hire someone. The permit is pretty cheap expert advice telling you whether the work was done correctly or is going to burn your house down.

This may seem strange, but you can bring the water to the electric rather than the electric to the water. I've done it several times. You connect one pipe thru the pond liner and run it underground to the nearest power. You build a small reservoir there, maybe 2'x2'x2', and run the pipe thru that liner. The reservoir has to be at the same level as the pond. Now when you fill your pond the reservoir will fill too. The pump goes into the reservoir. And you run the pump output back to the pond thru a pipe, hose or stream.

That's the general idea, but many options. Like if your yard isn't flat the reservoir can be connected by a stream either to it or from it depending on the grade. If the reservoir is higher than the pond the reservoir has to be deeper.

The reservoir can be filled with gravel after placing the pump in a bucket with holes. That way you have no standing water there and the reservoir acts as a bog filter and as a great pre filter so your pump never clogs.

Skipping a filter is not an option...really.

Here is a link that might be useful: skippy filter

I installed a GFI outlet into the external house outlet that was on the same side as the pond, ran direct burial cable - worked well for 9 years, then we decide to run a dedicated circuit since DW began using her sewing machines and space heaters in the closed in porch which was on the same circuit, so I had another circuit installed

I did the same as mckool. Not a difficult DIY project if one can read & follow simnple directions (lol, i confess i have a 'more than healthy' fear of electricity). Point being, if I can do it, anyone can!

blessings,
~digger