Paver Patio Installation Pricing Calculator
Price a paver patio install from your take-off: pavers with waste, base in yards and tons, bedding and joint sand, edge restraint, crew hours, equipment days, disposal and margin.
How this is calculated
The quote is a straight build-up from the take-off. Four things behave deliberately: the dig depth is derived from the build-up rather than typed, so deepening the base moves the excavation, the spoil and the tip fee with it; the base is ordered loose and above the compacted thickness, because the spec thickness is an after-compaction thickness; the paver waste buffer buys pavers and never buys labour, because the offcuts are scrap rather than extra ground; and drive time is tracked twice, landing in your cost in full and in the charge only for the share you choose to bill.
paverArea = area × (1 + paverWaste)
pavers = ceil(paverArea × paversPerSqFt) (when priced per unit)
cuYd(a,d) = a × d ÷ 12 ÷ 27
baseInPlace= cuYd(area, baseDepth)
baseOrder = baseInPlace × (1 + compactionAllowance)
baseTons = baseOrder × density ÷ 2,000
bedding = cuYd(area, beddingDepth) (uncompacted: no allowance)
bags = ceil(bedding × 54) (50-lb bag ≈ 0.5 cu ft)
polyBags = ceil(area ÷ coveragePerBag)
digDepth = baseDepth + beddingDepth + paverThickness
spoil = cuYd(area, digDepth) × (1 + bulking)
onSite = (area ÷ 100) × (excavate + base + lay + cut + cleanup) + extra
crewHours = onSite × crewSize
driveCrew = driveHours × crewSize
billedDrv = driveCrew × driveBillPct
labour = (crewHours + billedDrv) × chargeRate
materials = pavers + base + bedding + poly + edge + other + disposal
equipment = Σ (days × dayRate)
charged = (materials + equipment) × (1 + markup)
quote = max(labour + charged + addOns, jobMinimum)
perSqFt = quote ÷ area
tax = quote × taxRate
cost = (crewHours + driveCrew) × costRate + materials + equipment
margin = (quote − cost) ÷ quoteWorked example, the one the unit tests pin. A 15 ft × 27 ft patio is 405 sq ft. With 5% cutting waste that is 425.25 sq ft of paver; at 4 in the base is 5.00 cu yd in place, 5.75 cu yd loose after a 15% compaction allowance, and 9.70 US tons at 3,374 lb per cubic yard. The 1 in screed is 1.25 cu yd, which is 68 fifty-pound bags at 54 to the yard, and the joints take 11 bags at 40 sq ft each. The dig is 4 + 1 + 2-3/8 = 7-3/8 in, so 9.22 cu yd comes out of the ground and 11.52 cu yd goes in the truck at a 25% bulking allowance. At 0.5, 0.4, 0.8, 0.25 and 0.15 hours per 100 sq ft the build is 8.51 hours for one installer, 25.52 crew-hours for three, and a further 2.25 paid crew-hours of drive with none of the drive billed in this example. At $65 a crew-hour the 25.52 on-site crew-hours are $1,658.48 of labour; $3,142.75 of materials and $140 of equipment marked up 15% is $3,775.16; the quote lands at $5,433.64 before tax, which is $13.42 per square foot installed and $195.70 per paid crew-hour. Put $45 a crew-hour of cost against it and the realised margin is 16.6%.
Where the cited conventions come from. The Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association tech note on constructing interlocking concrete pavements gives "a minimum base thickness (after compaction) of 4 in. (100 mm) over well-drained soils" for patios and pedestrian areas, "at least 6 in. (150 mm)" for residential driveways, base placed in 4 to 6 in lifts and compacted to a minimum 98% of standard Proctor density (98% of modified Proctor for vehicular areas), bedding sand screeded to an "uncompacted nominal 1 in. (25 mm) thickness", joints held between 1/16 and 3/16 in, and a minimum 1 in vertical restraining surface in contact with the paver. The 54 bags per cubic yard follows from a 50-lb bag of leveling sand yielding about 0.5 cu ft on Sakrete's technical data sheet: 27 ÷ 0.5. The 3,374 lb per cubic yard is CalculatorSoup's published density for dense-graded base (crushed stone #57 is 2,431 on the same table). The 40 sq ft per bag of polymeric sand is the middle of a published envelope that runs from 65 to 85 sq ft per bag at 1/8 to 3/8 in joints down to 22 to 42 sq ft at 3/4 to 1-1/4 in joints. All of them sit in editable boxes.
Two conventions are placeholders, and say so. The compaction allowance and the spoil bulking allowance are not cited, because no primary source publishes one figure for either: both move with the gradation, the moisture and the plant. What is cited is the reason they exist, that the specified base thickness is an after-compaction thickness. Replace both with the numbers your own delivery tickets and skip weights show.
The five production rates are placeholders, not benchmarks. Nothing published states how long a crew takes to dig, base, lay, cut or joint 100 square feet, and it would not be one number if it did: access, dig depth, soil, pattern and how much of the perimeter is cut all move it. Cutting in particular scales with cut edge rather than with area, so a curved, bordered patio wants that box pushed up. Time your own first three patios and overwrite them.
Quantities yes, engineering no. This page will size the stone and price the build. It will not tell you the build is adequate for a vehicle load: base thickness under anything carrying traffic is determined by traffic, soil type, subgrade drainage and climate, and wants a professional design.
The margin check is all-or-nothing. With no cost per crew-hour the labour half of the job cost is unknown, so reporting a margin off the materials line alone would flatter every quote. Fill the box and the block appears; leave it empty and it stays hidden.
Everything runs in your browser. No account, no email gate, nothing stored or sent.
What this prices, and what it deliberately does not
A paver patio is a project with four independent cost centres: what comes out of the ground, what goes back into it, what the crew does on top, and what the machines cost while they are parked on the drive. This calculator builds the quote from all four, then runs the two checks a flat per-square-foot price hides: what the job returns per paid crew-hour, and what the realised margin is once the crew’s loaded cost, the materials and the equipment days are all set against it.
It is the pricing rung of a two-page job. The paver and patio calculator answers the quantity question: pavers, cubic yards of base, bags of bedding sand, polymeric joint sand and linear feet of edge restraint. This page reuses that page’s conventions on purpose, square feet as the measured unit, depths in inches, and the cubic-yard identity of square feet times inches divided by 12 divided by 27, so a number carries straight across without a conversion.
Every money field starts empty on purpose
Search for an installed paver price and you will find per-square-foot figures. Follow them and they resolve to homeowner lead-generation directories quoting each other. Under this site’s cite-or-omit rule the tool ships with none of them, and it does not present a default rate as a market fact anywhere. The per-square-foot number here is an output: your finished ex-tax quote divided by the area you measured, printed so you can sanity-check a quote you built from time and materials.
The four cited conventions, and the two that are not
Four of the pre-filled quantities have a published basis, and the page names it. The Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association tech note on constructing interlocking concrete pavements gives a minimum base thickness after compaction of 4 in over well-drained soils for patios and pedestrian areas, at least 6 in for residential driveways, base placed in 4 to 6 in lifts and compacted to a minimum 98% of standard Proctor density, and bedding sand screeded to an uncompacted nominal 1 in. The 54 bedding bags per cubic yard follows from Sakrete’s leveling-sand data sheet, where a 50-lb bag yields about 0.5 cu ft, so 27 divided by 0.5. The 3,374 lb per cubic yard is CalculatorSoup’s published density for dense-graded base. The 40 sq ft per bag of polymeric sand is the middle of an envelope Alliance Gator publishes as 65 to 85 sq ft per bag at narrow joints and 22 to 42 at wide ones, a fourfold spread that is exactly why a single number would be false precision.
Two conventions have no published basis, and the page says so instead of inventing one. The compaction allowance on the base and the bulking allowance on the spoil are editable placeholders. What is cited is the reason they exist, that the spec thickness is an after-compaction thickness, not their size. Replace both with what your own delivery tickets and skip weights show.
Yards or tons is a supplier question, and the density is the bridge
Aggregate sells two ways and the conversion between them is bulk density, which is a different number for dense-graded base, crushed #57 and washed stone. The tool shows the loose order in cubic yards and in US tons at the density you entered, and prices it whichever way your yard bills. If you are buying several materials by weight across a job, the gravel and stone tonnage calculator carries the fuller material list and keeps compaction and waste as separate sliders. The weight on your supplier’s ticket beats any density either page suggests.
The dig is derived, not typed
Excavation depth here is base thickness plus bedding depth plus paver thickness. That is one line of arithmetic with a real consequence: change the base from a 4 in patio to a 6 in driveway spec and the dig, the spoil volume, the haulage and the tip fee all move at once, which is precisely the coupling a hand-built quote loses. The spoil is then reported twice, as dug and as hauled, because those are different numbers and only one of them fits in the skip.
The five production rates are a sketch until you time a job
Nothing published states how long a crew takes to dig, base, screed, cut or joint 100 square feet, and it would not be one number if it did: access, dig depth, soil, pattern and how much of the perimeter is cut all move it. The boxes are seeded so the page has a shape on first load, and they are labelled as placeholders rather than benchmarks.
One of them behaves differently from the rest and the page flags it: cutting scales with cut edge, not with area. A plain rectangle against a straight house wall and a curved patio with a soldier course and three bed returns are the same square footage and nowhere near the same cutting hours, so push that box up when the edge gets complicated.
Rates are entered per installer, and crew size multiplies them. Three people for eight hours is twenty-four crew-hours, and it is crew-hours your rate is set against. If you have not yet set a defensible number to type into the rate box, the service hourly rate calculator is where that number comes from, and the labor burden rate calculator gets you the loaded cost that makes the margin check mean something.
Equipment is a day rate, not an afterthought
Hardscape is the trade where the plant actually shows up in the quote: a plate compactor for the lifts, a saw for the cuts, a skid steer or mini excavator for the dig and the pallets. Each goes in as days on this job times your day rate, hire or internal charge-out, and all three run through the same markup as the materials. The cost check counts them at cost, so a job that looks profitable until you remember the machine will stop looking profitable here.
Drive time is the line that decides a busy season
Hardscape crews are paid for the whole day, windshield included, and a patio is a multi-day job with a round trip on every one of them. The tool tracks drive hours twice: they always land in your cost, because you pay for them either way, and only the share you nominate lands in the charge. That is what makes the per-paid-crew-hour figure honest.
Quantities yes, engineering no
Flipping the base to 6 in prices a driveway build. It does not certify one. Base thickness under anything carrying vehicles is determined by traffic, soil type, subgrade drainage and climate, and CMHA points at engineered design and at local standards rather than at a rule of thumb. This page will size the stone and price the labour; it will not tell you the build is adequate for a vehicle load.
From a number to a document
When the quote settles it still has to become something a customer can accept, and on a hardscape job that is rarely one line. Move it into the landscaping estimate and bid template, where the patio scope becomes a priced section alongside whatever else the property needs.
Everything runs in your browser: no account, no email gate, nothing stored or sent. Estimate only, not a binding quote, and the delivery ticket and the bag in your hand are the authority on density and coverage.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for a paver patio installation?
How is this different from the paver and patio calculator?
Why does the tool order more base than the hole holds?
How deep does the tool assume I am digging?
Should the equipment day rate be marked up?
Can I use this to price a paver driveway?
Sources
- Tech Note PAV-TEC-002, Construction of Interlocking Concrete Pavements: "a minimum base thickness (after compaction) of 4 in. (100 mm) over well-drained soils" for patios and pedestrian areas, "at least 6 in. (150 mm) thick" for residential driveways, base placed in "4 to 6 in. (100 to 150 mm) lifts" and compacted to a "minimum 98% of standard Proctor density" (98% of modified Proctor for vehicular areas), bedding sand at an "uncompacted nominal 1 in. (25 mm) thickness", joints "between 1/16 and 3/16 in. (2 and 5 mm)", and "a minimum of 1 in. (25 mm) vertical restraining surface ... in contact with the side of the paver". Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association. Retrieved .
- Gravel Calculator, Standard and Specialty Gravels density table: Dense Graded (DGA/QP) 3,374 lb/yd³, Crushed Stone #57 2,431 lb/yd³, Crushed Stone #411 2,835 lb/yd³, Bank Run Gravel 3,240 lb/yd³, with the note that the densities are "generally accepted for the specific material" and do not account for moisture. CalculatorSoup. Retrieved .
- Leveling Sand (Step 2) technical data sheet: "50 lb (22.6 kg) bag yields approximately .5 ft³", with the published bag counts at a 1 in sand depth (50 ft² to 9 bags, 100 ft² to 17, 200 ft² to 34, 400 ft² to 67). Sakrete. Retrieved .
- Gator Maxx G2, published polymeric jointing sand coverage per 50-lb bag on a 2-3/8 in paver: 65 to 85 sq ft at 1/8 to 3/8 in joints, 22 to 42 sq ft at 3/4 to 1-1/4 in joints. Alliance Gator. Retrieved .