Paver patio cost: national prices and local ranges

Reviewed Nov 4, 2026.

US range (300 sq ft)

$3,000 – $5,450

Per sq ft

$10 – $17

materials and labor

Cheapest metro

$3,500

Dothan, AL

Priciest metro

$5,650

Kahului, HI

A paver patio runs $3,000 to $5,450 nationally for 300 sq ft, or $10 to $17 per sq ft for materials and labor. Where you live moves that number a lot: across 300 metros the midpoint runs from $3,500 in Dothan, AL to $5,650 in Kahului, HI.

Cost breakdown for 300 sq ft in the US

What basic, standard and premium mean

Cost by size and quality level

How a paver patio job goes, step by step

1. Lay out the shape and levels. A patio needs a slight slope away from the house, about a quarter inch per foot is common practice. Mark it before digging.
2. Excavate and compact the base. Most of the labor is in the base: soil removed, compacted aggregate in layers, then a thin leveling bed of sand.
3. Set the pavers and edge restraints. Pavers are laid in a pattern and cut at the edges. Restraints hold the whole field from spreading.
4. Compact and fill the joints. Polymeric or plain sand is swept into the joints and the surface is compacted again. Sealing is optional and most useful on lighter colors.

What changes the price of a paver patio

• Paver material

  Pavers alone average $2-$4 per sq ft but the full range is $1-$15 depending on concrete, brick, or natural stone (HomeGuide).

• Base prep

  The base (road base, fabric, edging, bedding and joint sand) is $1.40-$2.20 per sq ft of the materials number.

• Excavation and grading

  Digging out is $1-$5 per sq ft; regrading a sloped yard is $0.40-$2.00 per sq ft.

• Pattern

  Herringbone and curves take longer to lay and waste more stone than a running bond.

• Permit

  At-grade patios often need no permit; add a retaining wall, a cover, or a connection to the house and that changes.

Wages behind the national estimate

Construction laborers (47-2061) do the largest share of the work, about 50% of the weighting. Their national median is $22.66 an hour. Among 300 metros with a published figure, the median runs from $15.39 in Dothan, AL to $40.23 in Vineland, NJ, and the middle metro sits at $22.70. That ratio between the high and low end is 2.61 to 1, and it feeds straight into the labor line of the estimate.

Add-ons and extras

Extras are quoted nationally and then scaled to the US by the average of the local wage index (1.00) and goods index (1.00), a factor of 1.00. Tick any of them in the estimator above to add them to your total. Treat these as planning figures: an add-on touches different trades than the main job, so the scaling is an approximation.

Does the season matter for paver patio?

We checked NOAA 1991-2020 normals for 300 metros and counted the months with no freezing or heat problem for digging and ground work. 25 metros have all 12 months comfortable; the median metro has 8. The shortest seasons are in Anchorage, AK (5), Bozeman, MT (5), Flagstaff, AZ (5) and Grand Junction, CO (5). The wettest metro is Pensacola; the driest is El Centro at about 3 inches a year.

Local pages show a month-by-month table for each metro. We do not change prices by month, because there is no reliable published seasonal price series.

How much the price varies by city

Across the 300 metros we cover, the midpoint for 300 sq ft runs from $3,500 in Dothan to $5,650 in Kahului, a gap of 61%. The median metro is $4,150, which is −1% against the national midpoint of $4,250. 59 metros are 10% or more above the national figure, 58 are 10% or more below, and 183 sit within 10% of it.

Most expensive metros for paver patio

Least expensive metros for paver patio

Paver patio cost by state