What to charge for a concrete slab or driveway
Price it by the square foot, and let the thickness set the concrete. The square feet are what your customer buys; the cubic yards are what you buy. Cost the yards you order, the rest of the materials, your crew's hours and whatever the pour needs besides. A price above that, divided by the square feet, is your price for a square foot at that thickness.
By TailGateBid. .
A square foot at what thickness?
A price for a square foot of concrete means nothing until a thickness stands beside it. The square feet stay the same and the yards do not: half again as thick is half again as much concrete to buy.
So this page keeps the two apart. The boxes take the square feet and the thickness, count the yards, and hand the calculator a job whose size is the square feet. Change the thickness and watch the price for a square foot move.
The thickness itself is not ours to give. It comes from the plans, an engineer or your building department. This page asks for it and says nothing about what it should be.
The sum
- Each piece's length times its width, added up, is the square feet. That is the size of the job.
- Square feet times the thickness in inches, divided by 12, is cubic feet. Divided by 27, it is cubic yards.
- Add the extra you order. The ready mixed concrete producers' association gives 4% to 10% more than the plan dimensions: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, CIP 31: Ordering Ready Mixed Concrete. Then round up to what your plant sells.
- The yards ordered, at what a yard costs you delivered, plus the rest of the materials, is the materials.
- Everyone's hours at what an hour costs you, plus the materials, plus anything else, is what the slab costs you. Pick a price above it and divide by the square feet.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the slab
These boxes add the pieces up into square feet, count the cubic yards to order, and put the concrete, the hours and the rest in the calculator below.
A driveway and its walk are two pieces. A new row opens when the last one is filled.
What the plans call for, the same for every piece. This page does not say how thick a slab should be.
It starts at 10; put in your own.
Your plant's price for the mix on the plans. Leave it empty to see only the yards.
Forms, base, steel, joint and sealer. Footings and anything poured from bags go here too.
Leave it empty if you work alone.
Every day of it: digging out, forming, the pour, the finish, pulling the forms.
Type the length and the width of the slab. The square feet show here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each square foot.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
A driveway and a walk, priced
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a driveway is 12 by 40 feet and its walk 4 by 30: 600 square feet, 4 inches thick on the plans. That is 7.41 cubic yards, and with 10% extra 8.15, so you order 8.5. Say a yard costs you $165 delivered, a made-up price: $1,402.50 of concrete, and $380 more for forms, base and sealer makes $1,782.50. Say 3 people are on it for 12 hours each: 36 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $2,053.80. Say the pump costs you $120. The job costs you $3,956.30. Charge $5,652 and you keep $1,695.70, which is $30 of every $100. That is $9.42 a square foot, at that thickness.
The same slab at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $4,396 | $439.70 | $10 |
| $4,946 | $989.70 | $20 |
| $5,652 | $1,695.70 | $30 |
| $6,594 | $2,637.70 | $40 |
| $7,913 | $3,956.70 | $50 |
What the truck does to the price
- A truck mixer holds 8 to 12 cubic yards, the producers' association says: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, CIP 31: Ordering Ready Mixed Concrete. A small slab is part of a load. Ask your plant what it charges to bring less than a full one, and put the answer in the box for anything else.
- The same sheet says a loaded truck weighs about 80,000 pounds and may not be able to get over loose dirt or a residential curb, and to consider another way of placing the concrete when access is limited. If the truck cannot reach the forms, a pump is money and wheelbarrows are hours.
- It calls concrete a perishable product, says the crew should be ready when the truck arrives, and says concrete normally sets and hardens within two to eight hours of mixing. So the hours of a pour do not spread out: everyone you need is there at once. The people box is where that goes.
- And it says to avoid ordering small clean-up loads. That is what the extra is for.
The days after the pour
- The job is not over when the surface is finished. QUIKRETE's data sheet for its bagged concrete mix says curing should start as soon as possible and go on for 5 days in warm weather, 70 degrees or higher, or 7 days in colder weather, between 50 and 70.
- The same sheet says to protect concrete from freezing during its first 48 hours.
- Those are one maker's words about its own mix. For ready-mix, ask your plant what the mix you ordered needs.
- Either way, coming back to wet it, cover it, strip the forms or seal it is hours and miles. See what a trip costs you, and count each one.
What gets missed
- What is there now. Breaking out old concrete and hauling it off is its own hours and its own loads. Price it apart, as a line of its own.
- The ground. Digging out and bringing in base come before the first form goes down. The hours go in the hours box, and the base in the box for the rest of the materials.
- The edges. A thickened edge or a footing is concrete the square feet do not show. Count it on the concrete counter, with anything you pour from bags.
- The finish. If the customer is choosing between two, quote each as its own option with its own hours.
- The machine. A skid steer, a mixer or a power trowel costs you money on the days it sits: what an hour of your machine costs you.
On a quote
In TailGateBid the slab goes on a quote as a line charged by the square foot, with the concrete beside it by the cubic yard. TailGateBid for concrete work has a patio quote worked through line by line, with a deposit due when the customer approves.
The hour under every figure here is what an hour costs you. If that is still a guess, start there.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
- A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. That is how feet of length and width, and a depth, become cubic yards.
- The box for the extra to order starts at 10 percent. The ready mixed concrete producers' association says to order 4 to 10 percent more than the plan dimensions give. Starting at the top of that range is our choice. National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, CIP 31: Ordering Ready Mixed Concrete, . (our choice, change it)
- The cubic yards to order are rounded up to the next 0.5 of a yard. That step is our choice, not a rule. Ask your ready-mix plant how small a step it sells.
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Concrete calculatorSlabs, footings and round forms into cubic yards to order and bags to buy, with lines to put on a quote.
- ConcreteSquare feet and cubic yards on a quote your customer signs on their phone.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- What a machine costs an hourIn the example, a machine that works 500 hours a year costs $26.60 for each of them, before anyone is paid to run it.
On a TailGateBid quote the slab is a line by the square foot, the concrete a line by the cubic yard, and the tear-out a line of its own.
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