Budgeting a Paver Patio From the Ground Down: Dig, Base, Sand, Pavers and Edging

When people price a patio, they usually price the pavers. Pavers are what you see, they’re what the store displays, and they’re the line on the receipt you notice. On a typical DIY paver patio, though, they’re one of five separate orders. Under them sits a bed of sand, under that a compacted stone base, around the edge a restraint to stop it all spreading, and under everything a hole you have to dig and a pile of soil you have to get rid of. Leave any of those out of the budget and the project ends up costing more than planned, or the patio starts to sink after the first winter.

The way to budget is from the ground down, one layer at a time, so that each quantity feeds into the next. Here’s that process for one patio, with real numbers at each step.

The example: a 14 × 11 ft patio against the house

The patio runs 14 ft along the back wall of a house and extends 11 ft into the yard. That’s 154 sq ft of finished surface. It’s for foot traffic and furniture, not vehicles. The soil is ordinary, well-drained loam in an area with freezing winters. The finished surface is meant to sit about flush with the lawn.

The build uses common residential practice for that situation:

Layer	Thickness	Notes
Pavers	2⅜ in (60 mm)	Standard thickness for patios
Bedding sand	1 in	Coarse concrete sand, screeded, not compacted beforehand
Compacted base	4 in	Crushed stone with fines (¾-in minus, “crusher run”, “road base”)
Total dig depth	about 7⅜ in	Plus slope, below

Four inches of compacted base is a common minimum for a walkway or patio on good soil. Clay, poor drainage or deep frost often call for 6 inches or more, and driveways need much more. Your local stone yard or building department will know what works on your soil. Ask them before you settle on a depth, because the base is the layer you can’t fix later without lifting everything above it.

Dig wider than the patio, and slope it

Two adjustments to the dig catch people out.

The base extends past the pavers. The edge restraint has to sit on compacted stone, so the base usually extends at least 6 inches beyond the paver edge on each side that isn’t against the house. In this example, that adds 6 in on the two short sides and the long outer edge. To keep the arithmetic simple, the dig area is taken as 15 × 12 ft, which is 180 sq ft. That’s 17% more area than the finished patio, and every layer below the sand is ordered on this larger figure.

The surface has to shed water away from the house. A slope of ⅛ to ¼ inch per foot is typical. Over 11 ft, that means the outer edge sits about 1⅜ to 2¾ inches lower than the edge at the house. Shape the slope into the dug subgrade, not by adding extra sand. The bedding layer should be the same thickness everywhere.

The spoil pile is a budget line too

Dig 180 sq ft down 7⅜ inches and you’ve removed 180 × 7.375 ÷ 324 ≈ 4.1 yd³ of soil as measured in the ground. That’s the same cubic-yard formula the landscaping depth guide explains, so use it here rather than relearning it. Once dug, soil loosens and takes up more room, commonly 20–30% more. That means about 5 yd³ of loose soil sitting on your lawn.

The Landscaping Material Calculator estimates its weight. Enter 15 × 12 ft, 7.4 in deep and topsoil, and it reports about 8,600 lb, which is a little over 4 US tons. That figure matters if you’re renting a bag dumpster or a small roll-off, because those have weight limits as well as volume limits, and soil reaches the weight limit long before the bag looks full. Some of the soil can go to raised beds or low spots in the yard. Price the disposal of the rest before you start digging, not after.

Compacted base: order more than the hole holds

Crushed base settles when you run a plate compactor over it. Stone delivered loose fills more space than the same stone after compaction. If you order exactly the compacted volume, you’ll run short. A common planning allowance is to order roughly 15–25% more loose stone than the finished compacted volume. Your supplier may give a different figure for their particular material.

This example uses 20%. The neat compacted volume is 180 × 4 ÷ 324 = 2.22 yd³. Rather than calculate the extra separately, enter the depth already inflated, 4 × 1.2 = 4.8 in, into the Landscaping Material Calculator with gravel selected:

• 2.67 yd³ of loose material
• about 7,470 lb, which the tool shows as 3.73 tons

The calculator has no compaction or waste setting. It works out exactly the volume you give it, which is why the 20% has to go into the depth before you enter it. Its gravel density of 2,800 lb/yd³ (1.4 short tons per yard) is about what a loose pile of stone weighs, which is the right figure for converting your ordered volume into what the truck will carry.

Yards, tons and tonnes. Many stone yards sell base by weight rather than volume, so check which unit is on the quote:

Unit	This order	How to convert
Cubic yards (loose)	2.67 yd³	from the calculator
US short tons	3.73 tons	1 short ton = 2,000 lb (the calculator’s “tons”)
Metric tonnes	3.39 t	lb × 0.4536 ÷ 1,000
Cubic metres (loose)	2.04 m³	yd³ × 0.7646

A metric tonne (1,000 kg) is about 10% heavier than a US short ton (907 kg). If a UK or Canadian supplier quotes “4 tonnes”, that’s more stone than “4 tons” from a US yard. Density also differs from quarry to quarry. If the yard says its road base is 1.5 tons per yard, use their figure.

Compact the base in layers. Most plate compactors only consolidate a few inches at a time, so put down two layers of about 2 inches, dampen each one and make several passes. Dumping all 4 inches and compacting once leaves the bottom loose.

Bedding sand: thin, but not free

The sand layer only goes under the pavers, so it’s measured on the 154 sq ft finished area, not the 180 sq ft dig. At 1 inch, that’s 154 × 1 ÷ 324 ≈ 0.48 yd³, about 12.8 cubic feet. The calculator with sand selected rounds it up to 26 bags of 0.5 ft³, about 50 lb each.

This is the typical small, awkward order that the bags-versus-bulk advice covers. Half a yard is well below most yards’ delivery minimum, so bags often work out cheaper. One option is to add it to the base order from the same supplier, so one delivery fee covers both. Leave a few bags spare for joint sand if you’re not using polymeric sand, and for re-screeding the areas you’ll inevitably disturb.

Pavers: use the tile calculator, with the joint as grout

Pavers are tiles laid outdoors, and the Tile & Flooring Coverage Calculator handles them well. Enter the area, the paver size, and the joint width in the grout-gap field. The tile coverage guide explains why the joint and the pattern both change the count. The only difference with pavers is which numbers you use.

• Use the actual size, not the name. A “4 × 8” paver is often slightly smaller. The spec sheet lists the real dimensions.
• Joints are narrow. Many pavers have spacer nibs that set a gap of a few millimetres. This example uses ⅛ inch.
• Pick the pattern from the dropdown. The tool’s waste figures are 10% for straight, 12% for brick, 15% for diagonal and 20% for herringbone.

For 154 sq ft of 4 × 8 in pavers with a ⅛ in joint, the tool gives 662 pavers before waste. Laid in herringbone, the order is 794 pavers. Laid in a straight running bond, it’s 728. Herringbone needs 66 more pavers because every edge piece gets cut. Pavers are often sold by the square foot or by the pallet, so if the yard prices them that way, enter the number per pallet as “tiles per box” and use the box count to see how many pallets that rounds up to.

Keep the leftovers. Pavers from a different production batch often don’t match in colour, and a cracked paver you can replace from your own spares is a ten-minute repair.

Edging: measure the open sides only

Edge restraint goes along every side that isn’t held in place by something solid. Here, that’s the two 11 ft sides and the 14 ft outer edge: 36 linear feet. The house wall holds the fourth side. Plastic or aluminium paver edging usually comes in fixed lengths and is fixed with long spikes, typically about one spike per foot. That means about 36 to 40 spikes, plus a spare length for corners. None of the calculators on this site cover edging. It’s a tape-measure job and quick to do by hand.

What if you poured a slab instead?

The same dig, the same base and the same edge apply to a concrete patio. The differences are that the slab replaces the sand and pavers, and the forms replace the edge restraint. The Concrete Volume & Bags Calculator gives about 2.09 yd³ for a 14 × 11 ft, 4 in slab including its built-in 10% waste, or 96 bags of 80 lb. That’s well beyond the point where the concrete guide recommends ordering ready-mix instead of bags. A slab saves the sand and pavers, but it adds a truck booking, the cost of forms, a timed pour and control joints, which you need to cut or tool in to control cracking.

The order sheet

Item	Quantity to order	Basis
Spoil to remove	~5 yd³ loose, ~4.3 tons	180 sq ft × 7⅜ in, plus swell
Crushed base	2.67 yd³ / 3.73 short tons / 3.39 t	180 sq ft × 4 in, +20% compaction
Bedding sand	26 × 0.5 ft³ bags (or 0.5 yd³ with the base)	154 sq ft × 1 in
Pavers, herringbone	794	154 sq ft, ⅛ in joint, 20% waste
Edging	36 ft + spare, ~40 spikes	open sides
Joint sand	per the bag’s coverage chart	depends on joint width and paver depth

Before you dig, call your utility locator (811 in the US) to have buried lines marked. It’s free and it’s required. Prices and practices vary by region and by soil. This is general planning information, not engineering advice for your site.

Run your own layers

Work through the layers in the Landscaping Material Calculator one at a time: topsoil for the spoil, gravel at the inflated depth for the base, and sand for the bedding. Then count pavers with the Tile & Flooring Coverage Calculator using the pattern you’ve chosen. If you’re still deciding between pavers and concrete, price the slab in the Concrete Volume & Bags Calculator and compare the two totals.