Budget Estimator
Landscaping budget estimator for Sandy Springs
Pick the scope, set the size, say how hard the site is to reach, and get the local range for it. Worth running before anyone visits, and worth running a second time with a quote sitting in front of you.
How these figures were put together
Each range comes off local market rates rather than a national average, because on this ground the two are not close. Almost everything in a Sandy Springs landscape is priced against slope, access and clay: excavation is harder, spoil has to leave, and hard surfaces need a real base under them because the subsoil will not carry a patio on its own.
| Scope | Unit | Sandy Springs range |
|---|---|---|
| Bed renovation and replanting | per sq ft | $14 to $30 |
| French drain, trenched and wrapped | per linear ft | $40 to $85 |
| Segmental block wall | per face sq ft | $40 to $110 |
| Concrete paver patio | per sq ft | $22 to $40 |
| Natural stone, dry laid | per sq ft | $32 to $60 |
| Sod, supplied, prepared and laid | per sq ft | $2.00 to $4.80 |
| Dry creek bed | per linear ft | $45 to $95 |
| Irrigation | per zone | $700 to $1,400 |
| Stone or block step, set | per step | $350 to $900 |
| Mulch, delivered and spread | per cubic yard | $70 to $130 |
Each figure is an installed cost: labour, material and plant. None of them carry permit fees, engineered drawings, arborist reports or survey work.
The permit fees, which are published
Sandy Springs publishes its land disturbance permit fees, so this part does not need estimating. A residential project carries a $25 administrative fee, a $50 certificate fee, a $100 review fee and a land disturbance fee of $200 per lot, plus a technology fee that varies with the permit cost. The permit is generally required once 1,000 square feet or more of ground will be disturbed, and the city notes it may still be required below that where the work needs erosion control measures or changes topography or drainage patterns.
Where the money usually goes
On a typical hardscape job here, most of the cost is labour, equipment and the base material under the surface, and a comparatively small share is the paving or block you can see. That ratio is why access moves a total so much: a patio a mini excavator can reach costs meaningfully less than the same patio at the bottom of a wooded slope, and no material choice closes that gap.
On planting, the split runs the other way. Plant material is a real share of the cost, which means plant size is a genuine lever. A bed planted with smaller stock establishes better in root-competitive ground and costs less, and after two seasons the difference is hard to see.
About this estimator
- How close to a real quote is this?
- It is a planning range built from Sandy Springs market rates for each scope, not a quote. The two things it cannot know are access and what is under the ground. A back yard a machine can drive into and one where every barrow goes down a flight of steps are the same square footage and very different money. On a straightforward site a real quote usually lands inside the range. Tight access, or ground that turns out to be fill, pushes it above.
- Why is the wall range so wide?
- Because height drives the structure. Under about four feet a segmental wall is a base course, block, stone backfill and a drain. Above that it usually needs geogrid reinforcement layered back into the retained soil, and sometimes an engineered design, and both of those add cost per face foot rather than per linear foot. Two shorter terraced walls are frequently cheaper than one tall one for the same rise.
- What is not included in these numbers?
- Permit fees, engineered wall drawings, arborist reports, survey work, variance applications where a project falls inside a stream buffer or the river corridor, and any repair to irrigation lines cut by the work. Sandy Springs residential land disturbance permit fees are a $25 administrative fee, a $50 certificate fee, a $100 review fee and $200 per lot, plus a technology fee.
Find out what the yard would cost
Call (404) 737-3568 or use the quote form, and a Sandy Springs landscaping company prices the work at no charge.