Getting a quote for an interlock driveway in the GTA is often a lesson in frustration. Two contractors give you numbers that are $10,000 apart for what sounds like the same job, and neither explains why.
What you’re actually paying for
An interlock installation is three jobs sold as one: excavation and site prep, base construction, and the paving layer itself. Most homeowners spend their energy on the pavers – the color, the pattern, the brand. That part matters the least. The gap between a $22/sqft installation and a $38/sqft one is almost always in what goes underneath the stone, not what stone you picked.
The base is where the money goes
We’ve been installing interlock across the GTA for over 50 years. The base is 70% of the cost and everything that matters for long-term performance. In the GTA you’re dealing with clay soil and freeze-thaw cycles that are genuinely hard on poorly built work.
A driveway that holds up needs 8-10 inches of excavation total, 6-8 inches of compacted granular A aggregate (not crusher run, not recycled concrete – granular A), properly graded concrete sand as bedding (1 inch, spec-grade), and edge restraints set into the base, not spiked through the paver field afterward.
The difference between 20 years of solid performance and heaving pavers in year three is usually 2-3 inches of base depth and whether the contractor compacted in proper lifts or just dumped and drove over it. You can’t see which one you got until the first or second hard winter. By then the warranty window is usually closed.
A $18/sqft quote versus a $32/sqft quote for the same paver pattern means one of them is cutting somewhere in here. That’s almost always where it is.
2026 price ranges for the GTA
From quotes we’ve seen across Toronto and the 905 this spring:
Standard installation (Holland stone, Plaza Stone, Permacon and equivalents): $22-$30/sqft installed. Mid-range (Techo-Bloc Blu 60mm, Unilock Artline, similar contemporary formats): $30-$42/sqft. High-end (large-format slabs, multi-paver blends, inlaid feature bands, complex custom patterns): $42-$60+/sqft.
A typical two-car GTA driveway is 400-600 square feet of paved area. Mid-range, that’s $12,000-$25,000 installed – proper base prep and polymeric sand included.
Material runs $5-$7/sqft for standard pavers and $15-$20 for large-format stone. Labour is $15-$25/sqft. The spread in those labour numbers is base work.
What a real quote should cover
Before you compare quotes, make sure they’re specifying the same job. A complete quote states the total excavation depth, who hauls the spoil (disposal is often charged separately), the granular base depth and compaction method, bedding sand type, edge restraint type and how it’s installed, the polymeric sand brand and whether re-sanding after first-season settling is included, the grade and drainage direction, and warranty terms with what’s covered.
A quote that just says “interlock installation, 500 sqft – $X,XXX” is not something you can compare to anything. Ask for line items. A vague scope becomes a dispute once the excavator shows up.
The question most contractors skip
The stone holds up. What fails is the grade.
Every interlock driveway needs at least a 2% slope away from the house foundation. On a flat lot or one that pitches toward the house, that grade doesn’t come free – you may need fill, regrading, or a channel drain at the driveway’s base to redirect surface water. Contractors who don’t bring this up are leaving the problem for you to find later.
Corner lots and narrow lots make this more complicated. Ask: “Where does the water go in a heavy rain?” If the contractor can’t answer that specifically, they haven’t figured it out yet.
Compare notes below
Interlock quotes on similar-sounding projects can swing $15,000 depending on contractor and spec. If you’ve got numbers you want a second opinion on, or you’ve recently had a driveway installed and want to share what you paid versus what you expected, post it below.
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