Cost numbers that show their work.

Below is the national average per square foot installed for each material, August 27, 2026. Each card opens a page with its own calculator, size bands, grades with named reference products, and a table of labor cost by state. The bar under each range is that material's average split into material, labor and the extras the standard method needs.

Installed ranges come from the 4 cost pages linked above · labor from BLS OEWS May 2025 · material from dated retailer list prices · data as of August 27, 2026.

• Carpet $3.25–$14.75 per sq ft installed · avg $7.25 material $4.41 labor $1.55 extras $1.29 Calculate
• Vinyl Plank (LVP) $4.75–$13.25 per sq ft installed · avg $8.50 material $3.95 labor $3.84 extras $0.72 Calculate
• Engineered Hardwood $6.25–$15.25 per sq ft installed · avg $10.50 material $7.11 labor $2.16 extras $1.23 Calculate
• Hardwood $7.50–$14.50 per sq ft installed · avg $11.00 material $8.45 labor $2.25 extras $0.29 Calculate

Data behind every page

• BLS OEWS May 2025 the public-domain federal wage release, read by occupation code and state (47-2041 and 47-2042). Opens bls.gov in a new tab.
• Retailer list prices, dated real products at named retailers, recorded with the day the price was read.
• Sourced labor hours published productivity figures, recorded per material and listed on the page that uses them.
• Published formula a × area + b per layer, with the coefficients printed next to the result.
• Installation standard: CRI 105 the residential carpet installation standard, cited on the carpet and engineered hardwood pages. Opens carpet-rug.org in a new tab.
• Installation standard: NWFA (2025) the wood flooring installation guidelines, cited on the hardwood and engineered hardwood pages. Opens nwfa.org in a new tab.

See all flooring costs →

Flooring labor costs more in some states than in others, and it is the only part of the bill that moves with your address. The Installed-Cost Index sets the national level at 100 and measures each state against it — 48 states across the two flooring trades, built from the federal wage release rather than from quotes. The five highest and the five lowest are below.

See all 48 states in the index →

Material, labor and the extras a job carries are calculated separately and then added. Nothing is copied from another cost site.

1. Price the material. List prices for real products, read at named retailers on a stated day. The grade bands are percentiles of those prices, not a rounded guess around one of them.
2. Price the labor. The federal wage for the occupation that does the work, by state, lifted to full employer cost and multiplied by published labor hours for that material.
3. Add what the method needs. Accessories the standard installation cannot be done without sit in the base price; the costs you can decline stay switched off until you ask for them.
4. Publish only when all three hold. A material still short a sourced layer stays unpublished rather than being filled in with a category average — which is why this site opens with 4 materials instead of forty.

Read the full methodology

Three things every page here does. None of them is a promise about us — each one is visible on the page itself.

• Federal wage data. Labor is scaled state by state from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release, May 2025, using the occupation code for the trade that does the work. It is a public-domain dataset you can download and check yourself.
• Prices with a retailer and a date. Every material price is a list price for a real product, read at a named retailer on a stated day. Where a source leaves its scope open — several do — the page says so instead of rounding the doubt away.
• a × area + b. That is the whole formula, per layer. The coefficients are printed, so you can redo any total on a pocket calculator. If you cannot reproduce a number here, that is a bug, and the contact page exists for it.