We do not publish a per-square-foot rate, and it is worth explaining why rather than leaving it looking evasive. It is because the number would be wrong for most of the people reading it, and confidently wrong is worse than absent.
Two 400-square-foot patios can differ in price by a large multiple. Not because one contractor is greedy, but because one of them is a flat lot with a wide side gate and the other is a hillside property with a three-foot side yard, expansive soil and eight inches of reinforced concrete to remove first. Square footage is one input among several, and often not the dominant one.
What follows is what actually moves the number, roughly in order of how much it moves it. If you are comparing quotes, these are the lines to look for.
1. Demolition and haul-off
This is routinely the biggest surprise, and on some jobs it exceeds the cost of the new surface.
Removing an existing surface means breaking it, loading it and paying to dispose of it, and disposal is priced by weight. Two variables drive it: thickness and reinforcement. A four-inch unreinforced slab is routine work. A six-inch slab with rebar through it is a different machine, more labour and more truck loads, and the difference between those two is not small.
This is why we measure existing slab thickness during the estimate rather than assuming. It is also why Long Beach jobs often carry a heavier demolition line than the city average. A lot of the housing stock is older, with original concrete that was poured thick.
What to check in a quote: demolition and disposal should be a separate, visible line. If it is folded into a single lump sum, ask what slab thickness it assumes and what happens if the actual slab is thicker.
2. Grade and drainage
On a flat lot, grading is a modest part of the job. On a slope. It can be most of it.
Cut and fill costs money in both directions: material leaving costs disposal, material arriving costs purchase and placement. Slope also frequently brings a retaining wall into scope, and a structural wall is its own project with its own engineering and permit path.
Then there is drainage, which on sloped ground is not optional. A surface that changes where water goes on a hillside without a plan for it is a foundation problem waiting for a wet winter.
This is why quotes vary so much within a single city. In Glendale roughly half the yards we look at need a wall or a regrade before a paver goes down. In Whittier the rolling Puente Hills side and the flat Uptown lots are effectively two different cities from a pricing standpoint.
What to check: grading and drainage as separate line items. A bidder who cannot break them out has not priced them, and a quote that omits a wall your yard needs is not cheaper. It is a smaller, different job.
3. Access
Everything has to get in, and everything that comes out has to get out.
A yard reachable through a wide side gate can take a machine, which means base material is moved in bulk. A yard reachable only through the house, or up a narrow flight of steps, means the same tonnage moves by wheelbarrow and by hand. The material cost is identical; the labour is not remotely.
Street conditions add to it. In Studio City, where narrow streets and tight driveways are the norm, staging gets planned before the crew arrives and we often run smaller, more frequent deliveries rather than blocking access. In Beverly Hills, restricted working hours and haul-off routing rules stretch the schedule, that affects duration more than price, but a longer job is not free either.
What to check: whether the contractor actually walked the access route. If nobody looked at how material reaches the back of your property, the labour number is a guess.
4. Base depth, which is where quotes really diverge
Here is the uncomfortable part. The largest single difference between a good quote and a cheap one is frequently base depth, and it is invisible in the finished product.
Base rock costs money to buy, to move and to compact, and each additional lift is another pass. Cutting the base by a couple of inches is the easiest way to win a bid and the fastest way to produce a surface that fails in three years instead of thirty. Nobody can tell by looking at the finished patio which one they bought.
The depth should reflect your soil and your use. Expansive clay wants more than well-draining sandy ground. A driveway wants more than a patio, because a stationary car turning its wheels grinds at the surface in a way footsteps never do.
What to check: ask every bidder what base depth they are using and why that depth for your lot. You are not grading the technical answer. You are finding out who has one.
5. Material choice
Paver units vary in price considerably, and unlike the items above, this one is genuinely your call.
What moves it: unit size and format, whether it is a standard or premium range, thickness rating, and how many colours the pattern uses. Large-format units generally lay faster, which can offset a higher unit price with lower labour. Intricate patterns like herringbone are beautiful and generate far more cuts, which is labour.
Border courses in a contrasting colour are one of the better value decisions available, they add a small amount of material and labour and change how finished the surface reads, particularly on small yards like the compact lots in Culver City and West Hollywood where you take in the whole surface at once.
6. Permits, HOAs and engineering
Mostly a schedule cost rather than a large money cost, but it is real.
A driveway apron touching the public right of way generally needs a permit. Retaining walls need one above a certain height, and engineering with it. HOA communities, Calabasas, Westlake Village, usually require an architectural submittal before work can start, and the review window is not something a contractor controls.
What to check: that the quote states which permits apply and who is obtaining them. "Owner to obtain permits" buried in a quote is a meaningful cost and delay landing on you.
What this means when you are comparing two quotes
If two bids for the same yard differ substantially. The difference is almost always in one of the six areas above, and usually in demolition, grading or base depth. Those are also the three that are hardest to see and easiest to leave out.
So rather than comparing bottom lines, compare the lines. Ask each bidder for demolition, grading, drainage and base as separate items. The quote that looks more expensive quite often turns out to be the only one that included all four, and the cheap one is not a better price for the same job. It is a price for a different and smaller job that you will discover halfway through.
One number that is worth having in mind: across the projects we signed between April and July 2026, the average project value was about $27, 400. That is an average across a wide mix of scopes and sizes, so it is not a quote and should not be read as one, but it is a real figure from our own board rather than an industry estimate.
Related reading: pavers versus concrete over thirty years, and how to spot a bad paver installation.