Asphalt Driveway Cost Calculator
Asphalt driveway cost runs about 7.60 a square foot for a full-depth replacement in Atlanta and 3.86 for an overlay. But asphalt is sold by the ton, not the square foot: a thousand square feet at two inches is 12.1 tons, and at three inches it is 18.1. This calculator does that conversion for your own driveway, so a contractor’s quote in tons and an advertised price per square foot can finally be put side by side and compared.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the asphalt driveway
$7,752
typical · range $5,592 to $9,913 · 1,000 sq ft · $7.75 per sq ft · 18.1 tons of asphalt
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 76% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from fema.gov Aug 2026bls.gov Aug 2026how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
The old surface comes out, the base is regraded and compacted, and the asphalt goes down in a binder course and a surface course. It is the option that actually fixes anything.
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The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
Square feet in, tons out
You measure a driveway in square feet. A paving contractor buys asphalt by the ton, at about 145 pounds a cubic foot compacted. That conversion is the whole reason two quotes are hard to compare.
| Thickness | Tons | Total | Per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.1 | $6,861 | $6.86 | |
| 18.1 | $7,752 | $7.75 | |
| 24.2 | $8,643 | $8.64 |
On a new drive the thickness question is the wrong one to ask first. Asphalt spreads load rather than spanning it, so it can only be as good as the stone underneath — and that is the 6-inch base above, not this table.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot-mix asphalt, deliveredarea × thickness ÷ 12 × 145 ÷ 2000 | 18.1ton | $1,903–$3,444 | estimated±29% |
| Compacted aggregate basearea × base depth ÷ 12 ÷ 27 × 1.25, on a full-depth job | 23.1cubic yard | $880–$1,968 | estimated±38% |
| Compact excavator2 h + 1 h per 250 sq ft on a full-depth job | 6hour | $343–$343 | sourced |
| Vibratory roller2 h + 1 h per 400 sq ft | 5hour | $226–$226 | sourced |
| Paving operator: place and compact3 h + 1 h per 180 sq ft, ×1.3 on a difficult access (modelled) | 9hour | $448–$481 | sourced |
| Labourer: rake edges, trim and hand worktwo labourers for the paving hours | 18hour | $792–$851 | sourced |
| Mill out and haul the old surfacearea where the old surface is removed | 1,000sq ft | $650–$1,700 | estimated±45% |
| Move the paver, roller and truck to site1 per job | 1lot | $350–$900 | estimated±44% |
| Total | $5,592–$9,913 | ±28% |
Where these numbers come from
- Labour rates by area
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for paving and surfacing equipment operators and for labourers. Retrieved 2026-08-20. Paving operators are published for part of our index only; where they are not, that hour falls back to the broader construction equipment operator figure for the same area. Benefit load from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.
- Machine hours
- The excavator and roller are priced from the FEMA, Schedule of Equipment Rates 2025 (in effect for declarations on or after 1 July 2025), the published federal reimbursement rates, which include fuel, maintenance and depreciation but not the person operating them. On a residential job the same small crew digs, rolls and paves, so those hours are in the paving line rather than in a separate operator line. Retrieved 2026-08-21.
- What a black driveway does in July
- EPA, Using Cool Pavements to Reduce Heat Islands reports that conventional paving materials such as asphalt can reach surface temperatures of up to 152°F at mid-day, while cool pavements stayed 10 to 16°F cooler. That is worth knowing before paving a large area next to a house, and it is not a reason to avoid asphalt so much as a reason to think about how much of it you want. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
- And where the water goes instead
- A paved drive is impervious: rain that used to soak in now runs somewhere, and USGS Water Science School, Runoff: Surface and Overland Water Runoff explains what that does downhill. If the ground can take it, EPA, Soak Up the Rain: Permeable Pavement covers surfaces that let it through instead, which some jurisdictions now require on lots above a certain coverage. Drainage is not priced here. Both retrieved 2026-08-22.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-22.
What this figure does not include
- Drainage and where the water goes
- A paved drive is an impervious surface: rain that used to soak in now runs somewhere. Some jurisdictions cap how much of a lot may be covered, and a drive that sheds towards the house creates a problem that costs far more than the paving did. Grading, channel drains and soakaways are separate work.
- The apron where the drive meets the road
- That section usually belongs to the municipality, usually has its own thickness and material specification, and usually needs a permit and an inspection. It is often concrete even where the rest of the drive is asphalt, and it is not priced here.
- Permits
- Requirements vary. Many places do not care about resurfacing an existing drive and most care about a new one, especially where it changes the access to the road. Fees have no national source and are excluded rather than averaged.
- Ground that is not ordinary
- Soft clay, a spring, fill or tree roots under the drive change the base design and sometimes require a geotextile or a much deeper stone section. This models a straightforward subgrade.
- Sealing on a cycle
- The first seal coat can be included above. Sealing every few years afterwards is maintenance and a cost of ownership, and doing it too often causes its own problems.
- Heated driveway systems
- Electric cable or hydronic tube under the surface is a different job with its own electrical or boiler work, and it changes the asphalt section above it. It is not in these figures.
Questions people actually ask
How much is 1000 sq ft of asphalt?
The question hides a unit conversion, and it is the one this page exists to do. Asphalt is not bought by the square foot: it is bought by the ton, at about 145 pounds a cubic foot compacted. A thousand square feet at two inches compacted is 12.1 tons; at three inches it is 18.1. Laid as a full-depth driveway with a stone base under it, that thousand square feet comes to about $7,600 in Atlanta, or 7.60 a square foot. As an overlay on a sound existing base it is $3,862, or 3.86. Those two numbers are for different jobs, and most cheap per-square-foot figures you see quoted are the second one.
Is 2 inches of asphalt enough for a driveway?
It depends entirely on something the question does not mention: what is underneath. Two inches of surface course over a sound, well-compacted base is the normal specification for a residential overlay, and it is fine. Two inches laid on bare ground is two inches that will crack in the wheel tracks the first winter, however well the asphalt itself was placed. Asphalt is a flexible pavement — it spreads load rather than spanning it — so it can only be as good as the stone below. For a new driveway the more useful questions are how deep the aggregate base is and whether it was compacted in layers, and those cost more to get right than an extra inch of asphalt does.
How much does a 20x20 asphalt driveway cost?
About $3,498 in Atlanta at two inches, which works out at 8.74 a square foot — much dearer per foot than a larger drive. That is not a markup. Low-loading a paver and a roller to your street and away again costs the same whether the crew lays 400 square feet or 4,000, and on a job this small that mobilisation is a large share of the bill. It is also why paving contractors offer a better rate when several neighbours go in together, and why it is worth asking.
How much does it cost to pave a 2000 sq ft driveway?
About $13,947 in Atlanta for a full-depth replacement at three inches over a six-inch base, in a range of $9,926 to $17,968. That is 6.97 a square foot, better than the 8.74 a small drive costs, because the fixed costs are spread further. It needs 36.3 tons of hot mix, which is more than one truckload, and that is worth knowing when you compare quotes: hot mix has to arrive hot, so the distance from the plant is a real cost rather than a detail.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 22 August 2026, not invented.
Other cost calculators
The first of these are the jobs closest to this one — the ones that turn up in the same quote, or instead of it.
- Heated driveway cost
Works out the amps a snowmelt system draws, which is what stops most projects, and what a winter of running it costs at your state energy prices.
- Driveway sealing cost
Prices sealcoating by the five-gallon pail rather than by the square foot, and divides the job by how often it is done, which is the number that decides it.
- Concrete delivery cost
A yard of concrete has no single price: in a one-yard order it costs several times what it costs in a ten-yard one, and the short-load surcharge is why.
- HVAC repair cost
Tests the $5,000 rule against our own replacement model and shows where the two disagree, plus what R-22 adds to anything that opens the refrigerant circuit.
- The full asphalt driveway cost dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.