Asphalt paver
hire rates.
Indicative hire rates per hour for CAT asphalt pavers — and why the crew and the trucks, not the machine, set the cost of a paving day.
Asphalt paver hire rates in Australia
Pavers are priced by machine size, and the hourly rate you are quoted covers the machine and one operator — nothing else. A paving run also needs screed hands, rakers, a roller and operator, and a truck rotation feeding the hopper, and none of that sits in a paver hourly rate. That is the single most common way a paving day gets under-priced.
Benchmarks below come from the same data behind our machine hire rate calculator.
Indicative hire rates
| Size | Dry hire | Wet hire* | Wet day (8 hr)* |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAT AP355F | $86/hr | $190–$210/hr | $1,560–$1,720 |
| CAT AP400 | $131/hr | $260–$280/hr | $2,050–$2,210 |
| CAT AP655F | $221/hr | $360–$380/hr | $2,890–$3,050 |
Wet hire shown at $2.00/L diesel plus 12% for lubricants, and a typical operator rate band for the machine — put your own fuel price and operator rate into the machine hire calculator for an exact figure. Machine and one operator only: the rest of the crew is not in these rates. Indicative benchmarks, ex GST, guide only.
What actually moves the cost of a paving day
Mix supply, not the paver. The machine is rarely the constraint. A paver that outruns its trucks has to stop, and every stop is a cold joint and a density risk. Price the truck rotation and the plant's delivery rate alongside the machine, and check the haul time from the plant before you commit to a day's tonnage.
The crew. Machine plus operator is not a paving crew. Depending on the job you are adding screed hands, rakers, a roller operator and traffic control, and on a road job traffic control alone can rival the paver.
Fuel is not the issue here. Even the largest of these burns 20.4 L/hr — about a third of an articulated dump truck — so diesel is a small share of the hourly cost. What you are paying for is the capital and the crew, which is why the dry and wet rates sit so close together compared with an earthmoving machine.
Size to the work. The smaller machines suit car parks, footpaths, patching, driveways and narrow residential streets where you cannot swing a full-width screed. The largest is for road-width work where screed width and paving speed set production.
Float and minimum engagement. Pavers are usually engaged as a paving day or a crew day rather than by the loose hour, and float in and out is charged on top. If you are pricing an hourly rate off this page, make sure the job is big enough that an hourly basis is the right one.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an asphalt paver cost to hire per hour?
Indicatively, a compact paver runs about $190–$210/hr wet hire, a mid-size machine $260–$280/hr, and a road-width paver $360–$380/hr — roughly $1,560 to $3,050 for an 8 hour day. That is the machine and one operator; the rest of the paving crew, the trucks and the mix are all extra.
Does the hire rate include the paving crew?
No. These rates are the machine and one operator. A working paving crew adds screed hands, rakers, a roller and operator, and usually traffic control — budget those as their own lines, because together they often cost more than the paver.
Which paver size do I need?
Match the screed to the widest thing you have to pave in one pass. Car parks, footpaths, driveways, patches and narrow streets suit the compact machines; subdivision roads and anything where you are paving a full lane want the larger machine, because every extra longitudinal joint is a future failure point.
Why is asphalt usually priced per tonne or per square metre instead of by machine hour?
Because the paver is only one line in the cost. Asphalt supply, cartage, tack coat, the crew, rolling and traffic control move with the area and the tonnage, not with the hours the paver is switched on. Use an hourly paver rate to sanity-check a subcontract quote or to price standing time, not to build the whole item.
More rate guides: excavators, tipper trucks, dump trucks, water carts, rollers, loaders, graders, dozers, scrapers, asphalt profilers, backhoes & skid steers. Or price any of 93 machines in the machine hire rate calculator.
Pricing the whole job?
Machine rates are one line in a real estimate. For water, sewer or stormwater work priced end to end, send the drawings. Acknowledged within two hours during AEST business.