Vinyl plank flooring cost dataset

The wear layer, in mils

A thousand square feet, floating over a wood subfloor, old floor lifted and taken away. Only the plank changes between these rows.

A mil is a thousandth of an inch, so even the commercial grade here is two hundredths of an inch of clear film. That is the whole of what stands between a shoe and the printed photograph of wood underneath, and it is why comparing the plank thickness in millimetres — the number in large type on the display — tells you almost nothing.

Method and subfloor

The slab rows are dearer for two different reasons depending on the method. A floating floor on concrete needs an underlayment with a vapour retarder built in, because a slab passes moisture upward for its whole life. A bonded floor on the same slab needs an actual moisture test first — probes set into the concrete and read after they settle — because glue is far less forgiving than a sheet of plastic, and almost every manufacturer voids the warranty without that record.

The line nobody sees coming

Manufacturers ask for flatness of the order of three sixteenths of an inch over ten feet. Whether your floor has it is unknowable until the old covering is off, which is why this is the commonest extra on a final invoice.

A quote that assumes nought per cent is quoting the first row. It is not dishonest to do that — nobody can see under a floor — but it is worth asking, before the job starts, what the rate is if levelling turns out to be needed and who decides how much.

Line items

The three plank grades are alternatives, never more than one. Material is priced over the floor area plus 8% for cutting, which is what a normal run of rooms comes to; a diagonal or herringbone layout wants more and is not what this models.

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so a floor layer can point at the exact assumption that is wrong. A number with no reasoning behind it cannot be corrected.

Vinyl plank, 6 mil wear layerestimated, ±32%

• Priced over the floor area plus eight per cent for cutting, which is what a normal run of rooms comes to. A herringbone or a diagonal lay wants more and is not what this models.
• Six mil is a light residential film. It is the reason the cheapest boxes are cheap, and comparing it against a thicker plank with a thinner wear layer is the mistake this page exists to stop.

Vinyl plank, 12 mil wear layerestimated, ±32%

• Priced over the floor area plus eight per cent for cutting. Twelve mil is where most manufacturer warranties step up and where the residential market sits.
• The band spans rigid-core boards of different constructions — SPC with a stone-polymer core, WPC with a wood-polymer one — at the same wear layer. SPC is harder and quieter to nobody; WPC is warmer underfoot and softer to a dropped tin.

Vinyl plank, 20 mil wear layerestimated, ±35%

• Priced over the floor area plus eight per cent for cutting. Twenty mil is a light commercial specification and it is the one worth buying in an entry, a kitchen or a property you rent out.
• Twenty thousandths of an inch is still a very thin film. That is the honest framing: you are not buying a thicker floor, you are buying a slightly thicker window over the printed layer, and it is the only part that wears.

Acoustic underlayment, over a wood subfloorestimated, ±43%

• Only on a floating floor, and only where the plank does not come with a pad already bonded to it. Much of the twelve and twenty mil market does; the cheaper end often does not, and buying it separately closes a good part of the price gap that made it look cheap.
• Over a wood subfloor its job is acoustic: it takes the edge off the hollow tap that a floating floor makes underfoot. No vapour retarder is needed, because there is ventilated space below rather than damp ground.

Underlayment with integral vapour retarder, over a slabestimated, ±43%

• On a slab the underlayment has a second job and it is the more important one: concrete passes moisture upward for its whole life, and a floating floor laid straight onto it traps that moisture underneath.
• That is why this line costs more per square foot than the acoustic foam used over a wood subfloor. It is the same roll doing two jobs, and buying the cheaper one because the price per foot looks better is a mistake that shows up as cupping a year later.
• It is not a substitute for the moisture test that a GLUE-DOWN floor needs on the same slab: a floating floor sits on the retarder, a bonded one has to stick to the concrete itself.

Adhesive and trowelsestimated, ±42%

• Pressure-sensitive or hard-set adhesive at the spread rate the plank manufacturer specifies, plus the notched trowels, which are consumables on a job this size.
• Using the wrong adhesive, or the right one at the wrong trowel notch, is the commonest way a glue-down floor fails, and it fails months later when the planks start to shift.

Slab moisture test before bondingestimated, ±50%

• Relative humidity probes set into the slab and read after they have equilibrated, which takes about three days. Almost every manufacturer requires it before a glue-down floor goes on concrete, and almost every warranty is void without the record of it.
• It appears only where the method is glue-down AND the subfloor is a slab. On a floating floor over the same slab the vapour retarder does the job and no test is required.
• The band is the difference between a couple of probes in a small area and the count a large open floor needs.

Self-levelling compound and primerestimated, ±49%

• Priced over the share of the floor that actually needs it, not the whole floor. Manufacturers ask for flatness of the order of three sixteenths of an inch over ten feet, and an older house rarely gives you that everywhere.
• This is the line nobody sees coming, because the dips are under the old floor until the day the old floor comes up. It is also the line a cheap quote leaves out and then charges as an extra.
• The band covers a skim over a mostly flat floor at the bottom and a deep pour with primer and edge dams at the top.

Transitions, thresholds and expansion trimestimated, ±51%

• One and a half per room, which is about what a doorway and an opening come to. A floating floor needs a gap at every fixed edge and something over that gap, so these are not decoration: they are part of how the floor works.
• A long continuous run also needs an expansion break at some point, which most manufacturers specify around thirty to forty feet. It is the detail that gets skipped in an open plan and then shows as buckling in August.

Quarter round or shoe mouldingestimated, ±49%

• Where the existing baseboard stays, the expansion gap round the edge is covered with shoe moulding instead. Perimeter is modelled from the area assuming roughly square rooms.
• Cheaper than new baseboard and it looks like what it is: a second piece of trim added later. Which of the two you want is a decision about the room, not about the floor.

New baseboardestimated, ±50%

• Where the baseboard is being replaced rather than kept, which is the only way to end up with no shoe moulding at all. Perimeter modelled from the area assuming roughly square rooms.
• Most stock baseboard is MDF, which is a composite wood product. Since March 2019 those have to be labelled as TSCA Title VI compliant for formaldehyde emissions, and that label is worth looking for on the bundle.

Stair nosing and riser materialestimated, ±52%

• Stairs are priced per step. A vinyl plank stair needs a matching bullnose profile at every tread edge, and that profile costs several times what the plank does per foot.
• It is the single most under-quoted part of a vinyl plank job, because the square footage of a staircase is trivial and the cost is not.

Floor layer: lay out, cut and fit

• Three hours of set-up and layout plus one hour per 45 square feet floating, or per 32 square feet glued, because glue-down is slower: it is spread, timed and rolled rather than clicked.
• ⚠️ The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area, with the caveat this page will not hide: BLS publishes a floor layer wage (SOC 47-2042) for only 86 of the 530 areas in our index, so across most of the country this hour is priced from the broader construction and extraction group for your own area instead. The hours are our estimate either way.
• Layout is not padding. Deciding the direction, the stagger and where the first row lands is what stops a job ending in a two-inch sliver against the most visible wall.

Floor layer: grind, prime and pour the levelling compound

• One hour per 70 square feet of the area being levelled, plus two hours of set-up. Grinding the high spots, priming, mixing and pouring is wet work with a clock on it: the compound goes off fast and it has to be moved while it does.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area; the hours are our estimate.

Floor layer: cut and fit each step

• An hour a step. Every tread is scribed to the stringers, the nosing is cut to length and mitred where it returns, and the riser is fitted under it.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area where a floor layer figure is published for it, and from the broader construction group where it is not. The hour per step is our estimate.

Carpenter: fit, nail and caulk the trim

• One hour per 45 linear feet of shoe moulding, or per 30 feet of new baseboard, which is slower because it is bigger, it is scribed and the joints are mitred and glued rather than simply butted.
• Priced with a carpenter wage rather than a floor layer wage, and deliberately so: BLS publishes carpenters in 526 of the 530 areas in our index against 86 for floor layers, so this line is almost always adjusted by its own trade rather than by a fallback.

Carpenter: take down, trim and rehang the doors

• Half an hour a door, modelled at one door per room. A new floor over an old one is usually thicker than what came out, and a door that used to clear now does not.
• It is a small line that gets discovered on the last day, and a door left dragging is how a good floor ends up looking like a bad one.

Labourer: move furniture out and back

• An hour a room, both directions. It is hours and not a materials lot, so it moves with the wage published for your area.
• On a floating floor there is a second reason to take it seriously: heavy furniture set back down on a floor that is still expanding can pin it, and a pinned floating floor buckles somewhere else.

Labourer: lift the old floor

• One hour per 180 square feet plus half an hour a room. Carpet comes up fast; glued sheet vinyl and its adhesive do not, and neither does tile.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area; the hours are our estimate.

Haul away and tip the old floorestimated, ±50%

• The trip and the gate fee, not the labour, which is priced separately above. The band is wide because a transfer station charge is entirely local: it is a weighbridge tariff, not anybody’s time, so the regional wage index does not move it.
• Read the top of the band in an expensive metropolitan area and the bottom outside one.

Delivery, acclimation and site set-upestimated, ±53%

• Getting the pallet to the house and the boxes into the rooms where they will be laid. Most manufacturers ask for the material to sit in the room for a day or two before it goes down, which is why it is delivered early and stacked in the way.
• Paid once whatever the size of the job, which is part of why one small room never costs a small amount and why doing several rooms together is cheaper per foot than doing them one at a time.

Not included in this dataset

What a big-box retailer charges to install

Retail installation is delivered by independent contractors under a national programme and the price is set market by market. We do not publish a figure we cannot source. The floor layer hours above, at the wage published for your own area, are what any quote should be measured against.

Which brand is best

We do not rank brands and we have nothing to rank them with. What is on the box and is worth comparing is the wear layer in mils, which is the only part of the plank that meets a shoe, and the warranty terms that go with it. That comparison is objective; a brand ranking would not be.

Asbestos in the old floor

Nine-by-nine vinyl tile, some old sheet flooring and the black mastic under either can contain asbestos in houses built before the eighties. Lifting it is exactly the wrong thing to do until it has been tested. See the EPA on asbestos in the home. It is not priced here at any figure, because a cheap number would be a dangerous one.

Structural repair of the floor

The levelling line skims and pours over a floor that is sound but uneven. A floor that bounces, a sagging joist or rot under a long-running leak is structural work, it has to be fixed before anything goes on top, and it is not in these figures.

Radiant heat under the floor

Electric mat or hydronic tube under vinyl plank has its own temperature limits set by the plank manufacturer, and exceeding them is how a floor gaps in winter. It is a separate job with its own electrical work.

Permits

No jurisdiction we know of requires a permit to replace a floor covering.

A label worth checking

Stock baseboard is usually MDF, and some rigid-core plank has a wood-polymer core. Both are composite wood products, and EPA, Formaldehyde Emission Standards for Composite Wood Products states that after 22 March 2019 those products must be labelled as TSCA Title VI compliant, naming hardwood plywood, medium-density fibreboard and particleboard along with finished goods containing them. Looking for that label on the bundle costs nothing. Retrieved 2026-08-22.