Thread: Paver Pricing

Silent, our local brick manufacturer sells clay pavers by the sq.mtrs, however the don't normally break a pack. Special bricks and pavers such as squints and bullnose are sold per item.

If I needed 13 sq. mtrs I would therefore have to buy to the nearest pack. Can't remember how many in a pack, but we had squillions of them. That is one job I wouldn't want to do again!

With breakage and cutting you would want to buy more than you need anyway.

Yeah I could understand that. Otherwise they'd end up with lots of odds left over and there's a bit of colour variation in clay pavers.

The ones I'm looking at are concrete. I suppose you can still get colour variation but the guy didn't suggest I'd have to buy a full pack. If he wants me to do that, he can stick them and I'll get stencil-crete instead. The price is about the same and I wouldn't have to lay the bloody things.

Depending on where you're located there are some paver places, or garden yards that stock various pallets of different pavers, wall blocks etc. They sell them by the paver if need be, but it depends what they have in stock.

I have also been direct to the manufacturer plant and got a handful of pavers, if you are located nearby call a sales rep and see what they can do

Originally Posted by silentC

Say you have a paver 400 square and you buy 1 sq. metre, you get 6 pavers, which comes to 0.96 sq. metres. Say they're $50 a sq. metre, you're actually paying about $52 per sq. metre covered.

Two sq. metres costs you $100 but you either get 12 pavers at 1.92 sq. metre (or $52 per sq. metre covered), or they give you 13, which leaves you with a spare and costs them $4.

However if you buy 16 sq. metres (which is what I need), you get 100 pavers at exactly $50 per sq. metre.

Seems to me it would make more sense to sell them by the unit. Is this standard?

Yes this is standard and you will find if you buy less than a pack the rate is different as there is a fee for breaking the pack. Many pavers come in odd metreage packs (8.6m2 and the like) but if you are ordering on mass you need to allow for wastage so usually round up to the nearest pack. Generally those places that sell by the piece such as landscape yards are charging far more than the actual metre rate from the manufacturer.

Large format pavers (400 x 400) are generally packed to order and and you can order a given metreage without paying a fee for breaking a pack like you do with clay or small cement pavers.

Many large format manufacturers base their metre rate on a unit price. When buying large format pavers you are not being ripped off if you want to buy one metre. You actually get what you pay for which is either 1.12 metres square for 7 pavers or 0.96 metres square for 6 pavers, you can not actually buy 1 metre as they don't come in parts.

I just finished a paving job where we used 400 square and 600 square edenstone pavers.. They price their paver sin square metre but also have an individual price . the guy said to me when ordering its easier to ask for x amount of pieces rather than x amount of m2. The 400square pavers were $7.12 and the m2 rate was $44.50 which is 6.25 pavers.
Was alor easier for me to work out how many pieces i needed and just order that amount. You guys are right with pavers over 300 square they should be sold as per each.

When buying large format pavers you are not being ripped off if you want to buy one metre. You actually get what you pay for ...

That makes sense. The guy down here seemed to be saying I'd pay $50 for 6 pavers but maybe I misunderstood him.

the guy said to me when ordering its easier to ask for x amount of pieces rather than x amount of m2

That's exactly what I plan to do. I'll tell him how many I want and he can work out the m2.

Silent what you say is only relivent on quantities under 4 sq.m. (or part there of)


You dont get 6 pavers/sq.m you get 6.25. so 4 sq.m is 25 pavers or 10 linear metre's worth (for copping or soldier/header courses-butt jointed)


EDIT You have to expect to get a bit ripped off if you buy less than 4 sq.m.

True if you buy in multiples of 4 m2.

The area I'm doing is actually 3.6 x 3.6 so I need 9 * 9 = 81 pavers. But in sq. metres, that's 12.96. The price of the pavers is quoted at $48 per sq. metre, or $622.08, assuming Burnsy is right and that's the way he works it out.

Just seems like an over complication of something that should be quite straight forward: each paver costs $7.68 and covers 0.16 square metres. If you're doing a rectangular area, you can either divide the sides by the size of the paver and multiply to get a unit count, or you can work out the sq. metres and divide by 0.16 to work out how many you need.

Sq. metre prices are handy for comparing pavers of different sizes but I think it makes more sense to charge by the unit. Like carpet: they give you a sq. metre price as an indication but they charge by the metre.

Originally Posted by silentC

Sq. metre prices are handy for comparing pavers of different sizes but I think it makes more sense to charge by the unit. Like carpet: they give you a sq. metre price as an indication but they charge by the metre.

Silent, this is only true where you are laying a quadrilateral that's length and width is dictated by paver size such as you are.

It is no good where you are measuring up for a job that has triangles, circles and the like as these need to be measured in square metres and need to allow for wastage through cuts.

It is as you say easier, if you are going to use large format pavers and quadrilaterals, to design your landscaping around the paver size. Much easier, neater and more sensible to make a path 1200mm wide than the 1100mm specification that some garden designer has drawn up if you are working with 400 x 400 pavers and there is room.

An example is this landscape I prepared earlier does not matter what format pavers the client decided on, there was no way I was going to count them up

Fair enough too. I can understand brick pavers being worked out by the sq. metre. Yes, I guess I'm really only talking about the large format pavers, 300mm square and up.

Anyway, no biggy, I'll just work out how many I want and let him do the rest. As long as he doesn't round up to the nearsest sq. metre, I'll be happy!

Four other labourers and myself laid a driveway once with those brick pavers. It was a block of retirement units in Ryde. The block was about 200 metres long, plus there were carports for each unit (about 12 I think from memory). That was a lot of pavers. Some of them were straight on the ground, others on about 6" of beach sand. I'd hate to see what it looks like now.

I believe crusher dust is the go these days.