How Many Pavers Do I Need?

A 10×10-foot patio laid with standard 12×12-inch pavers in a stack-bond pattern needs 105 pavers — 100 square feet of coverage plus the standard 5% waste allowance.

That number only covers the pavers themselves. A paver patio is actually a four-layer stack built from the ground up — compacted base, bedding sand, the pavers, and joint sand swept in last — and underestimating any one layer is how patios end up wavy, weedy, or shifting underfoot within a season. The math below sizes all four for the same footprint so nothing gets left out of the order.

Pavers: coverage per paver, then waste for your layout

Coverage per paver is length times width in inches, divided by 144. Paver size changes that number a lot:

Paver size	Coverage per paver	Pavers per sq ft
12×12 in (square)	1 sq ft	1
16×16 in	1.78 sq ft	~0.56
6×9 in (Holland)	0.375 sq ft	~2.7
4×8 in (brick)	0.22 sq ft	~4.5

Layout pattern sets the waste percentage added on top of that: stack bond (straight rows, no offset) needs about 5%, running bond about 8% for the half-paver offset cuts at row ends, basketweave about 10%, and herringbone about 15% since every edge is a 45-degree diagonal cut that leaves more unusable offcuts than a square one. Total pavers is (area × (1 + waste)) ÷ coverage per paver, rounded up to a whole paver. The paver calculator runs this for any size and pattern, and also drives a layout preview so you can see the pattern before you order.

Base: 4 inches of compacted crushed stone

Skipping the base is the single most common cause of paver failure — without it, pavers sink unevenly and develop trip hazards as the soil beneath them compresses and washes out. A standard patio or walkway uses a 4-inch compacted base; a driveway or anything carrying vehicle weight needs 6–8 inches, since the base is what actually spreads the load over the subgrade.

Base volume works like any bulk fill: (area × depth in inches ÷ 12) ÷ 27 gives cubic yards. For the same 10×10-foot patio at 4 inches, that’s 100 × 4 ÷ 12 ÷ 27 ≈ 1.23 cubic yards. Add waste — but here waste means more than spillage: loose crushed stone settles by about 20% once tamped with a plate compactor, so a base ordered at only the loose volume falls short of the finished compacted depth. The standard 10% waste option covers general spillage and edge loss; the 20% compaction allowance is the one to pick when the order needs to land on a specific finished depth after tamping. At 10%, 1.23 cubic yards becomes about 1.36 cubic yards, which works out to 74 bags of 0.5-cubic-foot crushed stone (about 54 bags per cubic yard). The paver base calculator handles either waste option and both depth ranges.

Bedding sand: the 1-inch leveling layer

Bedding sand is a separate product and a separate step from the base — it’s a thin layer of coarse, angular sand (usually sold as paver sand or concrete sand) screeded level on top of the compacted base, that the pavers are then set directly into. Standard depth is 1 inch; going deeper doesn’t add stability, it just makes the layer harder to compact evenly and raises the risk of pavers settling unevenly over time.

Same volume formula, shallower depth: 100 × 1 ÷ 12 ÷ 27 ≈ 0.31 cubic yards for the 10×10 patio. Add the standard 10% waste for screeding overflow and an uneven sub-base and that’s about 0.34 cubic yards, or 19 bags of 0.5-cubic-foot bedding sand. The paver sand calculator covers this bedding layer — not the joint sand below, which is sized differently.

Joint sand: a separate calculation, swept in last

After the pavers are laid, polymeric (or plain) jointing sand gets swept into the gaps between them to lock the pavers in place and block weed growth. It’s sized off joint width and paver surface area, not bedding volume, so it doesn’t share a formula with the layer above. Coverage runs roughly 75–100 sq ft per 50 lb bag of polymeric sand at a tight 1/8-inch joint, dropping to about 35–50 sq ft per bag once joints widen to 1/4–3/8 inch — wider gaps just hold more sand per foot of joint. For the 100 sq ft patio in this example with tight joints, that’s 1 to 2 bags depending on how close coverage lands to the bag’s rated range; most people round up rather than risk running short mid-sweep. As of 2026-07, a 50 lb bag of polymeric sand typically runs $30–$50 at retail.

The full stack for a 10×10 ft patio

Putting the four layers together, at each material’s standard depth and waste setting:

Layer	Quantity	Est. cost (2026-07)
Base (4 in, standard waste)	74 bags	$260–$520
Bedding sand (1 in, standard waste)	19 bags	$65–$135
Pavers (12×12 in, stack bond)	105 pavers	$80–$370
Joint sand (tight joints)	1–2 bags	$30–$100

That’s roughly $435–$1,125 in materials for 100 sq ft — call it $4–$11 per square foot, with most jobs landing near the middle of that range. It doesn’t include edge restraint, which locks the outer row of pavers in place and is worth budgeting separately at roughly your patio’s perimeter in linear feet, or professional installation labor, which is a separate and often larger cost on top of materials.

Considering a poured concrete patio instead?

A poured slab replaces three of the four layers above — sand, pavers, and joint sand — with a single pour, though it still typically sits on its own compacted gravel base for drainage and crack resistance, sized the same way as the paver base above. Pouring that same 100 sq ft at a standard 4-inch thickness takes about 1.36 cubic yards of concrete with standard waste, which is roughly 62 bags of 80 lb mix — $280–$495 at 2026-07 bag prices, or ready-mix delivery, which usually beats bagged mix once a pour clears about 1 cubic yard. It’s a different technique with a different maintenance profile (a monolithic slab can crack with ground movement; a paver patio flexes at the joints and individual pavers can be lifted and reset), not strictly cheaper or more expensive — the concrete patio calculator runs the pour side of that comparison for your actual dimensions.

Updated: 2026-07-15