Enter your area and pick a depth. We'll convert it to bulk bags, tonnes and 25kg bags — and give you an honest 2026 cost range.
Quick answer: One 850kg bulk bag of gravel — the big sack merchants deliver by lorry — covers about 10m² at the standard 50mm depth. In 2026, plain 20mm gravel costs £75–£95 per bulk bag and decorative stone £110–£190, so a typical 15m² garden area costs £200–£350 in materials.
Prices checked July 2026 · how we check them · how we work it out
No measurements yet? Tap a typical size above for an instant estimate, or see the worked examples.
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Includes 5% extra for settling and uneven ground. Driveways also need 100–150mm of compacted MOT Type 1 sub-base underneath — that's separate.
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Prices checked July 2026 · how we check them · how we work it out
These figures are planning estimates. Coverage varies with stone size and how firm the ground is — for big areas, order the whole-bag quantity and keep the receipt for any spare unopened bags.
Away from the drive there is no sub-base to build — it is membrane, stone, done. What changes is which stone: the right grade depends on whether you walk it every day, admire it from the kitchen window, or just need tidy cover down the side of the house. Where the cheap option is genuinely the right one, we say so.
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From £92 per 850kg bulk bag delivered (promo price, list £96)
The right answer for most gardens: the warm mix of golds, creams and browns suits nearly every planting scheme, and it undercuts every premium option. Buy washed stone, and go angular 20mm anywhere you walk — it locks together and stays put. 10mm is kinder underfoot and to paws but migrates the most, so keep it for edged borders, pots and barefoot corners. The slate below is an aesthetic upgrade, not a functional one.
Golden Gravel 20mm at Gravelmaster →Ordering the stone: Buy from an aggregate specialist — Gravelmaster, Stone Warehouse, Mainland Aggregates or a local merchant — with VAT and delivery in the quoted price. It arrives kerbside on a crane lorry: one 850kg bag outweighs a family car's entire payload, so don't plan to collect it yourself.
Tempted to one-click the stone?: Fine for the membrane and pins. Wrong for stone: golden gravel 850kg was £200 from online marketplace sellers against £92 delivered from Gravelmaster, and grey slate £250 against £125 — decorative bulk bags run roughly double there, with no say over the stone that turns up.
Only a couple of square metres?: 25kg bags from a DIY shed cost far more per tonne, but under about 1m² they are the sensible buy — no crane lorry, no leftover half-bag. Anything bigger, a bulk bag wins: one 850kg bag covers roughly 10m² at 50mm.
Chasing a clearance bargain: B&Q clearance bulk bags can be startling — Blooma golden gravel was showing £40, down from £100 — but it was out of stock when we checked. Worth a look in store; not something to plan a project around.
Most borders & paths
The looks upgrade
Bin areas & side passages
Long daily-walked paths
One-day hire
No vehicles = cheap fabric is right
Prices checked July 2026 · how we check them · how we work it out
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Our figure is researched, but it is not your garden. Post the job free and local landscapers reply with real prices — the honest way to check the estimate above before you commit.
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A bulk bag is a giant sack of gravel, about 850kg, dropped at your kerb by a lorry with a small crane.
25kg bags are the small sacks you can carry home from a DIY shop — handy for tiny jobs, but far dearer for the same stone.
Whichever you buy, the gravel sits on top of a weed membrane (a fabric sheet that stops weeds growing through) — measure your area, pick a depth, and the calculator above does the rest.
Gravel needs simple sums, but there are two traps. First the sums: length × width × depth gives you cubic metres (m³ — one m³ is a box measuring one metre on each side). UK gravel weighs about 1.5 tonnes per m³. Slate and Cotswold stone weigh a little less, basalt a little more. So an 850kg "tonne bag" holds about 0.57m³ — enough for 10m² of coverage at the standard 50mm depth.
Now the traps. People measure the area right but skimp on the depth — go under 40mm and the membrane shows through the stone. And ground is never perfectly flat, so we add 5% for settling and dips. Buy whole bags and keep the spares unopened — most merchants will take unopened bags back.
Prices checked July 2026 against Wickes, B&Q and specialist aggregate suppliers, plus trade cost guides. Rounded ranges, not quotes.
| Material (850kg bulk bag) | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Plain 20mm gravel / shingle | £75–£95 |
| Golden / pea gravel (10–20mm) | £85–£140 |
| Limestone chippings | £78–£130 |
| Slate chippings (blue / plum / grey) | £125–£190 |
| Cotswold stone | £110–£180 |
| Premium (polar white, granite, quartz) | £200–£390 |
| Decorative 25kg small bag | £7–£10 |
| Weed membrane | £0.70–£1.80 per m² |
Specialist suppliers often include delivery in these prices. The same stone from DIY sheds and online marketplaces can run £50+ higher — always compare the price with delivery included.
| Job | DIY materials | Supply + lay |
|---|---|---|
| Decorative border — 5 m² at 40mm | £40–£90 | £90–£200 |
| Garden area — 15 m² at 50mm | £200–£350 | £350–£700 |
| Gravel driveway — 30 m², full build | — | £1,200–£2,200 |
| Gravel driveway — 60 m², full build | — | £2,500–£4,200 |
Driveway figures include digging out the ground and laying a sub-base of MOT Type 1 (crushed stone that packs down hard — the base layer under almost every drive). That groundwork, not the gravel, is most of the bill. Simple garden areas are genuinely a job you can do yourself.
• Stone choice — plain shingle (cheap rounded gravel) and premium white granite cover the same area, but there's a 4× price gap between them.
• Delivery — bulk bags are heavy, so delivery adds £35–£50 where it's not already in the price. For big jobs, gravel tipped loose off a lorry is cheaper per tonne than bags.
• Depth honesty — a 30mm layer looks fine on day one, but by autumn the membrane shows through. Budget for 40–50mm.
• Access — if the lorry can't crane the bag close to the job, every wheelbarrow trip is your time — or a landscaper's paid time.
• Driveways vs decoration — a driveway is a groundwork job with gravel on top. Don't price it like a flower-bed border.
One 850kg bulk bag covers about 10m² at 50mm deep — the usual depth for garden areas. Lay it thinner, at 40mm, and the same bag covers roughly 13m². Bigger pebbles (20–50mm) need a deeper layer — work on 70mm, which means nearer 7m² per bag.
For most garden areas and paths, lay 40–50mm over a weed membrane (a fabric sheet that stops weeds growing up through the stone). That's deep enough to hide the fabric and keep the stone in place, but not so deep it's hard to walk on. Driveways are different: they need a 50mm gravel top layer over 100–150mm of packed-down MOT Type 1 (crushed stone that packs down hard — the base layer under almost every drive). That base is what stops ruts forming — extra gravel on its own won't.
A gravel area you lay yourself costs roughly £13–£20 per m² in materials — that's the gravel in bulk bags plus the weed membrane underneath. Paying a landscaper to prepare the ground and lay it adds around £10–£30 per m². A full gravel driveway is a much bigger job, because the ground has to be dug out and a proper stone base laid first. Expect £60–£100 per m² fitted — a typical UK job lands around £3,000.
Yes — it's the difference between a garden that looks after itself and a weeding job every year. A heavy-duty woven membrane (a tough fabric sheet, about £1 per m²) stops weeds rooting up through the stone. It also stops the gravel sinking into the soil, and makes any future changes far easier. Overlap the joins by 100mm and pin the fabric down well.
Bulk bags, by a long way. Weight for weight, gravel in 25kg bags costs two to three times as much. Small bags only make sense for top-ups, or jobs under about 2m². One bulk bag holds the same as roughly 34 small bags — and at £7–£10 per decorative 25kg bag, that gap adds up fast.
Every price band on this page traces to a source we checked ourselves, with the date we checked it. Prices move — if one of these looks out of date, tell us and we'll recheck it.
We'll carry this over — your planted borders and the size you just worked out — and you can add anything else you're thinking about: clearance, paving, decking, fencing, lawn, driveways, planting. You end up with one brief to send to three landscapers, so they all price the same job and you can see which one has quietly left something out.
Doing it yourselves? It sizes your materials list too. Already holding a quote? It gives you the same numbers we'd check it against.
