Paver calculator
Paver
calculator
Enter the area and get the whole build-up, not just the pavers: the compacted gravel base at the right depth for what the surface has to carry, the bedding sand, the joint sand and the edging.
Enter measurements ↓Optional
What will it cost?
Every material the calculator worked out gets its own price. Each field starts at a typical US figure so you have something to work from — change any of them to what your own supplier charges.
These prices are approximate. They are national US retail figures, and what you actually pay varies with your region, your supplier, the season and how much you buy at once. Treat them as a starting point, not a quote — always price the job from your own supplier's current figures before you order.
Your prices
More in this series
Put these figures to work
Every wall here is counted the same way underneath. Start wherever your job starts; the figures carry across.
- Brick Calculator Bricks, concrete blocks, mortar bags and wall ties
- Concrete Block Calculator Concrete blocks, pallets, mortar bags, grout fill and rebar
- Retaining Wall Calculator Wall blocks, caps, base stone, drainage backfill and geogrid
- Concrete Block Sizes and Weights Nominal and actual CMU dimensions, weights and course heights
- Brick Dimensions and Course Heights US brick sizes, bricks per square foot, course heights and wall ties
- Paver Sizes and Weights Paver sizes and thicknesses, weight each and what a pallet weighs
Based on your result
What you'll need
Quantities update after every calculation. The base is the part people skimp on and the part that decides whether the patio is still flat in five years.
- Pavers
- Concrete units, plus spares for cuts
- Calculate above
- Geotextile fabric
- Between subgrade and base so the two never mix
- —
- Crushed stone base
- Compacted in lifts before anything is laid
- —
- Bedding layer
- Coarse concrete sand, screeded and never compacted
- —
- Joint fill
- Swept into the joints once the field is laid
- —
The maths
How this paver calculator works
The paver count is one area divided by another. Everything underneath is the same area taken to a depth — and as a paver base calculator that depth is the number that matters, because it is set by what the surface has to carry, not by the pavers on top of it.
gravel = area × base depth ÷ 12 × 1.2
bedding = area × 1 in ÷ 12
joint sand = area ÷ 100 bags
edging = perimeter ÷ 8 ft lengths
- 4 in
- base for a walkway
- 6 in
- base for a patio
- 10 in
- base for a driveway
- 1.2×
- stone ordered for compaction
- 1 in
- bedding sand, never more
- 4.5
- 4×8 pavers per sq ft
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01
The base depth is set by the load
Four inches under a path, six under a patio, ten under anything a car drives on. Getting this wrong is the one mistake you cannot fix without lifting the whole field.
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02
Order stone for compaction, not for depth
Crushed stone loses about a fifth of its loose volume under a plate compactor. Six finished inches means ordering closer to seven and a quarter.
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03
Bedding sand stays at one inch
It is screeded, not compacted, and it is there to seat the pavers — not to make up for a base that was never levelled. A thick sand layer ruts.
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04
Waste follows the pattern
A straight lay wastes about 5%. Running bond is nearer 10%, and herringbone at 45° needs 15% because every edge is a cut.
The build-up
What goes under a paver patio
Pavers are not laid on soil, and they are not laid on concrete. They sit on a compacted stone base with a thin screeded bed on top, and every layer below the surface is doing a job. Most failed patios failed underneath.
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01
Subgrade
Excavated and compacted. Everything above it only stays flat because this did.
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02
Geotextile fabric
Separates soil from stone so the base does not slowly sink into clay. Lapped at the seams and run up the sides, which is why the calculator adds 15%.
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03
Crushed stone base
Dense-graded 3/4 in minus, compacted in 4 in lifts. Four inches under a path, six under a patio, ten under a driveway.
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04
Bedding layer
One inch of coarse concrete sand — ASTM C33, sometimes sold as sharp sand. Screeded flat and never compacted.
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05
Pavers
Laid tight, cut at the edges, restrained around every free side.
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06
Joint fill
Polymeric sand swept in and wetted so it sets and locks the field together.
The two highlighted layers are the ones most often skipped or got wrong. Fabric is cheap and invisible, so it gets left out; and the bedding layer is regularly filled with play sand or stone dust, neither of which drains or stays put. It has to be coarse concrete sand.
Which paver, and what changes
Five materials are sold as pavers. Four of them share the build-up above; the fifth changes it entirely.
| Material | What it is | Where it earns its keep |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete | Pressed cement, sand and aggregate | The default. Cheapest, widest range of shapes, colour is a surface treatment that fades |
| Clay brick | Kiln-fired clay | Keeps its colour permanently, because the colour is the clay itself |
| Natural stone | Granite, bluestone, travertine | Hardest wearing and least uniform. Granite handles driveways |
| Porcelain | Fired at very high temperature | Absorbs almost nothing, so it is the best answer to freeze-thaw and to stains |
| Permeable | Concrete units with open joints | Water drains through into the base instead of running off |
Permeable is a different system, not a different look. Its base is open-graded stone with no fines at all, because the base is where the water goes; it is never shallower than eight inches even under a footpath; and both the bedding layer and the joints are small clean stone chip rather than sand. Sand would block the drainage the whole thing exists for. Pick it in the calculator and every layer above changes with it.
Good to know
Paver questions, answered
This page sizes the stone under a paver field. For loose stone ordered by the yard on its own, use the gravel calculator.
A compacted crushed stone base with one inch of coarse concrete sand screeded on top, over geotextile fabric that keeps the stone out of the soil. Not bare earth, and not a concrete slab. Permeable pavers are the exception: open-graded stone all the way up, with chip instead of sand.
Four inches of compacted crushed stone under a walkway, six under a patio, and ten under a driveway, in 3/4 in minus dense-graded stone compacted in four-inch lifts. Order about 20% more than the finished depth, because the stone loses that much volume when it is compacted.
Coarse concrete sand to ASTM C33 — sharp, angular and free draining. Not play sand, not stone dust, not polymeric sand. Those hold water or compact into a hard layer, and both end with a patio that ruts or heaves.
On anything but free-draining sandy soil, yes. Without it the stone base works its way down into the subgrade over a few wet winters and the surface settles with it. It is the cheapest layer in the build-up and the hardest to add later.
A 4×8 holland paver covers 0.222 square feet, so 4.5 of them fill a square foot. A 12×12 takes one, and a 24×24 slab covers four square feet each.
One inch of coarse bedding sand, screeded flat and left uncompacted. It seats each paver. Do not use it to level out a base that was not levelled properly — sand thicker than about an inch will rut under traffic.
For anything you want to stay put, yes. It is swept into the joints and wetted, and it sets hard enough to lock the field together and keep weeds and ants out. One 50 lb bag covers roughly 100 square feet of standard joints.
Yes, on every edge that is not against a wall. Without restraint the outer pavers creep outward, the joints open, and the field unravels from the perimeter in. Plastic edging comes in 8 ft lengths and is staked about every foot.
Five percent for a straight lay, ten for running bond, fifteen for herringbone — the steeper the pattern meets the edge, the more cuts. Round circles and curved borders push higher still.
Yes, if the slab drains and is sound. You skip the stone base and bed the pavers on sand over a drainage layer. That is a different build-up from the one this calculator sizes, which assumes excavation to subgrade.