How to Estimate a Paver Patio: A Contractor’s Takeoff, Step by Step

A homeowner wants a price on a 12×16 patio by the end of the week, and you have a sketch, a tape and last year’s job files. The pavers are the easy part to count. The base, the haul-off and the hours are where a bid drifts, so this is how to estimate a paver patio in the order you build it.

The Example Patio

We’ll carry one patio through every step. It’s 12 by 16 feet with the 12-foot side against the house, so three sides are open, and it’s laid in a running bond of 6×9 pavers 2 3/8 inches thick.

It sits on our standard build-up, which is 6 inches of 2A modified compacted in 2 to 3 lifts, 1 inch of screeded concrete sand, edge restraint spiked about every 12 inches and polymeric joint sand. Base and fabric run 6 inches past the edge, and the surface falls 1/4 inch per foot away from the house, as we explain in how much slope a patio needs. Swap in your own spec, and the math works the same way.

1. Area and Waste by Pattern

Area is length times width, so 12 × 16 = 192 square feet. Break odd shapes into rectangles, triangles (half the base times the height) and circles (3.14 times the radius squared), then add them up.

Waste covers cuts and breakage, and it climbs with the pattern. Nicolock puts border cuts, offcuts and breakage at roughly 10 percent. Our paver calculator uses 7 percent for running bond and stack and 12 percent for herringbone, angled layouts and circles, and EP Henry notes that 45-degree herringbone takes more cutting.

Figure waste for each size separately when a pattern mixes sizes, as Nicolock advises, and do the same for a border. Round up to full pallets, since partial pallets often carry a surcharge. For the example, 192 × 1.07 = 205.44, so order 206 square feet. Our 12×16 sizes page shows that as about 550 pieces of a 6×9, but use the maker’s pieces per square foot for the paver you buy.

2. Base Stone Tons

Base tons = area × depth × weight per cubic yard × compaction factor. The area and the weight are where this step goes wrong.

The base area is bigger than the patio. Unilock says the base should extend past the paved edge by the base depth, which is 6 inches here. With 6 inches on the three open sides, the base is 13 by 16.5 feet, or 214.5 square feet. A takeoff that figures base under the pavers alone misses 22.5 square feet here, about 12 percent.

Then comes the weight. Ask your quarry whether its tons per yard are loose or compacted, because compacted stone packs more tons into each yard. A 2023 Wisconsin DOT research report puts dense-graded base at 1.78 to 1.98 tons per compacted cubic yard and finds the same stone takes up 34 to 52 percent more room loose. So with a loose weight, the compaction factor is 1.34 to 1.52, and with a compacted weight it’s already built in.

For the example we’ll use 1.86 tons per compacted cubic yard, the top of WisDOT’s range for its 3/4-inch gradation. The volume is 214.5 × 0.5 = 107.25 cubic feet, divided by 27 is 3.972 cubic yards, and 3.972 × 1.86 = 7.39 tons, so order 7.5. Your quarry’s 2A or crusher run won’t match Wisconsin’s stone exactly, so use its number when you have it.

Lift count drives compaction time. CMHA’s construction spec allows 4- to 6-inch lifts with a large reversible plate compactor and thinner lifts with smaller machines, and Unilock’s planning guide calls for 2- to 3-inch layers with a gas plate compactor. Base depth itself depends on soil and climate, which we cover in how deep a paver base should be.

3. Bedding Sand, Edge Restraint, Joint Sand and Fabric

Bedding sand

CMHA calls for bedding sand screeded to a nominal 1 inch and left loose until the pavers are set into it. It goes under the pavers only, so 192 ÷ 12 = 16 cubic feet, or 0.593 cubic yards. At the 1.35 tons per cubic yard our calculator uses for concrete sand, that’s 0.80 tons, so order 1 ton.

Edge restraint and spikes

Restraint runs along every open side, 16 + 12 + 16 = 44 linear feet. Unilock’s planning guide says restraint must always be spiked into the compacted base, and we spike ours about every 12 inches. That’s 44 spaces and 45 spikes on one continuous run, plus one at each splice.

Joint sand

Use the coverage from the sand’s maker. Alliance Gator’s data sheet for Gator Maxx Sand gives 65 to 85 square feet per 50-pound bag on narrow joints of 1/8 to 3/8 inch with 2 3/8-inch pavers, and 22 to 42 on wide joints. At the low end, 192 ÷ 65 = 2.95, so 3 bags. We plan on 60 square feet a bag, which makes it 4.

Fabric

Fabric covers the bottom of the base, 13 × 16.5 = 214.5 square feet. CMHA calls for at least 12 inches of overlap where pieces meet, and Belgard’s technical guide shows the fabric turned up the sides of the base. Turning it up 6 inches on the three open sides adds 46 × 0.5 = 23 square feet, for 237.5 in all before overlaps.

4. Excavation and Haul-Off

Dig depth is the build-up. Six inches of base, 1 inch of sand and a 2 3/8-inch paver make 9 3/8 inches, the “about 9 inches” we dig, and it runs across the whole 214.5-square-foot base footprint. That’s 214.5 × 0.78125 = 167.58 cubic feet, or 6.21 cubic yards in the ground.

We’ve assumed the ground already falls about 1/4 inch per foot like the finished surface, so the depth is even. On flat ground, the far edge runs up to 4 inches deeper.

Soil swells when you dig it, and you haul it loose. The same WisDOT report lists bank-to-loose swell of 4 to 8 percent for clean sands, 16 to 23 percent for sands with gravel, 27 percent for silts and 26 to 58 percent for clays.

On a silty site, 6.21 × 1.27 = 7.89 loose cubic yards. At the top of WisDOT’s clay range, 6.21 × 1.58 = 9.81. Divide by what your truck or trailer carries loose to get loads, then price the dump fee by the load or the ton.

5. Labor in Crew-Days

No published rate will match your crew, so build this from your own records. Track production by phase on your last few patios, then divide each quantity by your crew’s daily rate for that phase.

• Layout and excavation: bank cubic yards ÷ yards dug and hauled per day.
• Base: tons ÷ tons placed and compacted per day at your lift count.
• Sand and pavers: square feet ÷ square feet screeded and laid per day, with a separate rate for herringbone and borders.
• Edge, joint sand and cleanup: linear feet and square feet ÷ your rates.

Add the phases and round up to the half day. Multiply by your loaded crew-day cost, which is every person’s wage for the day plus payroll taxes, workers’ comp and benefits. As a sanity check, our 12×16 sizes page budgets about 3 working days for a crew of two or three.

6. Equipment

List each machine with its days on the job, and charge it at your owned-equipment rate or the rental yard’s day rate plus delivery.

• Mini excavator or skid steer for digging and moving stone
• Dump truck or trailer for stone and haul-off
• Plate compactor for each base lift and for setting the pavers into the sand
• Saw and blades, which work harder on herringbone and borders
• Laser level, screed rails and hand tools

7. Overhead and Margin

Overhead covers what doesn’t belong to one job, like insurance, the shop, phones, office time and software. Divide last year’s overhead by last year’s billable crew-days and charge that rate per crew-day, so a three-day patio carries three days of overhead.

Margin goes on last, on the whole cost. Price = (materials + labor + equipment + disposal + overhead) ÷ (1 minus your target margin). Keep markup and margin straight, because a 25 percent markup on cost is only a 20 percent margin on price (0.25 ÷ 1.25 = 0.20). Set the target from your own books.

The 12×16 Takeoff at a Glance

• Pavers: 206 square feet (192 plus 7 percent), about 550 pieces of 6×9
• Base: 7.5 tons of 2A modified (3.972 compacted cubic yards × 1.86)
• Bedding sand: 1 ton (0.593 cubic yards × 1.35)
• Edge restraint: 44 linear feet and 45 spikes
• Joint sand: 3 bags at the maker’s low-end coverage, 4 at our 60 square feet a bag
• Fabric: 214.5 square feet, or 237.5 turned up the sides, plus overlaps
• Excavation: 6.21 bank cubic yards, hauled as 7.89 loose on silt or 9.81 at the top of the clay range
• Labor, equipment, overhead and margin: your crew’s numbers

If you’d rather start from a drawing, our white-label plans for contractors come with a takeoff in square feet, tons, block count and linear feet, plus base and drainage details and your logo on every sheet. One area is $295, and we never reach out to your customer.

Check It Before You Send It

Compare the finished bid with your last three patios on cost per square foot and crew-days per square foot. If one line is far off, find out why before the number goes out. Then file this takeoff with the job, and after the build, write down what you actually ordered, hauled and spent, so the next estimate starts from your own numbers.