Paver calculator — pavers, base, bedding and edging
Most paver calculators stop at the field. This one gives you the whole order: field pavers with waste, border courses, base gravel, bedding sand, polymeric sand and edge restraint — in the units your supplier actually sells.
Curved or L-shaped? Break it into rectangles, run each one, and add the quantities. Measure the real shape rather than a rectangle around it — the difference is all cutting labor, and it is usually the number people get wrong.
The paversWhat this calculator assumes
Every one of these is a default you can change in the tool. They are the numbers a patio crew uses most days, not the numbers that make the math tidy.
| Input | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Base gravel | 6" | The usual patio spec in a freeze–thaw climate. 4" is defensible on stable subgrade; a driveway wants 8–12". |
| Bedding sand | 1" | Screeded, and it stays 1". Bedding is not a levelling layer — anything you fix with sand comes back as a dip. |
| Cutting allowance | 10% | Straight running bond against straight edges. Raise it for diagonals, curves and circles. |
| Polymeric sand | 50 sq ft per bag | A working figure. Real coverage swings with joint width and paver size, so read the bag. |
| Border | 1 soldier course | The common detail. It runs inside the footprint, so it comes off the field. |
| Edge restraint | The full perimeter | The safe assumption for a free-standing patio. Drop it where the patio meets a house, a wall or steps. |
How the math works
No black box. These are the four formulas doing the work:
- Border area = perimeter (LF) × band depth (in) ÷ 12. The band depth is the paver dimension standing across the run.
- Field area = patio area − border area. The border eats into the field; it does not add to it.
- Base and bedding = area (sq ft) × depth (in) ÷ 12 ÷ 27, which is cubic yards. Both are figured on the whole footprint, because you excavate and compact under the border too.
- Polymeric sand = area ÷ coverage, rounded up to a whole bag.
The cutting allowance lands on the square feet you order, not on the border piece count — you buy border pavers by the piece off a linear run, and the cuts you lose are in the field.
Border courses: soldier, sailor, and why the band changes
This is the part most calculators skip, and it is the part that moves the most material.
A soldier course stands each paver on its narrow dimension, so a 6"×9" paver gives you a 9" deep band and consumes 6" of run per piece. A sailor course lies each paver on its long dimension: a 6" band, consuming 9" per piece. Same paver, same perimeter, and the border swallows half again as much area one way as the other.
On a 20 × 14 patio with a 6"×9" paver, one soldier course is 51 square feet of border and 136 pieces. The same course laid sailor is 34 square feet and 91 pieces. If you have ever ordered border pavers off a rule of thumb and come up short, that difference is usually why.
A second course doubles both the band depth and the piece count. Where two runs meet at a corner they overlap, and this calculator counts the band along both — which is what you want, because a mitered corner really does consume from both runs.
Base and bedding: how deep, and why
Six inches of compacted aggregate under a patio is the working default in the upper Midwest, where the ground moves every winter. Under a driveway you want more — eight to twelve inches, often in two lifts compacted separately, because one deep lift does not compact all the way through no matter how long you run the plate.
On soft or clay subgrade, geo grid under the base and a separation fabric between subgrade and stone are cheap insurance against the base migrating into the soil over a few seasons. Neither is in the default order here, because neither belongs on every job.
One thing worth saying plainly: the gravel figure above is raw geometry. It is not padded for compaction, and an uneven subgrade will eat more than you expect. Order a little long — coming back for half a yard costs more in a trip than the stone is worth.
Waste: 10, 15 or 20 percent?
Ten percent covers a straight running bond inside straight edges, and it is where Estima starts; on a simple rectangle with clean edges some estimators work down toward five. Fifteen is the number for herringbone and other diagonal patterns, where every edge paver is a cut. Twenty is for curves, circles and any shape whose perimeter keeps changing direction — and on a tight radius, twenty is a floor rather than a ceiling.
The allowance is really about the field, where the cuts are. Border courses run along a straight line and cut far less, which is why the piece count above comes straight off the perimeter rather than off an area — the allowance is still applied to the border square footage so that one delivery covers breakage on both.
Ordering
Pavers come by the pallet, and a pallet is a fixed number of square feet that rarely matches your number. Take the square footage above to your supplier and let them tell you the pallet count — that conversation also flushes out lead times and whether your color is in stock.
Aggregate and bedding sand sell by the cubic yard in some yards and by the ton in others. This tool gives you cubic yards, which is the unit the quantity is actually in. A cubic yard of compactable base runs somewhere around 1.4 tons, but that figure moves with the material and with how wet it is, so let the yard do the conversion rather than doing it yourself.
Watch minimum delivery. Under a certain quantity you pay for a full load anyway, which often makes it cheaper to round up than to make two trips.
A worked example
A 20 × 14 patio — 280 square feet — with a 6"×9" paver, one soldier course, 10% waste, 6" of base and 1" of bedding:
- Border: 136 pieces, 51 square feet to buy, band 9" deep
- Field: 231.25 square feet — the inner rectangle — so 254.38 square feet ordered once the cutting allowance is on
- Base gravel: 5.19 cubic yards
- Bedding sand: 0.86 cubic yards
- Polymeric sand: 6 bags
- Edge restraint: 68 linear feet, plus spikes
The border and the field come to a little over the 280 square feet of patio, and that is correct: the band is counted along both runs where they meet, which is exactly what a mitred corner consumes. On this patio the overlap is 2.25 square feet — four corner squares of nine inches. Any calculator whose parts come to less than the patio is the one to distrust.
Questions we get
How many pavers do I need per square foot?
Divide 144 by the paver's face area in square inches. A 6"×9" paver is 54 square inches, so 2.67 per square foot. A 4"×8" is 4.5. A 12"×12" slab is 1. The tool does this for you and shows the piece count next to the square feet.
Should the border be inside or outside the measurement?
Inside, in this calculator and on most jobs — you measure the finished patio and the border lives within it. If you are adding a border outside a fixed field, add the band to your length and width before you enter them.
Do I need edge restraint on every side?
No. Any side held by a house, a wall, a curb or steps does not need it. That is why the perimeter here is an editable box rather than a number the page insists on.
How much does polymeric sand cover?
Between about 25 and 100 square feet a bag, depending on joint width and paver thickness. Fifty is a reasonable planning figure for a standard patio joint, and the bag will tell you better.
Can I use this for a driveway?
The quantities work, but change the base depth. A driveway needs eight to twelve inches of compacted aggregate, usually in two lifts, and a thicker paver than a patio.
Does this include excavation or disposal?
No. It gives you the material to bring in, not the spoil to take out. As a rough guide you are excavating to the base depth plus the bedding plus the paver thickness, and loose soil takes up noticeably more room in the truck than it did in the ground.
Pricing the job, not just ordering it? How to price a paver patio walks through the cost buckets behind these quantities — excavation, base, labor and the margin you need to stay in business.
This is the same quantity math Estima runs on every estimate
It just doesn't price it, save it, or turn it into a branded proposal your client can sign. That part's the CRM.