Sealing is priced as a sequence rather than a single operation, because the clean and the re-sand are what make the seal worth having. A clean and seal together runs about a dollar fifty to three dollars a square foot, and it needs redoing every three to five years on a driveway.
A seal quote that excludes the re-sand is not a quote
Sealer is the last step of four. The surface has to be cleaned, dried, and have its joints filled before anything is applied, and each of those has a real cost attached.
A quote that covers only the coat is either assuming your joints are already full, which is unlikely if the surface is old enough to want sealing, or planning to seal over open joints, which permanently removes the option of re-sanding. So our number covers the sequence.
Where the surface is already clean and recently sanded we say so and the price drops accordingly.
The other figure worth knowing is stripping, at two to four dollars a square foot, because that is what a badly applied coat costs to undo and it is more than doing it properly cost in the first place.
Treatment and a joint-safe rinse, priced by area. On a heavily soiled or mossy surface this is the larger part of the job.
The drying time
Not a cost in itself but a scheduling one, since the surface needs a day or two and that shapes when the crew can return.
The re-sand
Polymeric sand to full joint depth, which is what the sealer is there to protect and what makes the coat worth applying.
The coats
Two thin applications at the product coverage rate, which uses more material than one heavy coat and lasts considerably longer.
How Often
The real cost is per year, not per job
A driveway resealed every four years at two dollars a square foot is fifty cents a square foot a year. A coat that fails in eighteen months and needs stripping is several times that, which is the whole argument for the sequence. Work out the yearly figure when comparing quotes rather than the headline.
A clean and seal together runs about $1.50 to $3 including the re-sand. Sealer alone on an already prepared surface sits at the lower end of that.
No, it is part of the sequence. A quote that leaves it out is either assuming your joints are full or planning to seal over open ones, and both are problems.
Every three to five years on a driveway and longer on a sheltered patio, which works out to roughly fifty cents a square foot a year.
Stripping runs $2 to $4 a square foot before any recoating, which is more than doing the whole sequence properly would have cost originally.
It depends on the surface. On a driveway it holds joint sand and resists staining, which most people value. On a shaded damp patio the case is much weaker.
Not necessarily. Cleaning and drying scale with how bad it is, not how big it is, so a neglected courtyard can cost more than a driveway twice its size that was washed last year. The quote splits the two so you can see which is which.
