Home › Home & Construction › Paver Calculator

Paver Calculator

Use this free paver calculator to plan a patio, walkway, or driveway before you order materials. Enter the area, the paver size, the joint gap, and the waste allowance, and it works out the paver count, the base gravel, the bedding sand, the edging length, and the estimated cost.

How it works

A paver project is three layers, not one. At the bottom is a compacted gravel base that carries the weight and drains water away. On top of that is a thin layer of bedding sand that lets you level each paver exactly. On top of that sit the pavers themselves, held at the edges by edging so they cannot spread. This calculator works out all three layers plus the edging, because ordering only the pavers is the most common way a patio project stalls.

Start with the area: length times width. A 12 by 10 foot patio is 120 square feet. Then work out how much ground one paver covers, including its joint gap. A 6 by 9 inch paver with a 1/8 inch gap behaves like a 6.125 by 9.125 inch paver, which is about 0.388 square feet. Dividing the area by that figure gives the exact count before waste — about 309 pavers for this patio. The gap matters more than it looks: wider gaps mean each paver covers more ground, so you need fewer of them, but the joints also need more joint sand.

Waste is the allowance for cuts, breakage, and the odd paver that does not survive the saw. Ten percent is the usual figure for a rectangular patio with a simple pattern; allow 15 percent for a curved edge, a diagonal pattern, or a shape with many corners, because every angled cut wastes part of a paver. The result is always rounded up to a whole paver, since suppliers sell whole pieces.

Gravel and sand are sold by the cubic yard, and there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. For gravel, multiply the area by the base depth in feet — 4 inches is 1/3 of a foot — then divide by 27. A 120 square foot patio with a 4 inch base needs 40 cubic feet, or 1.48 cubic yards. Use a 6 to 8 inch base for a driveway, because cars are far heavier than feet. Bedding sand works the same way at 1 inch deep, giving 0.37 cubic yards for this patio. Joint sand, swept into the gaps after laying, is a separate purchase — usually one or two bags of polymeric sand for a patio this size.

Edging is the perimeter of the project, because it runs all the way around to lock the outer pavers in place. A 12 by 10 foot patio needs 44 feet of edging. The cost line adds pavers, gravel, sand, and edging at the prices you enter. It covers materials only: excavation, delivery, landscape fabric, joint sand, and labor are extra. Note the boundary with indoor work: the tile calculator on this site is for indoor floor tiles, which are thin and glued to a solid floor. This page is for outdoor pavers with a gravel base and bedding sand, which is a different build entirely.

Worked example

You are building a patio 12 feet long and 10 feet wide, using 6 by 9 inch pavers with a 1/8 inch joint gap, 10 percent waste, a 4 inch gravel base, and 1 inch of bedding sand. Pavers cost $3 each, gravel $45 per cubic yard, sand $50 per cubic yard, and edging $2 per foot.

Step 1: Area — 12 × 10 = 120 square feet.
Step 2: One paver with its gap — (6 + 0.125) × (9 + 0.125) = 6.125 × 9.125 = 55.89 square inches, or 0.388 square feet.
Step 3: Pavers — 120 ÷ 0.388 = 309.18 pavers before waste; 309.18 × 1.10 = 340.09, so buy 341 pavers.
Step 4: Gravel — 120 × 4 ÷ 12 = 40 cubic feet, and 40 ÷ 27 = 1.48 cubic yards.
Step 5: Sand — 120 × 1 ÷ 12 = 10 cubic feet, and 10 ÷ 27 = 0.37 cubic yards.
Step 6: Edging and cost — edging is 2 × (12 + 10) = 44 feet. Cost is 341 × $3 = $1,023 for pavers, plus 1.48 × $45 = $66.67 for gravel, plus 0.37 × $50 = $18.52 for sand, plus 44 × $2 = $88 for edging, for a total of $1,196.19.

The result is 341 pavers — 120 sq ft, 1.48 cu yd of gravel, 0.37 cu yd of sand, and about $1,196.19. That is exactly what the calculator shows for these inputs.

FAQ