A guy in Ohio texted me his numbers last spring after a patio job went sideways: quoted $2,400 for a 300-square-foot slab, priced off what a buddy charged the year before, and came out $340 ahead after materials and gas. Then he did the math on his own labor — twelve hours between demo, forms, the pour, and finishing — and he'd made about eleven bucks an hour tearing out the old broken slab underneath it. He'd forgotten that part was even in the job.
That's the trap with concrete pricing. The pour itself is the easy part to estimate — you can look up a rough per-square-foot number in about ten seconds. What eats your profit is everything the internet number doesn't include: the demo, the truck minimum, the weather delay, the guy who needs a pump because his backyard gate is 30 inches wide. Get those wrong twice and you're working for free on your third job of the season without knowing it.
Start with your real cost, not a rule of thumb
Before you quote anything, you need four numbers, and "concrete runs about $8 a square foot" isn't one of them.
Materials. Ready-mix runs roughly $150–$180 per cubic yard delivered in most markets right now, more in areas with a longer haul from the batch plant. Add rebar or wire mesh, forms (lumber you may not get back), a curing compound or sealer, and gravel base if the site needs one.
Labor — including yours. Pay yourself an hourly rate, not "whatever's left." If you can't say what your own hour is worth, you can't tell a profitable job from a charity one. A helper for the pour day runs $20–$35/hour in most areas; a full flatwork crew day (delivery to broom finish) is usually 6–10 hours depending on the size and the finish.
Equipment. A power screed, bull float, and edging tools you already own don't need to be re-priced every job, but rentals do — a concrete pump for a hard-access backyard can run $500–$900 for the day, and that number needs to land in the quote, not come out of your margin.
Overhead and disposal. Tear-out debris has to go somewhere, and dump fees for old concrete aren't free. Add 10–15% on top of your direct costs to cover insurance, fuel, and the truck payment before you even get to profit.
Add it up, then mark it up. Most solo and small-crew concrete operators run a 20–35% margin on top of true cost — tighter on plain flatwork, wider on stamped or decorative work where your skill is the actual product.
Price the site, not just the square footage
Two 400-square-foot patios can cost you completely different amounts to build. Square footage tells you how much concrete you need. It doesn't tell you how hard it'll be to get it there or how long it'll take to finish.
Walk the site and price these separately:
- Access. Can the mixer truck back up to a chute-reach pour, or does concrete need to be wheelbarrowed 80 feet around the side of the house? Every wheelbarrow run is labor time and a chance for the mix to start setting before it's placed.
- Prep. Is the ground already graded and compacted, or are you clearing roots, an old shed pad, or six inches of clay that needs to come out and get replaced with gravel base?
- Tear-out. If there's an existing slab, that demo is its own line item — saw cutting, breaking, hauling. Price it like the separate job it is, because it eats a full day on its own more often than people plan for.
- Finish. A broom finish and a stamped, colored, exposed-aggregate finish are not the same job even at identical square footage. Decorative work takes longer, uses more material (color hardener, release agent, sealer), and is where your actual craft shows — price accordingly.
What the market's actually paying (rough ranges — check your region)
| Job type | Typical range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Plain flatwork (sidewalk, small pad) | $5–$8/sq ft | Access, base prep, thickness |
| Standard driveway | $6–$12/sq ft | Size, base condition, rebar vs mesh |
| Plain patio | $8–$13/sq ft | Access, finish, forming complexity |
| Stamped or decorative patio | $15–$25+/sq ft | Pattern, color, sealer, crew skill |
| Tear-out of existing slab | Often priced separately | Thickness, rebar in old slab, haul distance to dump |
Use these to sanity-check a quote, not to build one. A number pulled off a website doesn't know your delivery cost, your dump fee, or how far the truck has to back up on this specific street.
The truck minimum will bite you on small jobs
Ready-mix plants charge by the yard and most have a minimum load — often 4–6 yards — with a short-load fee if you order less. That means a small sidewalk or a single stoop pour that only needs 1.5 yards can cost you almost the same delivery fee as a full driveway. If you don't build that minimum into the price, you eat it. Either price small jobs high enough to absorb the short-load fee, batch two small jobs on the same delivery when the schedule allows it, or bid it as hand-mixed bagged concrete instead of a truck — and say so in the quote, because customers assume "concrete guy" means "truck shows up."
Heat, rain, and the schedule you can't control
Summer is peak pouring season for a reason — customers want the patio done before the cookout — but it's also when concrete sets fastest and gets hardest to finish right. Morning pours beat the heat. A hot, windy day can crust the surface before you're done troweling it, and rain on fresh concrete before it sets can ruin the finish outright. Build a weather cushion into your schedule, not just your price: tell the customer up front that a pour date can move 24–48 hours for weather, and put it in writing on the estimate so it's not a surprise call the morning of.
Get paid like the material cost is real, because it is
Concrete is one of the few trades where you're out real cash before the job is even half done — you're paying for a full truckload the day it shows up whether the customer pays you that week or not. Collect a deposit that at minimum covers your material and delivery cost before you schedule the truck. A branded estimate the customer approves on their phone, with the deposit built in, reads a lot more professional than "I'll need some money up front" texted the night before.
When to walk
Not every job is worth the truck. If a driveway needs a full excavation and drainage fix before it needs concrete, price the excavation honestly or refer it to someone who does that work — don't eat the cost trying to make it "just a pour." And if access is bad enough that a pump rental turns a $2,000 patio into a $2,800 one, tell the customer that number before you show up, not after.
Pricing concrete right isn't about finding the perfect per-square-foot number. It's about knowing your real cost on every job — the truck, the tear-out, the weather day you lose — before you say a price out loud. SideWRK's concrete cost calculator walks you through those variables on the spot, and the concrete trade page shows how the app tracks material cost, labor, and real profit per job instead of just revenue. If you also do the outdoor rotation, the landscaping pricing guide and roofing pricing guide cover the same real-cost-first approach for those trades.
See it running on a concrete job before you commit to anything — try the live demo, no signup needed. Or start your free 14-day trial and quote the next slab with your actual numbers instead of a guess.
FAQ
How much does concrete cost per square foot?
Plain flatwork like a sidewalk or small pad typically runs $5-$8 per square foot, a standard driveway $6-$12, a plain patio $8-$13, and stamped or decorative work $15-$25+ per square foot. Those are starting points, not a quote — access, base prep, and finish complexity move the number more than square footage alone.
What should I include in a concrete quote besides the pour?
Materials, labor (including your own time), equipment rentals like a pump for hard-access sites, and overhead for disposal and insurance all need to be priced separately from the slab itself. Tear-out of an existing slab in particular is its own job — saw cutting, breaking, and hauling can eat a full day on its own.
Why do small concrete jobs cost more per square foot than big ones?
Ready-mix plants charge a delivery minimum, often 4-6 yards, so a small job that only needs 1.5 yards still pays close to the same delivery fee as a full driveway. Pricing small jobs high enough to absorb that short-load fee, or batching two small pours on one delivery, protects your margin.
How much deposit should I collect for a concrete job?
Collect a deposit that covers at minimum your material and delivery cost before scheduling the truck, since you're paying for a full load of ready-mix the day it arrives whether the customer pays that week or not. It's standard practice in the trade and protects you from being out real cash on a job that stalls.
