Resin driveway vs block paving
One published guide says resin is dearer. The other says block paving is. Both are current 2026 UK cost guides, and the gap between them is bigger than the gap between the two surfaces.
Resin driveway cost vs other driveway surfaces
Two guides publish a full material-by-material comparison. They are shown separately rather than merged, because Checkatrade prices everything roughly 40 to 60 per cent higher than MyBuilder across the board — merging them would hide that.
Checkatrade — cost per m², materials and installation
| Surface | Material per m² | Installation per m² | Total per m² |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resin bound | £70 | £50 | £120 |
| Block paving | £50 | £50 | £100 |
| Brick | £48 | £50 | £98 |
| Concrete | £50 | £45 | £95 |
| Tarmac | £50 | £40 | £90 |
| Gravel | £30 | £30 | £60 |
Checkatrade table dated April 2026.
MyBuilder — cost per m², installed
| Surface | Cost per m² |
|---|---|
| Resin bound | £40 – £70 |
| Block paving | £50 – £90 |
| Indian sandstone | £60 – £100 |
| Concrete | £35 – £55 |
| Tarmac | £25 – £45 |
| Gravel | £15 – £30 |
MyBuilder table dated 21 August 2026.
There is no consensus, and that is the finding
Ask which is cheaper and the honest answer is that it depends which guide you read:
- Checkatrade — resin bound £120 per m², block paving £100 per m². Block paving is cheaper.
- MyBuilder — resin bound £40–£70 per m², block paving £50–£90 per m². Resin is cheaper.
Both dated 2026. Both covering the UK. Flatly contradictory.
What that tells you is that on price these two surfaces overlap almost completely, and the difference between two installers quoting the same job is larger than the difference between the materials. Anyone presenting a clean “resin costs X, block paving costs Y” comparison has picked the guide that suits the answer they wanted.
So choose on the things that do not move: maintenance, drainage and load.
Maintenance
Resin bound wins, and it is not close.
Checkatrade notes resin driveways tend to work out more cost-effective in the long run because they last longer and typically require less ongoing maintenance. Day to day, a resin bound drive needs sweeping and the occasional rinse.
Block paving has joints. Joints hold sand, sand holds weeds, and blocks settle unevenly over years of a car being parked in the same two places. Re-sanding and lifting and relaying settled areas is periodic work that resin simply does not generate.
Drainage and planning
Resin bound wins again, though only the bound version.
Resin bound is permeable and SuDS compliant. Rain goes through it into the ground, which is why a permeable resin drive does not normally raise the planning permission question that a non-permeable surface over 5m² does.
Block paving can be permeable, if it is specified and laid as a permeable system with the right sub-base and jointing. Standard block paving is not. This is a specification question rather than a material one, and it is worth asking directly rather than assuming.
Load and repairability
Block paving wins, and MyBuilder says so in as many words: block paving and Indian sandstone last longer and handle heavy loads better, so if you are parking multiple vehicles or taking regular deliveries they may be the more practical choice.
There is a second advantage that rarely makes the cost tables. Block paving is repairable a brick at a time. Lift the damaged blocks, fix what is underneath, put them back. A damaged or stained patch of resin bound is a patch — it can be cut out and refilled, but matching a four-year-old weathered blend is genuinely difficult, and the repair usually shows.
Lifespan
Checkatrade puts a properly installed and maintained resin bound driveway at 15 to 20 years. Block paving generally outlasts that, at the cost of the periodic maintenance described above.
Neither figure means much without the base underneath it. Both surfaces fail early on a bad sub-base, and on any drive where the base has to be rebuilt that groundwork — £25 to £50 per m² — is a shared cost that arrives whichever surface you choose.
How to actually decide
Price is a wash. So:
Choose resin bound if you want a surface you can forget about, the drive is a normal domestic one with cars rather than vans, and drainage or a planning constraint is in play.
Choose block paving if you are running heavy vehicles, you want the option of lifting and relaying sections later, or you want a pattern and a colour scheme that resin cannot do.
Ignore anyone who tells you one is definitively cheaper than the other. On the published data for 2026, nobody can say that with a straight face.
Resin bound vs block paving, on the numbers
- Which is cheaper per m²?
- It depends which guide you read. Checkatrade puts resin bound at £120 per m² against block paving at £100, so block paving is cheaper. MyBuilder puts resin bound at £40–£70 against block paving at £50–£90, so resin is cheaper. Both are current 2026 guides.
- Sources: Checkatrade , MyBuilder
- Which needs less work later?
- Resin bound. Checkatrade notes that resin driveways are generally cheaper per m² than block paving and tend to work out more cost-effective long term, because they last longer and need less ongoing maintenance.
- Sources: Checkatrade
- Which handles heavy or frequent loads better?
- Block paving. MyBuilder is direct about this: block paving and Indian sandstone last longer and handle heavy loads better, so multiple vehicles or regular deliveries point away from resin.
- Sources: MyBuilder
- Which avoids the drainage and planning question?
- Resin bound. It is permeable and SuDS compliant, which normally removes the planning permission issue that a non-permeable surface over 5m² creates.
- Sources: MyBuilder , Checkatrade
- How long does each last?
- Checkatrade puts a properly installed and maintained resin bound driveway at 15 to 20 years.
- Sources: Checkatrade
There is no single right answer in the published data, and anyone telling you there is has picked the guide that suits them. On current figures resin bound and block paving overlap heavily on price; resin wins on maintenance and drainage, block paving wins on load-bearing and on being repairable a brick at a time. The cost difference between them is smaller than the difference between two installers quoting the same job.
Where these prices come from
Four published UK cost guides. We read them on 27 September 2026, recorded what each one says, and cite them per figure rather than blending them into an average that belongs to nobody.
- Guide updated:
- Cost tables dated April–June 2026; page dated 02/2026
- Read by us:
- 2026-09-27
- Guide updated:
- 26 August 2026
- Read by us:
- 2026-09-27
- Guide updated:
- 21 August 2026
- Read by us:
- 2026-09-27
- Guide updated:
- 29 August 2025
- Read by us:
- 2026-09-27
Ready to get real numbers?
Send us the drive and your postcode and the enquiry goes to installers covering your area. A published range is a sanity check, not a price.
Get resin driveway quotes
Tell us the drive and where you are. Your details go to installers who cover your postcode — we publish costs, we do not lay driveways, and nobody gets your number until you send this.
- We are a cost guide, not an installer — so we have nothing to gain from talking the price up.
- Your postcode decides who hears about it. No postcode, no route.
- Three quotes is the standard advice, because the same job varies 20 to 30 per cent between firms.
- No number is a quote until someone has stood on your drive.
Estimates on this site are arithmetic on published cost-guide rates. They are not quotes, not offers, and not based on seeing your property.