Paver Calculator
Work out how many pavers a patio or walkway needs, plus the sand bedding layer underneath. Enter the area and paver size for the count, cuts allowance and sand volume.
Pavers needed
Pavers round up to whole units. Sand bedding assumes a compacted gravel base below it, sized separately.
How to calculate pavers
Start with the area to be paved in square feet: length times width for a rectangle, or π times the radius squared for a circular patio. Then find the area of a single paver by converting its length and width from inches to feet and multiplying them together. Dividing the total area by one paver's area gives the base count, which the calculator then rounds up and scales by your waste percentage to cover cuts along edges and any pattern. The formula is pavers = total area ÷ paver area × (1 + waste %), rounded up to a whole paver.
Why waste allowance matters more here
Unlike poured concrete, pavers are a fixed unit, so every edge, border and curve forces a cut, and a cut paver still uses a whole piece. A simple rectangular layout with a running-bond pattern needs only about 10 percent extra. Diagonal, herringbone or basketweave patterns, or a patio with curves and borders, can need 15 percent or more because more pieces land on a cut line. Round up rather than down; a few spare pavers also become useful replacements if one cracks later.
The full base, not just the pavers
A paver patio that lasts is built in layers: compacted subgrade, then 4 to 6 inches of compacted gravel or crushed stone for a stable base, then a thin 1 inch sand bedding layer that the pavers are set into and leveled against, then the pavers themselves, often finished with polymeric sand swept into the joints. This calculator sizes the pavers and the sand bedding layer; size the gravel sub-base separately with the gravel calculator or crushed stone calculator, since its depth and density are different from the bedding sand.
Common paver sizes
Square and rectangular concrete pavers commonly come in 12x12, 6x9, 6x6 and 4x8 inch (brick-style) sizes, though natural stone and specialty pavers vary widely. Enter the exact length and width printed on your product's spec sheet rather than a rounded figure, since even a small size error compounds across a large area. For irregular or natural flagstone instead of uniform pavers, use the flagstone calculator, which estimates by weight rather than piece count.