Pavers per square foot by size
Exact counts before cutting waste. Add roughly 8–15% depending on layout.
| Paver size | Pavers per sq ft | Per 100 sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| 4 × 8 in (Holland brick) | 4.5 | 450 |
| 6 × 6 in | 4.0 | 400 |
| 8 × 8 in | 2.25 | 225 |
| 8 × 12 in | 1.5 | 150 |
| 12 × 12 in | 1.0 | 100 |
| 12 × 24 in (plank) | 0.5 | 50 |
Base and sand for common patio sizes
4 in compacted gravel base and 1 in bedding sand, the layers under every paver patio. Base is figured on the excavation, which runs 6 in wider than the paving on every side. Sand is figured on the paved area only.
| Patio | Area | Excavation | Gravel base | Bedding sand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 × 10 ft | 100 sq ft | 11 × 11 ft | 1.49 cu yd | 0.31 cu yd |
| 12 × 10 ft | 120 sq ft | 13 × 11 ft | 1.77 cu yd | 0.37 cu yd |
| 16 × 12 ft | 192 sq ft | 17 × 13 ft | 2.73 cu yd | 0.59 cu yd |
| 20 × 15 ft | 300 sq ft | 21 × 16 ft | 4.15 cu yd | 0.93 cu yd |
| 20 × 20 ft | 400 sq ft | 21 × 21 ft | 5.44 cu yd | 1.23 cu yd |
How many pavers do I need?
Divide the patio area by the area of one paver, then add cutting waste. A straight running bond wastes about 5%. Herringbone or a curved edge wastes more like 10–15%, because most of the perimeter pavers get cut. Base is figured on the excavation rather than the finished surface, since the dig usually runs 6 in past the pavers on every side so the edge restraint bears on compacted stone.
What goes under the pavers
A patio is only as flat as its base. That means 4 inches of compacted crushed stone for foot traffic (6–8 inches for a driveway), then 1 inch of screeded bedding sand on top. Compact the gravel in 2 inch lifts, never all at once.
Measuring the job: the base is bigger than the patio
Measure the finished surface to count pavers, but measure the excavation separately, because it’s larger. CMHA guidance (the specs the trade still calls ICPI, since ICPI merged into the Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association) is that the dig should extend at least six inches beyond the paved area all the way around. That way the edge restraint sits on compacted base rather than on soft soil. Too little base past the restraint is one of the most common causes of edges spreading and pavers creeping.
On a 12 by 10 foot patio that means digging 13 by 11 feet. That’s 143 square feet of base against 120 square feet of paving, or about nineteen percent more gravel than the surface area suggests. Order to the excavation figure, not the paving figure.
Excavation depth is just the layers added up. A 60 mm paver is 2 3/8 inches (the ASTM C936 minimum thickness), sitting over one inch of screeded bedding sand, over the compacted base. For a foot-traffic patio on soil that drains and compacts, that comes to roughly 7 3/8 inches below finished level.
A residential driveway wanting eight to twelve inches of base comes out at eleven to fifteen. Establish a datum before you start. Set a string line at the finished paver height, taken off the house threshold or the door sill you’re matching, and dig down from it. That beats digging a hole and working out afterwards where the top will land.
Then build in the fall. CMHA asks for a minimum two percent slope away from the building, which over a ten foot run is nearly two and a half inches of drop. That surprises most people the first time they string it. A patio that reads as dead level to the eye isn’t shedding water. Put the fall into the subgrade and carry it through the base, so the bedding sand stays a consistent one inch everywhere. Screed a slope into the sand layer instead and you’ll get sand that’s thin on the high side and deep on the low side, and the deep side tends to settle unevenly within a couple of seasons.
Choosing pavers: thickness, material and joint width
Thickness is structural, so decide it first. Units 60 mm (2 3/8 in) thick are the ASTM C936 minimum and belong on patios and walkways. For driveways and anywhere a car turns or parks, 80 mm (3 1/8 in) is the normal choice.
Canada covers the same minimum under CSA A231.2. The ASTM spec also requires a minimum average compressive strength of 8,000 psi, with no individual unit below 7,200, and it caps the face area at 101 square inches.
That cap matters when you scan a size list. Units of 12 by 12 and 12 by 24 sit well outside it, and they’re sold as concrete slabs under different standards rather than as interlocking pavers. They’re fine on a patio and wrong under a vehicle.
Material comes next. Concrete pavers give by far the widest choice of shape, texture and color, but the pigment is in the mix and it softens over the years. Clay pavers are kiln-fired through, so the color is effectively permanent. The trade-off is a narrow palette of reds and browns and mostly rectangular shapes, and that permanence is a big part of why they hold up so well on driveways and entries. Porcelain pavers, usually 20 mm, are dense and stain resistant. Don’t sand-set thin porcelain the way you’d set a concrete unit. It wants a pedestal system or a properly detailed rigid bed.
Joint sand is where estimates tend to go wrong, because coverage swings on joint width rather than area. A 50 lb bag of polymeric sand covers roughly 75 to 100 square feet at 1/8 inch joints.
Open the joints up to a quarter or three-eighths of an inch and the same bag only does about 35 to 50 square feet. Unit size compounds it. A 4 by 8 brick patio has far more linear joint per square foot than the same area laid in 12 by 12s, so it swallows noticeably more sand. Work out the joint you’re really running before you buy, and sweep it in bone dry.
Buying, delivery and when the 4 inch base is not enough
Pavers arrive on pallets, and the logistics catch people out. A standard pallet of concrete pavers covers somewhere around 100 to 120 square feet, depending on unit size and thickness, and weighs roughly 2,800 to 3,500 pounds. That rules out a half-ton pickup, and it explains the delivery charge and the pallet deposit.
Concrete runs about 11 to 14 pounds per square foot for every inch of thickness, so a 60 mm patio is roughly 26 to 33 pounds per square foot once it’s laid. Work out how many pallets your count comes to, and check the yard can get a forklift or a boom truck to where you want them dropped.
On cost, expect standard concrete paver material at roughly $2 to $6 per square foot (US, 2026 prices), premium interlocking and tumbled ranges at $5 to $10, and natural stone at $10 to $25. The layers underneath (road base, geotextile, bedding sand, edge restraint and joint sand) add somewhere around $1.40 to $2.20 per square foot. That’s the part homeowners routinely leave out of a budget.
A contractor-installed paver patio commonly lands at $15 to $30 per square foot, with the national average around $22 to $28, and more where there are steps, curves or seat walls. Doing the base yourself is where the saving lives. Doing it badly is where the job gets paid for twice.
Finally, know when the calculator’s fixed four inch base stops applying. Four inches suits foot traffic on soil that drains and compacts. Over clay or silt, CMHA recommends a non-woven separation geotextile laid on the compacted subgrade, lapped at least twelve inches (more like twenty-four over genuinely soft ground) and turned up at the edges. Without it the base fines migrate down into the soil and the patio dips in bands.
Cold climates and poorly drained ground want the deeper end of the range, and anything vehicular wants eight to twelve inches. To adjust, just scale the gravel figure shown. A ten inch driveway base is two and a half times the four inch number. Not sure what your soil will take? Check your local code or supplier.
How many pavers for a 12x12 patio
A 12 by 12 ft patio is 144 square feet. At 8% cutting waste that comes to 700 four-by-eight bricks, 623 six-inch squares, 350 eight-inch squares, 234 eight-by-twelves, 156 twelve-inch squares, or 78 twelve-by-twenty-four planks. Underneath it you’ll need 2.09 cubic yards of base (figured on the 13 by 13 ft excavation, not the 12 by 12 surface) and 0.44 of bedding sand.
The multipliers are worth memorizing, because they work on any area. Figure 4.5 pavers per square foot for 4 by 8 brick, 4 for 6 by 6, 2.25 for 8 by 8, 1.5 for 8 by 12, exactly 1 for a 12 by 12, and half a paver for a 12 by 24 plank.
A nominal 4 by 8 unit actually measures about 3 7/8 by 7 7/8 inches, with the joint making up the difference, so the nominal math lands right. The one layout that looks like it needs no cutting at all (12 by 12 units on a 12 by 12 patio) almost never delivers. String the diagonals before you lay a single course. Two inches of skew across that square puts a cut on every edge.
How much paver base for a 10x10 patio
The base under a 10 by 10 patio is bigger than the patio itself. The surface is 100 square feet, but extend the dig 6 inches past every edge and you’re compacting 121. At 4 inches that comes to 1.49 cubic yards of crushed base (roughly 2 to 2.25 tons), plus 0.31 cubic yards of bedding sand over the paved area only.
Buy it bulk. That 1.49 cubic yards is 40 cubic feet, which is 81 of the half-cubic-foot bags of paver base. That’s more than a full pallet of them, at several times the yard price. It’s also a compacted, in-place figure, so if your supplier sells loose by the yard, add the 15 to 20 percent that gravel loses under the plate.
Specify a dense-graded crushed base with fines in it. Call it crusher run, #411, CA-6 or Granular A in Canada, whatever your region calls it. Clean washed stone such as #57 has no fines to bind the mix, so it never really locks up. A patio built on it stays springy no matter how many passes you make.
Paver base depth for a driveway vs patio
The CMHA minimums are four inches under a patio and six under a residential driveway. Both figures mean compacted base, and both assume well-drained soil. Cold climates, clay, or ground that stays wet want another two to four inches on top, so real driveways usually land at 8 to 12 inches. Across Canada and the northern states, frost makes 6 to 8 inches the practical patio minimum too.
Bedding sand stays one inch either way.
To scale the base figure this calculator shows, just multiply. Six inches is 1.5 times the 4 inch number, 8 inches is double, 10 is two and a half times, and 12 is triple. So the 2.09 cubic yards under a 12 by 12 patio becomes 5.22 cubic yards if you rebuild that same footprint as a parking pad at 10 inches.
Depth is driven by what sits underneath far more than by what drives on top. Those extra inches exist to spread load across soil that can’t take it on its own. Build it in lifts of no more than 4 inches and compact every one. A 10 inch base is three passes with the plate, not one deep pour you drive over and hope.
How many pavers in a pallet
It depends on unit size, and the real count is printed on the pallet tag. A 60 mm Pavestone Holland pallet holds 480 four-by-eight pavers covering 103 square feet. Unilock’s Holland Premier runs 540 pieces over 118, and Belgard’s Holland 540 over 120, while Oldcastle’s own Holland pallet is 486.
Large-format pallets drop to 100 twelve-inch squares or 64 eighteen-inch ones. Canadian yards tend to stock Techo-Bloc, Permacon, Barkman and Expocrete rather than Pavestone and Belgard, but the pallet tag is still the only count worth trusting.
Order against coverage rather than piece count. Most 60 mm pallets sit in the 100 to 120 square foot band, but a thinner 45 mm Holland stacks 672 pieces for 145 square feet on the same footprint. Across the market, pallets range from under 80 square feet to over 150. Weight follows coverage, so 103 square feet of 60 mm concrete at roughly 28 pounds per square foot is about 2,900 pounds.
Then watch the round-up. The 700 bricks a 12 by 12 patio needs is 1.5 Pavestone pallets, so you buy two and finish with about 260 spares. That’s the matching stock you want in the shed anyway, because most yards won’t take back a broken pallet.
Do I need edge restraint on a paver patio
Yes. CMHA requires a restraint around the entire perimeter of any sand-set paver pavement, and anywhere the surface material changes. Without one the outer courses rotate outward under load and freeze-thaw, joints open, joint sand washes out, and the whole field creeps. A 12 by 12 patio needs 48 linear feet of it.
Getting it right comes down to two details. The restraint must bear on compacted base and never on the bedding sand (Snap Edge’s own engineering spec says so flatly). And the base has to run past it by at least its own thickness, which is the real reason the excavation is bigger than the patio.
Spike it with 3/8 inch steel landscape spikes, 10 inches long at 12 inch centers. The 18 and 24 inch spacings printed on the packet only apply where full-depth sod goes straight back against the edging to root through it.
Hold that 12 inch spacing on anything vehicular. It’s the tightest the spec publishes, and the one Snap Edge requires on commercial work that isn’t sod-backfilled. Keep at least an inch of restraint face bearing against the side of the paver too.
Common questions
How much extra should I order?
For a rectangular patio, eight to ten percent is usually enough, and fifteen for herringbone or curved edges. Keep the leftovers, because replacements from a later batch rarely match.
Do I need polymeric sand?
It’s usually worth it. Polymeric sand hardens in the joints, locks the pavers together and cuts down a lot on weeds and ant nests compared with plain joint sand.
How thick should the gravel base be?
Patios and walkways want four inches compacted. Go to six to eight inches for driveways, or for clay soils that hold water and don’t drain well.
How deep do I need to excavate for a paver patio?
Add the layers together (paver thickness, one inch of bedding sand and the compacted base). A 60 mm paver on a four inch base works out at about 7 3/8 inches below the finished level for foot traffic. A driveway on eight to twelve inches of base needs eleven to fifteen. Set a string line at finished paver height first and dig down from it.
How much bigger than the patio should the gravel base be?
Extend the compacted base at least six inches beyond the paver edge on every side so the edge restraint bears on base rather than soil. On a 12 by 10 ft patio that’s a 13 by 11 ft dig, or 143 square feet of base against 120 of paving, roughly nineteen percent more gravel than the surface area implies.
Do I need 60 mm or 80 mm pavers?
60 mm (2 3/8 in) is the ASTM C936 minimum and is intended for patios, walkways and other pedestrian areas. Use 80 mm (3 1/8 in) for driveways, parking pads and anywhere a vehicle turns. Large-format units over 101 square inches of face fall outside C936 altogether. They’re slabs rather than interlocking pavers, so patio use only.
How much slope does a paver patio need?
CMHA asks for a minimum of two percent away from the building, which is about a quarter inch of fall per foot, or nearly two and a half inches across a ten foot patio. Build the fall into the subgrade and base so the bedding sand stays a uniform inch. A patio that looks level to the eye almost always has too little fall to drain.
How many bags of polymeric sand will I need?
It depends on joint width far more than area. A 50 lb bag covers roughly 75 to 100 square feet at 1/8 inch joints, dropping to about 35 to 50 square feet at quarter to three-eighths inch joints. Small units such as 4 by 8 bricks have more joint per square foot than 12 by 12s, so budget more sand for them.
How many pavers do I need for a 10 x 10 patio?
Work from one hundred square feet. At 8% waste that’s 486 four-by-eight bricks, 432 six-inch squares, 243 eight-inch squares, 162 eight-by-twelves, 108 twelve-inch squares, or 54 twelve-by-twenty-four planks. Add 1.23 cubic yards of base for the paved area alone, or 1.49 once you extend the dig 6 inches past every edge.
How many pallets of pavers is a 12 x 12 patio?
Two, for almost any small unit. At 103 to 120 square feet per pallet, 144 square feet of surface (700 bricks once cuts are allowed for) works out at 1.3 to 1.5 pallets, and yards sell whole ones. Take both on the same delivery so the dye lot matches, and keep the remainder as repair stock.
Can I skip the edge restraint where the patio meets the house?
Yes. A house wall, a poured step or an existing concrete curb already provides the vertical restraint, which is why the edge figure here tells you to deduct any wall. Everything else (grass, beds, gravel, a step down) still needs it. So a 12 by 12 patio tight against the house is 36 feet of restraint, not 48.