Below are the rates UK cost guides actually publish, why they disagree with each other so violently, and what decides where your own driveway lands inside the range. We have put the numbers first because that is what you came for. The important part comes straight after: the figure that matters is not the rate per square metre, it is what is under the surface.
What a resin driveway costs in the UK
| What | Published UK range | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Resin bound, sound existing base | £60-£100 per m² | Five independent guides land in the same band: MyJobQuote, Checkatrade, MacColl & Stokes, Andy Harragan & Sons, BetterHomeHub |
| Resin bonded, sound existing base | £40-£70 per m² | BetterHomeHub, MacColl & Stokes, ResinDrivewayCosts. Consistently 20 to 40% cheaper per m² than bound |
| Excavation and a new sub-base | add £30-£50 per m² | Stated outright by ResinDrivewayCosts, and matching the gap between the sound-base and new-base rates published by BestBuilders and ResinPlanner |
| Lighter prep, no dig-out | £15-£35 per m² | BetterHomeHub only. Indicative rather than consensus |
| Installing team, per day | £300-£500 per day | MyJobQuote. Per team, not per person |
Whole-job cost by driveway size
| Driveway size | Typical installed total |
|---|---|
| 30m² (small drive, one car) | £1,800-£3,000 |
| 60m² (typical two-car drive) | £3,500-£5,500 |
| 90m² (large drive) | £5,000-£8,000 |
Those totals are MyJobQuote, which also puts the average UK resin driveway at around £4,500. They assume a workable existing base. Add the £30-£50 per m² sub-base uplift where the ground has to be dug out, which on a 60m² drive is another £1,800 to £3,000 on top, and you can see why two quotes for the same driveway can differ by thousands without either firm being dishonest.
Why the published prices disagree so much
UK guides quote anything from £40 to £145 per square metre. That spread is not sloppiness, and the explanation is simple: the guides are pricing different jobs and calling them the same thing.
The low numbers are nearly always a resin surface laid over a base that already works, sometimes materials only. The high ones are a full build-up, excavation, muck-away, sub-base and base course included, quoted as one figure. Checkatrade, for instance, reaches about £120 per m² by adding £70 of material to £50 of installation, while BestBuilders quotes £40 to £70 for the surface alone. Both are accurate. They are answers to different questions.
How to use a published rate
Why there is no single price per square metre
Even within one type of job the rate moves with size, and it moves in the direction people do not expect. A lot of the cost of any driveway is fixed setup: getting the crew and kit to site, protecting the area, preparing the edges, laying to the drains. Those costs are much the same whether the drive is small or large, so they are spread across fewer square metres on a small job, which pushes the rate per square metre up. A big driveway usually works out lower per square metre than a small one for exactly that reason. It is why a 90m² drive quoted near the bottom of the £60-£100 per m² band is realistic, and a 15m² one at the same rate probably is not.
What actually drives the cost
| Cost driver | Why it moves the price |
|---|---|
| Size of the driveway | A bigger drive spreads the same setup and access costs over more square metres, so the per-m² rate usually drops as the area grows |
| Condition of the base | A sound existing base can often be reused; a broken or unstable one needs work or replacing |
| New sub-base needed | Digging out and laying a fresh sub-base is frequently the single biggest item on a quote, at £30-£50 per m² on top of the surface |
| Excavation and levels | Sloping ground, deep dig-outs and muck-away add labour and disposal cost |
| Access to the site | Tight or awkward access slows the work and can rule out machinery |
| Edgings and drainage | New kerbs, channels or a drainage detail add material and time |
| Aggregate and colour | Some stone blends and colours cost more than the standard options |
Notice that most of these are about groundwork, not the resin. That is the point most cheap quotes gloss over: the resin layer is the easy part, and the base beneath it is where the money and the longevity both live.
The base is the real cost, and the real risk
What a proper resin driveway is built from
It helps to know what you are paying for under the surface, because that is where the money goes. A permeable resin-bound driveway is a stack: a compacted open-graded sub-base (a reduced-fines stone that lets water through, not the standard fines-heavy hardcore, which would block drainage), then a permeable base course of open-textured bitmac over it, and finally the resin-bound wearing course on top, usually around 15 to 18mm thick for a driveway, contained by a solid edge so the mat cannot creep at the perimeter. As a rule the wearing course is laid about three times the depth of the largest stone in the blend.
Almost all of that is groundwork. When there is no sound base already, you are paying to dig out, cart the spoil away, import and compact the sub-base stone, and lay the base course, before a drop of resin goes down. That is why the base swings the price so much more than the aggregate or the colour you pick, and why a quote that is suspiciously cheap has usually saved money exactly there.
Resin-bound vs resin-bonded on cost
Here the numbers do separate cleanly. Resin bonded comes in at £40-£70 per m² against £60-£100 per m² for bound, so it is 20 to 40% cheaper per square metre across every source that prices both. What you give up for the saving is permeability and, in most installers' experience, longevity: bonded is a scattered layer of stone stuck to a sealed surface, so water runs off it rather than through. If you are not sure which is which, our guide to resin-bound versus resin-bonded driveways explains the difference. For most driveways it is resin-bound, and again the base underneath drives the cost far more than which system goes on top.
Want a real number for your driveway?
Let us know the rough size and what is down now. We will come out, measure it properly, and follow up with one fixed price in writing.
What a proper quote should include
A quote worth comparing spells out the whole job, groundwork as well as resin. Look for the excavation and muck-away, the sub-base build-up, any edgings and drainage, the resin system and aggregate, and whether the price is fixed for the full job. Ours is a single fixed written price for everything, so what you are quoted is what you pay. If a quote is vague about the groundwork, it is vague about the biggest part of the cost.
Reading a cheap quote
A quote well below the others is not automatically bad, but it is worth asking where the saving is. If someone comes in under £40-£70 per m² for a bound driveway, they are either quoting bonded by mistake, quoting surface-only, or planning to reuse a base that should be replaced. The other usual answers are a day rate that can drift once work starts, or a large upfront deposit that shifts the risk onto you. We agree one price in writing before any work starts, so there is nothing to renegotiate once the job is under way.
How resin compares with other driveways on cost
Against the alternatives, tarmac is usually the cheapest surface to lay and block paving sits closer to resin, but each behaves differently over the years. We weigh them up honestly in resin driveway vs tarmac and resin driveway vs block paving. Whatever the surface, a longer-lasting driveway usually comes down to spending properly on the base, as our guide to how long a resin driveway lasts explains.
So what should you do?
Use the ranges above to sanity-check what you are quoted, then get a written, fixed-price quote from someone who has seen the driveway and measured it, and make sure it details the groundwork as fully as the resin. A quote that sits inside £60-£100 per m² with the groundwork spelled out is a fair one. We give resin-bound driveway quotes free and in writing across Leicestershire.
About this guide
Who wrote this
This guide is written by the Obsidian Resin team. We quote and lay resin-bound driveways across Leicestershire, so we price these jobs week in, week out and see how much the base underneath swings the final figure.
Where these figures come from
Every range on this page is a rate published by a named third party, checked on 2026-08-29. We have listed the sources next to each figure rather than asking you to take a number on trust, including where a figure rests on a single source and should be read as indicative. Where the published guides disagree we have said so and explained why, instead of averaging them into one tidy number that describes nobody's driveway.
Why these are market rates and not our price
These are what the UK market charges, which is the useful thing for judging a quote. They are not an Obsidian quote, and we do not publish a headline rate of our own, because for driveways it would be wrong the moment the base is taken into account. You get one fixed price for your actual driveway, in writing, before anything starts.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does a resin driveway cost?
- A resin bound driveway in the UK costs £60-£100 per m² laid over a sound existing base. A small 30m² drive typically comes to £1,800 to £3,000 installed, a 60m² two-car drive £3,500 to £5,500, and a 90m² drive £5,000 to £8,000. The UK average is around £4,500. If the old base has to be dug out and replaced, add roughly £30-£50 per square metre on top.
- How much is a resin driveway per square metre?
- £60-£100 per m² for resin bound over a base that is already sound, and £40-£70 per m² for resin bonded. Excavating and laying a new sub-base adds about £30-£50 per square metre. Rates drop as the driveway gets bigger, because the fixed setup cost is spread over more square metres.
- Why do published resin driveway prices vary so much?
- Because the guides are pricing different jobs under the same name. Quotes at the low end (around £40 to £70 per m²) are usually for the resin surface alone over a base that already works, sometimes materials only. Quotes at the high end (£120 to £145 per m²) include the full build-up: excavation, muck-away, sub-base and base course. Before comparing any quote to a figure online, check whether the groundwork is inside it.
- Are resin driveways expensive?
- At £60-£100 per m² they sit in the middle of the driveway options: usually dearer than tarmac and broadly comparable with block paving. What you get for it is a seamless, permeable, low-maintenance surface with no joints to weed.
- How much cheaper is resin bonded than resin bound?
- About 20 to 40% cheaper per square metre. Resin bonded runs £40-£70 per m² against £60-£100 per m² for resin bound. The saving costs you permeability, because bonded is stone scattered onto a sealed surface so water runs off it rather than through it.
- What makes one resin driveway quote cheaper than another?
- Nearly always the base. A cheaper quote often means a thinner or reused sub-base that should have been replaced, a day rate rather than a fixed price, or a large upfront deposit. The resin layer is the easy part; the groundwork beneath is where cost and longevity both sit. Anything under £40 per square metre for a bound driveway is almost certainly quoting the surface only.
- Do you ask for a deposit?
- Not for most driveways: you pay the single fixed price once the job is done. On a larger drive we may take a deposit before ordering materials, and that is always agreed in writing beforehand, never sprung on you.