Paver Patio Cost Calculator
A paver patio costs about $21 a square foot installed, which for a 20 by 20 in Atlanta is $8,309. Two things are worth knowing before comparing that with anything. About 31% of it is under the surface — excavation, compacted aggregate and bedding sand — and pavers come to 207% of a poured concrete slab of the same size, so the reason to choose them is not price. This calculator does both comparisons from our own models.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the finished patio
$8,806
typical · range $6,841 to $10,772 · 400 sq ft · $22 per sq ft · 420 sq ft of paver to buy
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 46% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026osha.gov Aug 2026how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
Moulded concrete in a handful of shapes and colours. The default, the cheapest and the easiest to get more of in five years when a corner needs lifting.
Straight courses, cuts only at the edges. Fastest to lay, least waste, and perfectly good for a rectangular patio nobody drives on.
The pattern is not only a look: it wastes between 5% and 18% in cuts, so you are buying 420 square feet of paver to cover 400.
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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.
Pavers or poured concrete, on this exact rectangle
Both sides come from this site’s own models, same size, same ground, same wages.
| Surface | Cost | Per sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| Standard concrete paverswhat this page prices | $8,806 | $22 |
| Poured concrete, broom finish4 inches, mesh, control joints | $4,271 | $11 |
| Poured concrete, stampedthe finish that imitates pavers | $5,649 | $14 |
Concrete is cheaper, and not marginally: pavers come to 206% of a broom-finished slab and 156% of a stamped one. So the case for pavers is not the price, and anybody selling it as such is selling. The case is that a paver patio has no cracks because it is already in pieces, that a settled corner can be lifted and relaid rather than broken out, and that a single stained unit can be swapped. A slab that cracks stays cracked for its whole life.
Most of a patio is under the patio
- Excavation, base and bedding
- 32%
- Everything else — pavers, edging, laying
- 68%
32% of this figure is 7.41 cubic yards of aggregate, an inch of bedding sand and the hours spent compacting them in two-inch lifts — none of which you will ever see again. It is also the only part that decides whether the patio is still flat in ten years. A base tipped in and rolled once looks identical on the day and settles unevenly within two winters, so this is the line worth asking a contractor about by name.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excavate to base level3 h + 0.022 h per sq ft where the ground is dug out | 11.8hour | $659–$708 | sourced |
| Haul the spoil awaycubic yards of loose spoil where the ground is dug out | 12.4cu yd | $346–$889 | estimated±44% |
| Compacted aggregate basearea × base depth ÷ 27, plus 20% for compaction | 7.41cu yd | $282–$652 | estimated±40% |
| Spread and compact the base in lifts2 h + 0.045 h per sq ft | 20hour | $880–$945 | sourced |
| Bedding sand and geotextilearea × 1 inch ÷ 27, plus 15% | 1.42cu yd | $74–$170 | estimated±40% |
| Standard concrete pavers, suppliedarea plus pattern waste where the paver is concrete-standard | 420sq ft | $1,092–$2,856 | estimated±45% |
| Lay, cut and compact the paversarea × (hours per sq ft for the unit + pattern surcharge) | 52hour | $3,016–$3,240 | sourced |
| Edge restraint and spikesperimeter where an edge restraint is fitted | 80linear ft | $272–$720 | estimated±45% |
| Polymeric jointing sandarea where polymeric sand is used | 400sq ft | $180–$460 | estimated±44% |
| Final compaction, sanding and clean1 per job | 1job | $40–$130 | estimated±53% |
| Total | $6,841–$10,772 | ±22% |
Where these numbers come from
- How the concrete comparison is calculated
- Both sides come out of this site’s own models rather than from anybody’s marketing. The paver figure is the line items on this page; the concrete figure is our concrete slab calculator run on the same rectangle at four inches with mesh and control joints, with the same excavation assumption. They share the same BLS wage data and the same regional adjustment, so the ratio between them means something. Change the size and both move together.
- The base is the job
- 31% of this patio is 7.41 cubic yards of compacted aggregate, an inch of screeded bedding sand and the hours spent putting them in — laid in two-inch lifts with a plate compactor over each one. None of it is ever seen again and all of it decides whether the patio is flat in ten years. A base tipped in and rolled once looks identical on the day and settles unevenly within two winters, and there is no way to tell from the finished surface which one you paid for. It is the single line worth asking a contractor about by name.
- The pattern is paid for in cuts
- Running bond wastes about 5% in cuts, herringbone at 45 degrees about 12%, a circular feature about 18% — and each also adds laying hours, because every cut edge is a piece somebody put on a saw. On this patio that is the difference between $8,309 and $9,537. Herringbone earns it on a driveway, where interlocking in two directions is what stops the units creeping under a wheel. On a patio nobody drives on, it is a look. ⚠️ Cutting pavers is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 1926.1153, Respirable crystalline silica, so the saw runs wet. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
- Where the water goes
- A patio is impervious, and rain that used to soak in now runs somewhere — USGS Water Science School, Runoff: Surface and Overland Water Runoff covers what that does downhill. Permeable pavers, which EPA, Soak Up the Rain: Permeable Pavement sets out, let it through instead: wide joints filled with clean stone over an open-graded base. On this patio that is $11,956 against $8,309, and the extra is mostly the deeper base rather than the paver. Some jurisdictions now require it above a certain lot coverage, which is exactly where the price stops being a choice. Both retrieved 2026-08-22.
- Labour rates by area
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for brickmasons and blockmasons on the laying, equipment operators on the excavation and labourers on the base, all adjusted to your metropolitan area. Retrieved 2026-08-20. Benefit load from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation. ⚠️ Brickmasons are published for only 208 of the 530 areas in our index, and that is the largest labour line here. Outside those the hour comes from the broader construction group for the same area.
- The cheapest line, and the one most often left out
- The edge restraint: a plastic or aluminium edge spiked into the base around the whole perimeter, a few dollars a linear foot. Without it the outer course creeps outward every year, the joints open behind it, and the only fix is lifting the edge and starting again. A patio quoted without one is not cheaper, it is unfinished — and it is worth checking the quote line by line for it, because it is invisible once the units are down.
- 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 2026-08-23.
What this figure does not include
- Drainage beyond the fall of the surface
- The excavation falls away from the house, which is enough for most patios. A patio at the bottom of a slope, or one that dams water against a wall, needs a channel drain or a French drain behind it — separate work, and our French drain calculator prices it.
- Anything structural the patio touches
- Retaining walls, raised patios above about a foot, and anything bearing on a foundation are engineering rather than paving. A retaining wall over four feet needs a design in most jurisdictions.
- Roots, and what happens after
- Paving over the root zone of a mature tree compacts the ground it breathes through and the roots eventually lift the units anyway. This model prices a flat surface on open ground, not the arboriculture of building next to a tree.
- Lighting, fire pits and outdoor kitchens
- Every one of those needs its conduit or its gas line laid before the base goes in, and none is priced here. They are also the reason to decide the whole design before the first machine arrives: retrofitting a cable under a finished patio means lifting it.
- Permits and lot coverage
- Many jurisdictions count a patio towards impervious lot coverage and some require a permit above a certain area, which is precisely where permeable pavers start to earn their price. It varies completely by locality and any figure would be invented.
Questions people actually ask
How much does it cost to install a 20x20 paver patio?
About $8,309 in Atlanta for standard concrete pavers laid in running bond over a five-inch compacted base, in a range of $6,362 to $10,257. That is $21 a square foot across 400 square feet. Two things move it a long way from there and neither is the paver: a herringbone pattern takes it to $9,537, because every edge piece is cut and the waste doubles, and natural stone takes it to $16,727, because each piece is a different thickness and gets bedded individually rather than screeded flat.
What is the average cost of a 10x10 paver patio?
About $2,433 in Atlanta — $24 a square foot, noticeably dearer per foot than a large patio. That is not a markup. Getting a machine to your street, digging out, hauling the spoil away and setting up cost the same whether the crew lays 100 square feet or 1,000, so on a small patio those fixed costs have very little area to spread across. A 12 by 12 is $3,310 and a 1,000 square foot patio comes down to $20 a square foot. If you were considering doing it in two phases, one visit is materially cheaper than two.
How much does a 200 square foot paver patio cost?
About $4,433 in Atlanta, or $22 a square foot. Worth knowing what that 200 square feet buys you in paver: this model orders 210 square feet, because the laying pattern wastes between 5% and 18% in cuts and that waste is real material you pay for. And roughly 32% of the figure is underneath the surface — excavation, 3.7 cubic yards of compacted aggregate and an inch of bedding sand. The pavers are the part you see and the smaller part of the bill.
Is it cheaper to lay concrete or pavers?
Concrete, clearly, and the gap is bigger than most people expect. On this exact 20 by 20 patio our own models give $8,309 for standard concrete pavers against $4,017 for a poured slab with a broom finish — pavers are 207% of the concrete. Against a stamped slab, the finish that imitates pavers, it is 158%. So the case for pavers is not the money, and anybody selling it as a saving is selling. The case is what happens later: a paver patio has no cracks because it is already in pieces, a corner that settles can be lifted and relaid rather than broken out, and a single stained unit can be swapped. A slab that cracks stays cracked for its whole life.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 23 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.
- Retaining wall cost
Prices a wall by square foot of built face rather than linear foot, which is what explains why height costs so much more than length.
- Concrete slab cost
Shows what a slab is actually made of: on a typical pour the concrete itself is under a third of the bill, and the rest is base, forms, steel and the hours to finish it.
- Kitchen remodel cost
Prices a whole kitchen line by line, shows where the money actually goes in five groups, and answers what a $10,000 and a $25,000 kitchen each get you.
- Cabinet painting cost
Prices painting kitchen cabinets by the door, and sets it against refacing and replacement using three of our own models on the same wages.
- The full paver patio 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.