Paver Calculator

The paver count is the patio area divided by the face area of one paver, plus a waste allowance for cuts and breakage. The table uses standard 6×9 inch concrete pavers in a running bond, the most common patio setup, with 5% added for waste.

Pavers are sold by the pallet or by the square foot of coverage rather than by the piece at most yards, so convert the count to square feet when you order. A 20×20 patio in 6×9 pavers needs 1,120 pieces. For a sense of what these sizes look like built, browse patio design ideas.

Smaller pavers mean more pieces per square foot, more handling and more joints to fill. Larger slabs go down faster but are heavier, and they need a flatter base because they bridge small dips instead of settling into them.

The paver stone count only changes with face size. Thickness matters for strength, not for the count: thicker units are used for driveways. Most yards list a coverage figure per pallet, so divide your square footage by it and round up to whole pallets. Our concrete pavers guide covers common shapes, finishes and thicknesses.

A 12×12 patio is 144 square feet. In 6×9 pavers with a running bond you need 404 pavers; in 45° herringbone the extra cuts push that to 442. In 4×8 brick pavers it is 681 in running bond and 746 in herringbone.

Beyond the pavers, a 12×12 patio also needs about 3.2 tons of base gravel at 4 inches, 0.6 tons of bedding sand, 3 bags of polymeric sand and 48 feet of edge restraint. If one edge sits against the house, edging drops to 36 feet.

Every pattern needs extra pavers for the cuts at the edges. Simple patterns like running bond only need cut pieces along two sides. Herringbone laid at 45° needs a cut on nearly every edge paver, and the offcuts are often too small to reuse.

Curved borders add another 5%: a 12×12 patio with a curved edge in running bond takes 423 pavers instead of 404. If you want a herringbone look, see this herringbone brick patio for how it reads at patio scale.

A paver patio is a layered system: compacted gravel base, a thin bed of sand, the pavers, joint sand, and an edge restraint to hold it all in place. This takeoff gives every layer for common patio sizes with 6×9 pavers on a 4-inch base.

Base and sand are in tons, the unit most landscape yards sell by. Polymeric sand is counted in 50 lb bags for narrow joints. Want to know what all of this costs installed? Run the same size through the paver patio cost calculator.

Patios need 4 inches of compacted crushed-stone base, driveways 8 inches, and clay or freeze-thaw soil adds 2 more. On top goes a 1-inch screeded layer of bedding sand.

Bags in the table are 0.5 cu ft each, the common retail size; above a couple of tons, bulk delivery is usually easier. The paver base calculator handles depth by soil and use, and the paver sand calculator gives bedding sand in tons, cubic yards and bags.

Without an edge restraint, the outer pavers slowly creep outward and the joints open up. Plastic or aluminum edging spiked into the base is the usual choice; a concrete curb or a soldier course set in concrete also works. You can skip edging only where the patio butts against a foundation or a wall.

Edging is measured along the perimeter. "Three sides" assumes the longest side runs along the house. For joint sand, the polymeric sand calculator gives the bag count for narrow and wide joints.

Clay and concrete bricks in the 4×8 inch size cover 0.22 sq ft each versus 0.375 sq ft for a 6×9 paver, so you need noticeably more pieces. They suit traditional patterns like basketweave and herringbone, which raise the waste allowance.

Counts above are for running bond. Herringbone brick on a 12×12 patio comes to 746 bricks. Natural stone is sold by weight rather than by piece; for it, use the flagstone calculator.

• Order the full quantity at once. Concrete pavers vary slightly in color between production runs. Pavers bought later from a different lot can look patchy next to the originals.
• Mix from several pallets while laying. Pulling from three or four pallets at once blends any color variation across the whole patio.
• Keep the waste allowance. The calculator already adds 5% for a running bond. Round up to whole pallets rather than cutting the allowance.
• Keep spares. A few leftover pavers let you replace a stained or cracked unit years later with a matching one.
• Check delivery access. Pallets come by boom truck or forklift, so confirm where they can be set down.

The concrete patio vs pavers comparison explains how pavers hold up against a poured slab over time.

Quantities first, then price. For the default 12×12 patio, the materials in the list above come to about $810–2,100 if you do the work yourself, and roughly $1,150–3,150 installed by a contractor in 2026. The paver patio cost calculator prices any size and material, and the paver installation cost calculator breaks out labor. Every number on this page is traceable on our methodology page.