How much does stamped concrete cost?

Lawn Love publishes $5 to $10 per square foot, so about $3,000 to $6,000 on 600 sq ft. This site publishes no price of its own. The figure worth having is the twenty year one: at a three year resealing interval the same patio comes to $13,800 to $24,000, and the stamping is the smaller half.

Is stained concrete cheaper than stamped?

Not in the source used here, which prices both at $5 to $10 per square foot. That is worth treating with suspicion, because they are very different jobs: staining is applied to a cured slab and stamping has to be done during the pour. Identical ranges for two unlike jobs suggest the table is modelled rather than surveyed.

How often does concrete need resealing?

There is no honest single answer and this page will not invent one. It ranges from about a year for a cheap topical sealer on a sunny driveway to a decade for a penetrating sealer on an interior floor. It is the input that moves the lifetime cost most, so it is worth asking what sealer is being used before comparing two quotes.

Why is exposed aggregate quoted cheaper than plain concrete?

It should not be, and the calculator flags it. Aggregate is quoted at $2 to $3 per square foot in the same table that puts a plain slab at $4 to $9, and an aggregate finish is a plain slab plus seeding, washing and sealing. That row is almost certainly pricing the finishing work alone rather than the finished surface.

Can I polish an outdoor concrete slab?

You can, and it is worth understanding the tension first. In a moderate or severe weathering region IRC Table R402.2 requires the concrete to be air-entrained, and the air needs to be in the top of the slab to protect it from freeze-thaw. A hard polished surface is a closed one. The code says nothing about what happens after the pour, so this is a conversation with your finisher rather than a compliance question.

Does a decorative finish need a better slab underneath?

The code requirement is the same either way: Table R402.2 sets strength by exposure and location, not by finish. What changes is the consequence of a crack. A crack in a plain grey slab is a crack; a crack through a stamped pattern is visible from the house and cannot be patched invisibly.

Is a finish worth it on an existing slab?

Sometimes, and the thing to check first is what the existing slab is doing. An overlay inherits the movement underneath it, so a slab with active cracking or a settled corner will reproduce both through whatever goes on top, usually within a year or two.

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Concrete Finish Calculator

Published finish rates, carried forward over the life of the floor

Over twenty years the resealing costs more than the stamping did. That is the line missing from every finished-concrete quote: the finish is bought once and the maintenance is bought forever.

Concrete finish, over its life

Area to finish

sq ft

Finish (the source's own row labels)

Resealing interval (yours, sealers differ)

years

Over how long

years

Weathering potential (if this is outside)

Every rate here is Lawn Love's, published and dated below. The resealing interval is yours: sealers differ and this site will not invent a figure for one. The strength row is IRC Table R402.2.

Specification summary

Generated from on . Reopen that address to reproduce these figures exactly.

Entered

Result

What you are quoted, and what you pay

Worked example

600 square feet of stamped concrete, resealed every three years, looked at over twenty.

The stamping is $3,000 to $6,000. At $5 to $10 per square foot, which is what the source publishes, that is the number a quote will show you.
Against a plain slab it is a dollar a foot either end. Plain is $4 to $9, stamped is $5 to $10, so the source is saying the stamping itself adds about a dollar. Whether that survives contact with a real quote is another matter, but it is what the table says.
Then the resealing, at $3 to $5 per square foot. Six reseals in twenty years is $10,800 to $18,000, which is between three and twenty-two times what the stamping cost.
So the twenty year number is $13,800 to $24,000, and the finish is the small part of it. Nobody presents it that way because nobody is selling the resealing at the time.
Now pick exposed aggregate instead and the table breaks. It is quoted at $2 to $3 against $4 to $9 for a plain slab, which cannot be right: an aggregate finish is a plain slab plus seeding, washing and sealing. The calculator flags it rather than quietly using it.

The useful comparison between finishes is not the install price, it is the install price plus however many reseals you will actually pay for. On a twenty year view the intervals matter more than the rates.

The formula

The install is one multiplication. The life is two:

life = rate_finish × A + rate_seal × A × ⌊years / interval⌋

rate_finish: the published range for the finish you picked, somebody else's figure
rate_seal: the published range for sealing, from the same table
⌊years / interval⌋: how many reseals actually fall inside the period, rounded down
interval: yours. No source on this page publishes one, and sealers differ enormously

The floor function matters more than it looks. At a three year interval, twenty years is six reseals and twenty-one years is seven, so a single year at the boundary is another full reseal. That is also why comparing finishes on a round number of years can flatter whichever one happens to land just short of a boundary.

What the published finish table can and cannot tell you

Two rows in it do not survive arithmetic. Exposed aggregate is quoted at $2 to $3 per square foot against $4 to $9 for a plain slab. An aggregate finish is a plain slab plus seeding, washing and sealing, so it cannot cost less than the slab under it. Polished is similar, at $3 to $8 against the same plain slab. Both rows are almost certainly pricing the finishing operation rather than the finished surface, and the table does not say which.

And two rows are identical when the jobs are not. Stained and stamped both read $5 to $10. Staining is a chemical applied to a cured slab; stamping is a texture pressed into a wet one and has to be done during the pour, by people who have done it before. Identical figures for those two are a sign the table is modelled rather than surveyed.

The resealing interval is not in any source used here. It depends on the sealer, the traffic and the sun, and it ranges from about a year for a cheap topical sealer on a driveway to a decade for a penetrating one indoors. This page takes it as an input with a default rather than publishing a figure it cannot cite, and the default is deliberately conservative.

Which makes the twenty year total a shape rather than a number. What it shows reliably is that the maintenance term dominates the install term on any finish that needs regular sealing, and that is true across the whole plausible range of intervals.

Prices for poured concrete, by finish

The published figures for poured concrete, by finish are on the concrete calculator, with the byline, the publication date and the caveats that go with them. They are not repeated here, because the same table on two pages is worth less than one table you can find.

This site publishes no price of its own. Why, and what that means for these figures.

Air entrainment and a hard surface want opposite things

This is worth raising before a finish is chosen rather than after, and it is the one place where a code requirement and a finish decision collide.

IRC Table R402.2 makes air entrainment mandatory for exterior flatwork in moderate and severe weathering regions. That is not optional and it is not an upgrade: it is a different mix, ordered differently, and it is what stops the surface scaling off after a few freeze-thaw cycles.

The air has to be in the top of the slab to do that job. Which is a fact about where the damage happens: freezing water expands at the surface, and the entrained voids are what it expands into.

A hard dense finish is, by definition, a closed surface. The code has nothing to say about what happens to the top of the slab after the pour, so this is not a compliance question. It is a question to ask your finisher out loud, in a region where the mix has to carry air, because the two requirements are pulling in opposite directions and only one of them is written down.

Indoors, none of this applies. Table R402.2 does not require air for an interior slab, which is why polished concrete is a much more comfortable proposition on a basement floor than on a patio.

What a finish quote should separate

Finished concrete is quoted as a rate per square foot more often than almost anything else on this site, and the rate hides which job is being priced.

Whether the slab is included. A stamped patio on new concrete and a stamped overlay on your existing slab are different jobs at similar prices, and the second one inherits every crack in the first.

Whether the first seal is included. Most decorative finishes are sealed as part of the install. Some quotes carry it, some do not, and the difference is one full reseal cycle straight away.

What the sealer actually is. A topical acrylic and a penetrating silane are both called sealer and their service lives are not in the same order of magnitude. This is the single input that moves the twenty year number most, and it is usually not on the quote at all.

And who reseals it. A resealable finish that only the original contractor can match is a maintenance contract with extra steps.

Frequently asked questions

How much does stamped concrete cost?: Lawn Love publishes $5 to $10 per square foot, so about $3,000 to $6,000 on 600 sq ft. This site publishes no price of its own. The figure worth having is the twenty year one: at a three year resealing interval the same patio comes to $13,800 to $24,000, and the stamping is the smaller half.
Is stained concrete cheaper than stamped?: Not in the source used here, which prices both at $5 to $10 per square foot. That is worth treating with suspicion, because they are very different jobs: staining is applied to a cured slab and stamping has to be done during the pour. Identical ranges for two unlike jobs suggest the table is modelled rather than surveyed.
How often does concrete need resealing?: There is no honest single answer and this page will not invent one. It ranges from about a year for a cheap topical sealer on a sunny driveway to a decade for a penetrating sealer on an interior floor. It is the input that moves the lifetime cost most, so it is worth asking what sealer is being used before comparing two quotes.
Why is exposed aggregate quoted cheaper than plain concrete?: It should not be, and the calculator flags it. Aggregate is quoted at $2 to $3 per square foot in the same table that puts a plain slab at $4 to $9, and an aggregate finish is a plain slab plus seeding, washing and sealing. That row is almost certainly pricing the finishing work alone rather than the finished surface.
Can I polish an outdoor concrete slab?: You can, and it is worth understanding the tension first. In a moderate or severe weathering region IRC Table R402.2 requires the concrete to be air-entrained, and the air needs to be in the top of the slab to protect it from freeze-thaw. A hard polished surface is a closed one. The code says nothing about what happens after the pour, so this is a conversation with your finisher rather than a compliance question.
Does a decorative finish need a better slab underneath?: The code requirement is the same either way: Table R402.2 sets strength by exposure and location, not by finish. What changes is the consequence of a crack. A crack in a plain grey slab is a crack; a crack through a stamped pattern is visible from the house and cannot be patched invisibly.
Is a finish worth it on an existing slab?: Sometimes, and the thing to check first is what the existing slab is doing. An overlay inherits the movement underneath it, so a slab with active cracking or a settled corner will reproduce both through whatever goes on top, usually within a year or two.

Check these numbers yourself

2018 Seattle Residential Code, Chapter 4 FoundationsSeattle Department of Construction and Inspections. Read 2026-09-09. Source of Table R402.2, which is the only code figure on this page and the reason air entrainment is worth raising before a finish is chosen.

How every figure here is verified: Sources & Method. Who builds this: About. Found something wrong? Tell us and it gets fixed or removed.

Figures on this page last checked against the source documents on 2026-09-09. Codes are amended locally; confirm against the edition your jurisdiction enforces.

Related calculators

No dollar figure on this page is this site's own, and two rows in the published table it uses do not survive arithmetic, which the page says out loud. The resealing interval is your input, not a sourced figure, because it depends on the sealer and nothing free publishes a defensible number. Treat the lifetime total as a shape rather than a quote: what it shows reliably is that maintenance dominates install on any finish that needs regular sealing.