Patios look like the easiest job in the trade to price. You’ve got an area, you’ve got a rate per square metre, multiply and send. That works right up until the digger hits a concrete raft nobody mentioned, or the spoil turns out to be four grab loads instead of two.

The paving is the part the customer looks at and the part they compare between quotes. It’s almost never the part that decides whether the job made money. That happens underground — in the dig depth, the spoil, the sub-base and the access route your barrows have to take. Price those first and the paving rate looks after itself.

Survey the ground, not the garden

A patio survey is mostly about things you can’t see from the patio doors. Walk the whole route and write down:

Levels. Where is the finished surface going, and what does it have to meet? Paving has to sit below the damp-proof course where it runs up to the house, and it has to fall away from the building. A garden that slopes back towards the house is a different job — you’re into a raised deck edge, a step, or a channel drain, not a flat lay.
Access. Can a wagon or grab lorry get to the front? Is there a side gate, and how wide is it? A 40m² patio with a 750mm gate and a 25-metre barrow run through a lawn is a couple of extra days on its own, plus boards to protect the grass.
What’s already there. Turf and topsoil, old concrete, a broken slab patio bedded on a 150mm slab, or a shed base? Breaking out reinforced concrete and a patio strip-out are not remotely the same price.
Drainage. Where is the water going? Existing gullies, a soakaway, an ACO run to a border. Check what the downpipes currently do, too — a lot of patios get built over a gully that then can’t be rodded.
Services. Gas and water runs to the house, an armoured cable to a garage, a septic run. Ask, and dig a trial hole if the answer is vague.
Ground conditions. Wet clay, made ground, tree roots close to where you’re digging. Clay in February digs and carts very differently to clay in July.

Photograph the lot, including the access route and the existing levels against the house — you’ll want that when the customer later calls the old patio “a couple of slabs”.

Work out the dig before you price the paving

This is the calculation most underpriced patios skip. Build up your depth from the top down, then turn it into volume.

For a typical domestic patio with foot traffic only:

Paving thickness                        20mm (porcelain) – 50mm (riven sandstone)
Bedding (full mortar bed)               40mm
Compacted sub-base (MOT Type 1)         100–150mm
                                        -------
Dig depth below finished level          ~200–250mm

Now the numbers for a 40m² patio at a 250mm dig — work yours from your own depths:

Spoil: 40m² × 0.25m = 10m³ in the ground. Dug material bulks up as you lift it, so reckon on nearer 12–13m³ loose. Depending on what it is, that’s roughly 18–20 tonnes to move.
Grab loads: a grab lorry takes something in the region of 15 tonnes, so that’s two loads, not one — and that assumes it can get within reach of the heap.
Sub-base: 40m² × 0.15m = 6m³ compacted. Type 1 consolidates, so order around a quarter more loose — call it 7.5m³, roughly 15 tonnes delivered.

Two things fall out of that. First, on a job like this you’re often moving more weight out than you bring in, and the muck-away is a real line item, not a rounding error. Second, if the wagon can’t reach the heap, every tonne of both figures goes through a barrow — that’s the number to get straight before you quote a rate per metre.

Where patios get underpriced

Almost always in the same four places:

The sub-base. Whacking 150mm of Type 1 in layers takes time, plant and materials. It’s also invisible in the finished job, which is exactly why a cheap quote thins it down to 50mm and a scatter of sharp sand. If you’re pricing it properly, say what depth you’re laying on the quote — it’s the one line that explains why you’re dearer than the bloke who quoted per slab.
Muck-away. Skip hire, grab loads, tip charges and permits, plus the labour to get the spoil to wherever the lorry can reach.
Breaking out. An existing concrete base, a set of old steps, or a slab with mesh in it. Breaker hire, extra spoil weight, and disposal at a different rate to soil.
Cutting. Bonds around a manhole, a bay window, a circle feature or a step nosing. Porcelain cutting is slow, needs a wet saw and consumables, and generates waste you’ve paid for.

The paving choice swings the price more than the area

Two 40m² patios can be a week apart on labour with the same dig. What moves it:

	Slower and dearer to lay	Quicker to lay
Material	Porcelain (slurry-primed, wet-cut)	Concrete flags, standard sizes
Sizes	Mixed/random sizes, calibrated large formats	One consistent size
Pattern	Herringbone, circles, soldier courses, borders	Stack or stretcher bond
Shape	Curves, bays, manholes, steps	A simple rectangle
Finish	Narrow joints, brush-in resin jointing	Standard pointing

Price the labour against the actual material and pattern, not a generic square-metre rate. And if the customer is still choosing between sandstone and porcelain, quote the option you surveyed and note that the other will be re-priced — porcelain’s priming and cutting time is not a like-for-like swap.

Edgings, drainage and falls

These are small lines that cause big arguments when they’re missing:

Edge restraint — haunched kerbs, a soldier course, or a concrete upstand. Any laid surface without a restrained edge will creep.
Falls — get the fall on the quote. Something in the region of 1:80 away from the house is the usual starting point, but it depends where the water’s going.
A channel drain where paving meets the house or a garage threshold, with a clear note on what it connects into.
Permeability. Front gardens and driveways have rules about surface water run-off, and where your water discharges matters. Explain the concept to the customer, then check the current requirements on gov.uk and with the local authority rather than guessing — this is general guidance, not a legal opinion.

What to exclude, in writing

State your assumptions plainly. The three that save the most grief:

Price assumes the existing surface is turf and topsoil. Any concrete, hardcore or made ground encountered will be priced and agreed before removal.

Price assumes grab lorry access to the front driveway. Barrowing spoil beyond that point will be charged as additional labour.

Ground conditions and drainage connections are as visible at survey. Any work arising below ground will be agreed in writing beforehand.

That’s the same discipline as pricing a job when you can’t see everything, and it’s what keeps a surprise out of the final invoice — every extra priced and agreed before you do it, not sprung at the end.

Present it per area and itemised

Split the quote by area where there’s more than one — patio, path, steps, turf — so the customer can add or drop a section without renegotiating the whole job. Then itemise inside each area so the groundworks are visible.

An illustrative shape only — your rates, tip charges and hire prices will be different:

Rear patio — 40m² porcelain
  Excavate to 250mm, remove turf and topsoil                £  480
  Muck-away: 2 grab loads inc. tip charges                  £  560
  Supply, lay and compact 150mm MOT Type 1 sub-base          £  720
  Haunched soldier-course edging to garden side (11 lm)      £  330
  Channel drain to patio doors, connect to existing gully    £  290
  Lay 40m² porcelain on full mortar bed, slurry primed       £2,400
  Brush-in jointing and clean down                           £  360
  Contingency — allowance for obstructions below ground      £  250
                                                            ------
                                                            £5,390
                                                   (+ VAT if registered)
Steps to lawn (2 risers) — priced separately                £  640

Note the contingency is a named line rather than money hidden in the paving rate. If nothing turns up, you take it off and look generous. If a concrete base does turn up, you’ve already had the conversation. That structure — clear stages, clear inclusions, one total — is covered in more depth in what every professional quote should include, and the same stage-by-stage method applies indoors too: see quoting a bathroom renovation.

Put a validity period on it — aggregate and paving prices move, and a patio quoted in March for an August start needs re-pricing.

The takeaway

Survey the access and the existing surface before you think about a rate per metre. Build your dig depth from the top down, turn it into cubic metres, and price the spoil and the sub-base as real, visible lines. Let the paving choice set the labour rather than a generic figure. Then state what you’ve assumed about the ground, and price the unknown as an allowance instead of swallowing it.

Do that and a patio becomes one of the most predictable jobs you quote — because the part that used to catch you out is now on the page.

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How to Quote a Patio or Landscaping Job