EstimatorKitFree asphalt calculator
Hot mix asphalt, in tons on the ticket
Give the area and the compacted thickness of each course and this returns the tons to book — the unit hot mix is quoted, weighed and delivered in, never cubic yards. It works at 145 lb per cubic foot compacted, which is 166 square feet covered per ton at an inch, and it checks the mix you picked against the thinnest lift that mix will actually compact at. The loose thickness to set the screed by is shown too, and it deliberately leaves the tonnage alone.
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- Minimum lift checked
2 in of compacted hot mix over 4-6 in of compacted aggregate base — the base is a separate delivery.
Measure to the edge the paver will screed to, not to the string line. A drive that widens at the apron is two rectangles: run the straight section, note the tons, then run the apron and add them.
Surface: the wearing course on almost every residential driveway. Binder: the intermediate lift that carries the load under a surface course. Set a course to 0 to drop it. The mix number decides the thinnest lift that will reach density — 1.5 in and 3 in for these two — not what a cubic foot weighs.
Unit weight: hot mix asphalt at 145 lb/ft³ compacted in place, which moves with mix design and compaction achieved. Roll-down 25%: a dense-graded mat comes off the screed 20-25% thicker than it finishes under the rollers. Waste 5%: hand work at the edges, the wedge at a driveway apron and what stays stuck in the truck body. Minimum 3 tons: a judgement rather than a specification: hot mix is priced as a truck trip, and few plants will send one out below a few tons. All four are yours to overwrite with whatever the plant tells you.
Add the plant’s price to cost the load
These are the numbers on your own quote. A ton price moves with the liquid asphalt index month to month, so nothing is prefilled here, and this counts material only — not the crew, the paver or the roller.
Book this much hot mix
9.14 tons
- Bare geometry
- 8.7 tons
- Plus 5% waste
- 9.14 tons
- Surface
- 80 sq yd
- Compacted volume
- 4.44 cu yd
| Course | Compacted | Screed at | Tons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface course9.5 mm (3/8 in) surface | 2 in | 2.5 in | 8.7 |
The two thickness columns do not change the order, and that is the difference between asphalt and stone. The mat leaves the screed 25% thicker than it finishes, but you are buying 9.14 tons either way — weight does not roll down. What the screed setting decides is whether the finished thickness comes out right, which is why the number is here and not folded away.
This clears the 3 ton minimum, so the load is priced by quantity rather than by trip. At 145 lb per cubic foot one ton covers 166 sq ft at an inch, and the mat weighs 109 lb per square yard per inch — the two figures a paving crew checks a ticket against.
How to work out tons of asphalt
The mix on the second step is what decides whether the third one is buildable.
Measure the mat the paver will screed
Take the length of the run and the width the paver will actually finish to, not the width of the cleared strip. A drive that widens at the apron or opens into a parking bay is more than one rectangle: run the straight section, note the tons, then run the apron and add them. If the takeoff is already done, switch to the area box and type square feet — a lot quoted at 800 square yards is 7,200 square feet, and that factor of nine is the most common mistake on a paving order.
Give each course its compacted thickness and its mix
Enter the thickness you want after the rollers, not the depth of material you plan to dump, and pick the mix that course will really be. A car-only driveway is normally 2 in of 9.5 mm surface; one that takes a delivery truck gets 2 in of binder under 1.5 in of surface; a parking lot gets 3 in of 19 mm binder under 2 in of 12.5 mm. The mix selector is not decoration — it sets the thinnest lift that will reach density, and the page tells you when your thickness is below it.
Read the tons, then check them against the plant minimum
The headline is short tons, because that is what the quote and the scale ticket will both say, with the bare geometry and the waste-adjusted figure beneath it so you can check a contractor's number against your own. If the job falls under the minimum load the surplus is listed in tons and in the extra square feet it would pave at your section — hot mix cannot be kept, so that surplus is either laid somewhere useful or thrown away.
Technical specifications
| Answer given in | Short tons first, then square yards and compacted cubic yards |
|---|---|
| Unit weight default | 145 lb per cubic foot compacted, editable — 109 lb per square yard per inch, 166 sq ft covered per ton per inch |
| Mixes offered | Five nominal maximum sizes: 4.75, 9.5, 12.5, 19 and 25 mm, one per course |
| Minimum lift rule | Four times the nominal maximum aggregate size — 0.75, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 in — flagged when a course is thinner |
| Roll-down default | 25%, editable: a 2 in mat is screeded at 2.5 in, and the tonnage is unchanged |
| Waste default | 5%, printed beside the bare tonnage instead of folded into it |
| Plant minimum | 3 tons, editable; the surplus is reported in tons and in extra square feet at your own section |
| Data leaving the browser | None — dimensions, quoted prices and the mix table stay in the tab |
Frequently asked questions
How many tons of asphalt does a 12 by 60 ft driveway need?
About 9.1 tons for a 2 in compacted mat with a 5% waste allowance. The arithmetic: 720 square feet at 2 in is 120 cubic feet, and compacted hot mix runs about 145 lb per cubic foot, so that is 17,400 lb, or 8.7 tons before waste. The same drive built to carry a delivery truck — 2 in of binder under 1.5 in of surface — is 15.2 tons bare. Neither figure includes the aggregate base underneath, which is a separate delivery from a different supplier in a different unit.
How much area does a ton of asphalt cover?
About 166 square feet at one inch thick, which is 18.4 square yards. Halve it for a 2 in mat and a ton covers 83 square feet, which is the figure to carry into a conversation with a paver. The trade usually states it the other way around: a compacted mat weighs 108.75 lb per square yard per inch, which everyone rounds to 110, and that per-inch number scales to any thickness without recomputing anything. Both come from the same 145 lb per cubic foot, so a plant running a mix at 148 gives you two percent less coverage per ton.
How thick should an asphalt driveway be?
Two inches of compacted hot mix over 4 to 6 in of compacted aggregate base for a car-only residential drive, and 3 to 4 in of asphalt in two lifts where a delivery truck, an RV or a boat trailer turns. What carries the load is the whole section rather than the asphalt alone — the mat spreads the wheel load and the base carries it down to the subgrade — so an extra inch of stone costs a fraction of an extra inch of hot mix and usually does more good. Commercial lots run 4 to 6 in of asphalt over 8 in of base.
What is the thinnest layer of asphalt that can be laid?
Four times the largest stone in the mix, so a 12.5 mm (half-inch) mix needs a 2 in compacted lift and a 19 mm binder needs 3 in. Below roughly four stone diameters the coarse aggregate bridges from the base to the surface and the roller crushes it instead of rearranging it, so the mat never reaches density no matter how many passes it gets; a thin mat also gives up its heat to the base in minutes, which shortens the compaction window to nothing. If the job genuinely needs an inch, it needs a finer mix: a 9.5 mm surface goes down at 1.5 in and a 4.75 mm sand mix at three quarters of an inch. Fine-graded mixes are sometimes permitted at three times the size instead of four, and the local specification decides.
Do I have to order extra asphalt for compaction?
No, and this is exactly where asphalt parts company with stone. The mat leaves the screed 20 to 25% thicker than it finishes, so a 2 in mat is laid at about 2.5 in — but you are buying weight rather than volume, so roll-down changes the screed setting and not one pound of the ticket. Aggregate behaves the opposite way: it is sold by volume, so a base ordered at its finished depth arrives about a fifth short. The allowance that does belong on hot mix is waste — hand work at the edges, the wedge at the apron, what stays stuck in the truck body — and 5% covers most driveways.
What is the minimum amount of asphalt a plant will deliver?
Enough to be worth the trip, which is a few tons at most plants rather than a number you can look up. Hot mix leaves the drum near 300 °F and has to be under the rollers before it falls to about 185 °F, so a load cannot be split across two days, cannot be returned and cannot wait — a truck is dispatched for your job or it is not. That is why a four-ton driveway and a six-ton driveway often cost nearly the same delivered, and why the sensible move on a small job is to spend the surplus rather than waste it: widen the apron, carry the drive to the garage door, pave the shed pad. For a pothole-sized repair the material is not hot mix at all but bagged cold patch, which has a different binder and no business in a new drive.
How much tack coat does an asphalt overlay need?
About 0.05 gallons of undiluted emulsion per square yard on an existing asphalt surface, which is 4 gallons for a 12 by 60 ft driveway. A milled surface takes roughly double, because grooves are more surface than a flat mat is. Tack is the entire bond between the old pavement and the new one, and an overlay laid on an unsprayed surface does not crack — it delaminates, lifting in sheets under a turning wheel in the second or third winter. Let the emulsion break from brown to black before the paver runs on it, and keep tires off it in the meantime, because tack that comes up on a truck tire is tack that is no longer on the road.
About hot mix, and why the ticket is always a weight
Hot mix asphalt is perishable in a way nothing else on this site is. It leaves the drum near 300 °F and has to be spread and rolled before it drops to roughly 185 °F, below which the binder is too stiff for the aggregate to move and the mat simply stops taking density. Nothing about that survives storage: there is no inventory, no returns, and no half load held back until tomorrow. So the plant runs every truck across a scale and sells you a ticket, and every other figure on a paving job follows from that — dollars per ton, tons per truck, and a minimum load that is really a minimum trip. Cubic yards are an intermediate here, worth having only to check a volume against a delivery, and the compacted stone under the mat is a separate order in a separate unit that the gravel calculator prices as base and wearing courses.
The number that decides whether a thickness is possible at all is the nominal maximum aggregate size, and it is the thing almost every other asphalt calculator drops. A compacted lift has to be at least four times the largest stone in the mix — three times for a fine-graded one — because any thinner and the coarse aggregate bridges from the base to the surface with nowhere for the roller to move it. What you get is a mat that looks paved and never reached density: permeable, oxidizing from the inside, raveling within a couple of winters. So “just put an inch on it” is not a budget decision with a half-inch mix, it is an impossibility, and the fix is a finer mix rather than more passes. That is also why a leveling wedge under an overlay is a 4.75 mm sand mix, which goes down at three quarters of an inch, and why nobody lays a 19 mm binder thinner than three.
Because the order is a weight, roll-down never enters it. A dense-graded mat comes off the screed a fifth to a quarter thicker than it finishes, so a 2 in mat is screeded at about 2.5 in, but the tons are fixed by compacted volume times compacted density and by nothing else. That is the exact inverse of the aggregate case, where material is sold by volume and a base ordered at its finished depth arrives short, and of soil, which the topsoil calculator corrects at its own settling rate. What weight will not tell you is when to pave: a thin lift loses its heat to the base in minutes, so specifications close the season for anything under an inch and a half once the air is around 50 °F and falling, and a mat laid on a cold damp base in November is one that never got its passes in. Where a drive is being replaced rather than resurfaced it is worth pricing the alternative section on the concrete calculator first — the two materials cost differently, cure differently and fail in completely different ways.
What this page never asks you for
Every number on this page is worked out by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading it in. Nothing you type — measurements, quantities, the prices your supplier quoted you — is uploaded, logged or kept, which is also why the calculators carry on working on a site with no signal.
Search for an asphalt calculator and most of what comes back is a lead form with a calculator sitting on top of it: a ZIP code box, a phone field, and three paving contractors ringing by the afternoon. There is none of that here. This page never asks where the driveway is, and the tonnage it gives you is the same tonnage whether or not you tell anyone about it.