Cost to pour a concrete slab, pad or floor
Contractors bid a typical $10.02 a square foot to pour a 4 to 5 in slab or walk in 2025 and early 2026, and $8.25 to $12.19 for most jobs, across 95 bids in 18 cities. A 12 × 12 ft pad comes to about $1,443.
Where these prices come from
Cities and towns put their sidewalk, driveway and concrete repair work out to bid and publish every contractor's price per square foot or square yard. We collected 21 of those bid tabulations from 2025 and early 2026, across the Northeast, Midwest, South and West, 264 prices in all, and converted each to dollars per square foot. Each city counts once, at the median of its bids, so a city with twelve bidders doesn't outweigh one with two. The typical price is the middle city; "most jobs" is the middle half.
The prices are installed: concrete, labor, forming and finishing, as each city specified the work. Some cities paid separately for digging out, the gravel base or breaking out old concrete, and some included it, so read what a contractor's quote covers before you compare it.
| City | Bids opened | Bids | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brookland, AR | July 2025 | 3 | $5.30 | $5.08 to $7.22 |
| Orlando, FL | June 2025 | 2 | $6.03 | $4.28 to $7.78 |
| Baraboo, WI | February 2025 | 2 | $8.05 | $8.00 to $8.10 |
| Denver, CO | 2025 | 2 | $8.11 | $6.67 to $9.56 |
| Sheboygan, WI | March 2025 | 4 | $8.20 | $7.00 to $9.80 |
| Azle, TX | September 2025 | 5 | $8.42 | $7.42 to $8.70 |
| Hartford, WI | July 2025 | 4 | $9.45 | $6.53 to $12.67 |
| Dickinson, ND | 2025 | 3 | $9.63 | $9.30 to $13.88 |
| Sidney, OH | February 2025 | 7 | $10.00 | $8.50 to $14.00 |
| Fairfield, OH | February 2025 | 3 | $10.04 | $8.00 to $13.00 |
| Carlsbad, CA | June 2025 | 12 | $10.53 | $5.00 to $21.00 |
| Urbandale, IA | February 2026 | 11 | $11.00 | $7.00 to $18.50 |
| St. Peters, MO | 2025 | 4 | $11.25 | $10.26 to $14.00 |
| Morton Grove, IL | March 2025 | 4 | $12.50 | $11.75 to $16.00 |
| Branford, CT | February 2025 | 7 | $16.00 | $12.25 to $25.12 |
| Albany, OR | May 2025 | 14 | $18.06 | $12.11 to $20.56 |
| Bloomfield, CT | March 2025 | 3 | $19.50 | $16.35 to $38.00 |
| Hanover Township, NJ | August 2025 | 5 | $20.56 | $11.67 to $28.89 |
Pad, slab or floor
The same work goes by many names: a pad for a shed or an air-conditioning unit, a patio, a garage or basement floor, a slab. What changes the price is the thickness and what has to come out first. The bids above are for 4 to 5 in of concrete, which suits walks, patios and pads. Work cities specify at 6 in or more, such as driveway aprons, drew a typical $10.60 a square foot; see concrete driveway cost.
To work out how much concrete your slab takes, in cubic yards or bags, use the slab and pad calculator; if it carries a vehicle or a building, plan the steel with the rebar calculator.
Prices by region
Prices run highest in the Northeast and lowest in the South in these bids, with the Midwest close to the national middle. With only a few cities in some regions, take the regional figures as a guide, not a quote.
| Region | Cities | Typical a sq ft | City figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 3 | $19.50 | $16.00 to $20.56 |
| Midwest | 9 | $10.00 | $8.05 to $12.50 |
| South | 3 | $6.03 | $5.30 to $8.42 |
| West | 3 | $10.53 | $8.11 to $18.06 |
What you're paying for
The concrete itself is a small share of the price. At the national ready-mix price of $174 a cubic yard, the concrete for a 4 in slab, with 10% extra, costs about $2.36 a square foot, roughly a quarter of the typical installed price. The rest pays for the crew, forms, base preparation, finishing, equipment and the contractor's overhead. If you'll do the work yourself, the concrete cost calculator budgets the materials, and concrete price per yard explains what ready-mix costs and why.
Replacing an old slab
Breaking out old concrete and pouring new in its place drew a typical $12.00 a square foot ($11.73 to $14.00 for most) in 9 cities. Where cities paid for removal on its own, it cost about $2.24 a square foot. Choose "Break out old concrete" in the calculator for the combined price.
Why a small job costs more
Cities buy concrete work by the thousand square feet, and contractors price it that way. A crew, a truck and a minimum load cost much the same for a 100 sq ft pad as for a long run of sidewalk, so small private jobs usually cost more per foot. Charlotte County, Florida, put a single 550 sq ft repair out to bid in April 2025 and received prices of $25.50 to $30.85 a square foot. Ask three contractors for quotes and enter one in the calculator to see where it sits. Once the slab is poured, the curing schedule shows when you can walk and drive on it.
Sources
- Bid tabulations for city sidewalk, driveway and concrete repair programs, 2025 and 2026, The 21 cities and towns listed in the table on this page, each linked to its own bid tabulation, bids opened February 2025 to February 2026. Every contractor's unit price for concrete sidewalk, driveway and approach work, new and remove-and-replace, converted to dollars per square foot; engineers' estimates left out.
- Annual Performance Benchmarking Survey and State of the Industry, National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, October 2024 (2023 data). Average selling price of ready-mixed concrete: $159.68 per cubic yard in 2023, $137.99 in 2022, $122.98 in 2021; 2023 quartiles $150.03 to $170.66.
- Producer Price Index by Industry: Ready-Mix Concrete Manufacturing (PCU327320327320), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, via FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), monthly, latest September 2026. Index 402.82 in September 2026 (June 1981 = 100), 393.59 a year earlier and 307.18 five years earlier; 2023 average 369.67.