Cost & material estimator
Patio Paver Calculator
Nobody gets the paver count wrong. They get the base wrong — and that's what makes a patio sink. This calculates the whole excavation, sized to your soil.
- Paver count with pattern-aware cut waste
- Crushed base in tons, at a depth set by your soil and traffic
- Bedding sand, jointing sand, fabric and edging
- Excavation depth and the cubic yards of spoil to remove
- Material cost against an installed-price range
- A build sequence with the cure waits marked
Patio Paver Calculator — interactive tool
Dimensions
The two things that decide your base
Get this wrong and the patio sinks. Everything else is cosmetic.
Paver size
Without it, the outer courses creep outward and the joints open. Skip it only on a fully contained patio.
Prices and paver thickness
Patio pavers are usually 2⅜ in; driveway-rated are 3⅛ in.
100 = US national average.
240 sq ft · loam soil · foot traffic
Your paver patio materials
pavers, including 5% cut waste
- Base depth
- 5 in
- Crushed base
- 6.22 tons
- Bedding sand
- 1.14 tons
- Jointing sand
- 3 bags
- Dig depth
- 8.375 in
- Spoil to remove
- 7.75 cu yd
5 in of compacted base for foot traffic on loam soil.
Home & Garden Living · homeandgarden.living/tools/patio-paver-calculator
Call 811 before you dig
You're excavating 8.375 in over 240 sq ft. Utility locating is free, legally required in most of the US, and takes a few days — request it before you book the equipment.
Slope it, or you'll regret it
Pitch the finished surface about ¼ in per foot away from the house. Over a 12 ft patio that's a 3 in fall — set your string lines before the first ton of base goes down.
| Item | Quantity | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Pavers5% cut waste for a running pattern | 504 pavers | $680 |
| Crushed aggregate base5 in compacted, +20% for compaction loss | 6.22 tons | $261 |
| Bedding sand (coarse, not play sand)1 in screeded | 1.14 tons | $55 |
| Geotextile separation fabricKeeps the base from sinking into the subgrade | 276 sq ft | $77 |
| Polymeric jointing sand | 3 bags | $96 |
| Paver edge restraint | 68 linear ft | $177 |
| Edging spikes | 68 spikes | $58 |
| Plate compactor rentalNon-negotiable — hand tamping will not compact a base | 2 days | $180 |
| Materials total (DIY) | $1,584 | |
- Installed by a pro
- $3,360–$6,720
- You'd save
- $3,456materials vs. installed midpoint
- Two people
- ~3.2 days
- Perimeter
- 64 ft
The build, in order
- Locate utilities
2–5 days ahead
Free 811 request — book everything else around this.
- Excavate
1 day(s)
Down 8.375 in, sloped ¼ in per foot away from the house.
- Fabric + base
1 day
6.22 tons in 2–3 in lifts, compacted between each.
- Screed bedding
Half a day
1.14 tons of coarse sand, 1 in, never walked on.
- Lay pavers
1 day(s)
Work off the laid surface, not the screed. Cut last.
- Edge + joint
Half a day
Restraint, then polymeric sand, compact, then wet per the label.
- Sand cure
24–48 hours
Keep off it and keep it dry while the polymeric sand sets.
Your shopping list
$1,584Surface
Base
Finishing
Tools
Take these numbers further
What this estimate assumes
- · Base depth comes from the published soil × traffic table: 5 in compacted for foot traffic on loam soil.
- · Aggregate is ordered at 1.2× the compacted volume, because crushed stone loses roughly a fifth of its loose volume when compacted.
- · Crushed aggregate is taken at 1.4 tons per cubic yard — check your supplier's figure, it varies with stone type.
- · One 50 lb bag of polymeric sand fills about 80 sq ft of standard joints. Wide or permeable joints need considerably more.
- · Spoil volume is 1.25× the excavated volume: soil swells when you dig it.
- · Installed prices are $14–28/sq ft ($20–38 vehicle-rated), before a small-job premium under 150 sq ft.
Prices are editable defaults, not fixed values — replace them with your supplier's numbers and the whole estimate updates.
A paver patio is two projects. The visible one takes a weekend and produces the thing in the photographs. The invisible one — excavation, geotextile, compacted aggregate, screeded bedding sand — takes twice as long, costs about the same, and is the entire reason the patio is still flat in ten years.
Most paver calculators only do the visible half. They divide your area by the paver size, add ten percent, and hand you a number. That number was never the hard part. The hard part is knowing that the same patio needs four inches of compacted base on sandy soil and six on clay, that a driveway needs twice that again, and that aggregate has to be ordered at roughly 1.2 times the compacted volume because crushed stone loses about a fifth of its bulk when you compact it.
This calculator does both halves. It sizes the base from your soil type and what will drive or walk on it, converts everything to the units suppliers actually sell — tons for aggregate, bags for jointing sand, linear feet for edging — accounts for cut waste by laying pattern, and tells you how much spoil you will have to get rid of, which is the line item that surprises people on delivery day.
Base depth: the table this calculator runs on
Base depth is decided by two things: what the patio sits on, and what sits on the patio. Clay holds water, and water expands when it freezes, so clay gets more base. Vehicles impose loads an order of magnitude greater than people, so driveways get far more again.
These are the conservative end of common practice, and deliberately so. The failure mode of too much base is spending an extra $80 on aggregate. The failure mode of too little is lifting the entire patio and starting again.
| Traffic | Sandy / fast-draining | Loam / average | Clay / holds water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foot traffic | 4 in | 5 in | 6 in |
| Vehicle traffic | 8 in | 10 in | 12 in |
Compacted aggregate base depth in inches, by soil and traffic. The published table behind this calculator's base figures.
Pattern decides your waste, not a flat 10%
Cut waste is not a constant. A running bond only requires cuts along two edges of the patio. A 45-degree herringbone requires a cut at every single perimeter paver, and each cut produces an offcut that usually can't be used elsewhere. A circular pattern is worse again.
This calculator applies 5% for running bond, 8% for basketweave, 12% for herringbone and 18% for circular work. If your patio has a lot of curves, obstacles, or a tree well in the middle, add more — waste scales with the length of the cut edge, not the area.
- Order all pavers in one delivery. Colour varies between production batches and it is very visible across a patio.
- Blend from three pallets at once as you lay, rather than emptying one before starting the next.
- Keep a dozen spares somewhere dry. Replacing a stained or cracked unit later is trivial; matching one is not.
The five things that make a patio fail
In roughly the order they cause problems.
- No slope. The finished surface needs about ¼ inch of fall per foot, away from the house. Over a 12 ft patio that's a 3 inch drop. Set the string lines before the first ton of base goes down.
- Insufficient compaction. Aggregate has to go in 2–3 inch lifts with a plate compactor between each. One thick lift compacted once is not a base, it is a pile of gravel that will settle for years.
- Play sand instead of coarse bedding sand. Play sand is rounded and fine; it migrates and holds water. You want coarse, angular, washed concrete sand.
- No edge restraint. Without it, the outer courses creep outward under load, the joints open, and the whole field loosens from the perimeter inward.
- Skipping geotextile over soft subgrade. Without a separation layer the base slowly punches down into the soil below and the patio drops with it.
What it costs, DIY versus installed
Installed paver patios run roughly $14–28 per square foot in most of the US, and $20–38 where the section has to carry vehicles. Jobs under about 150 square feet carry a premium, because mobilisation, delivery minimums and equipment cost the same whether the patio is 100 square feet or 400.
Doing it yourself typically halves that, but the saving is entirely in labour and the labour is genuinely hard: for a 240 square foot patio you are moving around six tons of aggregate by wheelbarrow, twice. The calculator gives an honest day count for two people, and it front-loads the excavation because that is where the time actually goes.
What this tool assumes
Every number this tool produces rests on these. Change your inputs and they change with you.
- Base depth comes from the published soil × traffic table above.
- Aggregate is ordered at 1.2× the compacted volume — crushed stone loses roughly a fifth of its loose volume when compacted.
- Crushed aggregate is taken at 1.4 tons per cubic yard. Check your supplier's figure; it varies with stone type.
- Bedding sand is 1 inch screeded, ordered at 1.1× volume.
- One 50 lb bag of polymeric jointing sand fills about 80 sq ft of standard joints. Wide or permeable joints need considerably more.
- Spoil volume is 1.25× the excavated volume, because soil swells when you dig it.
- Installed prices are $14–28/sq ft ($20–38 vehicle-rated), with a 20% small-job premium under 150 sq ft.
- All prices are editable defaults, not fixed values. Replace them with your supplier's numbers.
Mistakes that cause rework
Each of these costs money or a whole weekend to undo.
Ordering aggregate by compacted volume
Crushed stone loses about 20% of its bulk when compacted. Order the compacted volume and you will be short by a fifth, and a second delivery costs another delivery fee.
Using play sand for the bedding course
Play sand is rounded and fine. It migrates under the pavers and holds water. Ask for coarse washed concrete sand — it costs the same and it is the difference between a patio that stays flat and one that ripples.
Compacting in one thick lift
A plate compactor only densifies the top two to three inches. Six inches of base needs at least two lifts with a pass between them, or the bottom half stays loose and settles for years.
Laying to a level surface
A dead-level patio holds water, and water against a house is a much bigger problem than a puddle. Pitch ¼ in per foot away from the building, always.
Wetting polymeric sand wrong
Too little water and it never sets; too much and it washes out and hazes the paver faces. Follow the bag's instructions exactly, and don't do it with rain forecast within 24 hours.
Forgetting where the spoil goes
A 240 sq ft patio at 8 inches deep produces about seven cubic yards of soil. That is a large skip, or several trailer loads. Arrange for it before the dig, not during.
Safety & honest limits
- Call 811 before you dig. Every excavation on this page is deep enough to reach buried services. It's free, it's required in most of the US, and it takes several days — book it first.
- Plate compactors are heavy and vibrate hard. Wear steel-capped boots, hearing protection and gloves, and never run one on a slope steep enough to let it get away from you.
- Cutting pavers produces silica dust, a serious respiratory hazard. Use a wet saw or wet-cutting attachment, and wear a properly fitted P2/N95 respirator at minimum.
- Moving several tons of aggregate by wheelbarrow is genuinely strenuous. Pace it across days, and get help rather than trying to finish a delivery in one afternoon.
- If the patio abuts the house, keep the finished surface at least 6 inches below any siding, weep holes, or damp-proof course.
- Costs are estimates, not quotes.
Frequently asked questions
How many pavers do I need for a patio?
Divide the patio area by the area of one paver, then add cut waste — 5% for a running bond, 8% for basketweave, 12% for herringbone, 18% for circular. A 240 sq ft patio in 12×6 in pavers needs 480 pavers plus waste. This calculator applies the right waste factor for your pattern.
How deep should a paver patio base be?
For foot traffic: 4 inches on sandy soil, 5 on loam, 6 on clay. For anything a vehicle drives on: 8, 10 and 12 inches respectively. Plus a 1 inch bedding sand layer on top of the compacted base in every case.
How many tons of gravel do I need for a paver patio?
About 1.4 tons per cubic yard of compacted base, ordered at 1.2× the compacted volume to allow for compaction loss. For 240 sq ft at 5 inches, that is roughly 5.8 tons. The calculator converts this for you.
What kind of sand goes under pavers?
Coarse, washed concrete sand for the 1 inch bedding layer — never play sand or mason sand, which are too fine and hold water. Polymeric sand goes in the joints afterwards, and it is a different product for a different job.
Do I really need edge restraint?
Yes, unless the patio is fully contained by existing walls on every side. Without restraint the outer courses migrate outward under use, the joints open, and the loosening works its way inward from the perimeter.
How much does a paver patio cost?
Installed, roughly $14–28 per square foot in most of the US, more for vehicle-rated sections and small jobs. DIY typically halves that — materials for a 240 sq ft patio usually land between $1,400 and $2,600 depending on the paver you choose.
Can I lay pavers over an existing concrete slab?
Sometimes, if the slab is sound, drains properly, and raising the surface by around 3 inches doesn't create a problem at doors or against the siding. A cracked or heaving slab must come out — pavers laid over movement will move with it.
Last reviewed July 25, 2026 · Home & Garden Living
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