Asphalt Driveway Cost: Price Per Square Foot

Asphalt driveway cost is one of those numbers that looks simple and turns out to have a stack of inputs hiding behind it. Ask what an asphalt driveway costs and the honest answer starts with questions back: how big is it, how thick does it need to be, is there an old surface to tear out first, how good is the base underneath, and how steep or tight is the lot. A short drive laid over a sound existing base and a long one built up from bare, soft ground can quote a wide margin apart at the same width, because the asphalt is priced by weight and the site work below it is priced by the hour. The rest is grading, compaction, hot-mix prices that swing with oil, and the labor and equipment to lay and roll it, and any one of them can move the total more than the size does.

This cost brief prices an asphalt driveway the way a paver actually bids one: per square foot installed, and per ton of hot-mix, then scaled up to a whole-project total by size. It covers what drives the number from thickness and base prep to slope, access, and region, compares asphalt to concrete, gravel, and pavers, weighs a fresh install against a cheaper resurfacing overlay, and prices the sealcoating and repairs that stretch an asphalt driveway’s life. This article is the asphalt-specific companion to our concrete driveway cost brief, which prices the rigid-slab alternative, and it sits alongside our gravel driveway cost brief and our gravel driveway build manual for the cheaper loose-stone surface. Run your own driveway through the estimator or the companion below to turn a length and a width into an illustrative total as you read.

What an asphalt driveway costs per square foot

The cleanest way to price an asphalt driveway is per square foot of surface installed, because that is how pavers estimate and how the finished job compares fairly across sizes. As an illustrative planning range, a new asphalt driveway commonly runs somewhere around 3 to 7 dollars per square foot, with a working midpoint near 5 dollars for a standard build. That figure is not the asphalt alone: it bundles the hot-mix across the base and top courses, the grading, the base preparation, the paving, the compaction, and the crew and equipment to build the whole thing, which is exactly why it is more useful than the per-ton material price a plant quotes.

The reason the per-square-foot installed figure beats every other unit is that it already includes the parts of the job a material price leaves out. A per-ton price tells you what the hot-mix costs off the truck, but it says nothing about the crew grading the base, running the paver, and rolling the surface before it cools. For a driveway, that labor, equipment, and base work are a large share of the bill, so the installed figure is the one that matches a real quote. Keep the per-square-foot number as your headline, pick a point in the band for your build, and you have a defensible starting point before a single bidder arrives. What moves you within the band is the subject of the rest of this brief.

Asphalt driveway cost per ton

Hot-mix asphalt, the material itself, is commonly sold by the ton, and understanding the per-ton figure explains why asphalt prices swing more than most paving materials. As an illustrative range delivered, hot-mix often runs somewhere near 100 to 200 dollars per ton, moving with oil prices, the region, the mix specified, and how far the load has to travel from the plant. Because asphalt is petroleum-based, its price tracks the oil market in a way concrete and gravel do not, so a delivered rate that was current last season can be stale this one. Always confirm the live delivered price rather than trusting a rule of thumb.

Turning tons into an area takes a rough coverage figure. As an illustrative guide, one ton of compacted hot-mix covers roughly 80 to 100 square feet at a couple of inches thick, so a two-car driveway of about 480 square feet across its base and top courses can work out to somewhere near 10 to 15 tons. That is only the material, though. The per-ton price does not include the grading, base, paving labor, or compaction that make up much of an installed quote, which is why converting tonnage to a total on your own understates the real cost. Use the per-ton figure to sanity-check a bid’s material line, not to price the whole driveway, and lean on the per-square-foot installed rate for planning.

What drives asphalt driveway cost

Beyond the raw material, a handful of factors move an asphalt driveway quote, and knowing them explains why two bids for the same-size drive can differ by a wide margin. Thickness comes first, because a driveway that carries vehicles wants an adequate depth of asphalt over an adequate base, and more depth is more tonnage. The base and grading below the pavement are next: an asphalt driveway is only as good as the compacted base it sits on, and building that base is real labor and material that never shows on the finished surface. The removal and disposal of any old driveway is a whole cost category before new paving begins.

The site itself is the quiet multiplier that surprises people most. A driveway a paving machine and a roller can reach and work with room to move is far cheaper to pave than one on a tight, steep, or awkward lot where the equipment cannot maneuver and more of the work falls to hand tools. On top of all this sits the regional price of hot-mix and local labor, which for an installed driveway together make up a large share of the bill and move the total more than the asphalt does on its own. The rest of this brief takes these drivers one at a time, starting with size and thickness, so you can see which lever is moving a quote you receive.

Size and thickness

Size and thickness are the two structural dimensions of an asphalt driveway estimate, and together they set the tonnage. Area is the obvious one: length times width in feet gives the surface area, and cost scales directly with it, so a small increase in each dimension adds up fast across a whole drive. Thickness is the less visible lever. A residential asphalt driveway is commonly built with a compacted stone base topped by a couple of inches or more of asphalt, sometimes laid as a base course and a separate top course, and the exact depth is an engineering choice driven by the soil and the loads the driveway will carry.

The reason thickness matters to the budget is that asphalt is priced by weight, so every extra inch of depth across the whole area is extra tonnage and extra cost. A driveway laid too thin to save money is a false economy, because it will rut, crack, and fail under vehicle loads sooner than the saving ever justified, and a failed asphalt surface usually means starting over. Confirm the base depth and the asphalt thickness in any quote, since a bid that is cheaper because it skimps on depth is not a better deal. Our square-footage manual walks the area math that turns a length and a width into the surface figure every asphalt estimate starts from.

The base and grading

The part of an asphalt driveway that decides whether it survives is entirely hidden below the pavement: the compacted base and the grading it sits on. Before any asphalt is laid, the ground is excavated to depth and a layer of compacted crushed-stone base is built and leveled so the pavement has firm, well-draining support. An asphalt driveway laid over soft, poorly drained, or badly compacted ground will settle, rut, and crack no matter how good the top layer is, because asphalt is a flexible pavement that follows the shape of what is beneath it. The base is not optional, it is the foundation of the whole job, and a cheap bid may have quietly skimped on it.

Grading is the related step, and it does two jobs at once. First, it establishes the slope so the finished driveway sheds water toward the street or a drain rather than pooling, since standing water is one of the fastest ways to fail asphalt. Second, it sets the depth so the pavement thickness is consistent across the whole area. An asphalt driveway that does not drain lets water sit on and seep under the surface, and in a freezing climate that water expands and breaks the pavement apart from below. When you compare bids, ask each one what base depth and compaction it includes and how the driveway is graded to drain, because a quote that skips the base is not a cheaper driveway, it is one that will fail sooner and cost more to replace.

Removal of an old surface

Whenever an old driveway has to come out before new asphalt goes down, the demolition and disposal are a whole cost category that people routinely forget to budget. Removing an existing surface, whether cracked asphalt, broken concrete, or a loose gravel drive, means breaking it up, hauling it away, and paying to dispose of it, all of which take equipment, labor, and dump fees. Old asphalt in particular is heavy, and disposal is priced by weight or volume, so a full tear-out can add a meaningful figure per square foot before the new pour begins. Broken concrete is heavier still and can cost more to remove than old asphalt.

There is a cheaper path when the existing driveway is structurally sound, which is to resurface over it rather than tear it out, covered in its own section below. But when the old surface has failed, resurfacing only postpones the problem, and a clean removal down to a proper base is the honest fix. Some owners trim the bill by handling the demolition of a gravel or lightly damaged surface themselves, converting a labor line into their own time, though heavy asphalt and concrete removal usually wants a machine. When you budget a replacement rather than a fresh pave on bare ground, get the removal priced as its own line, because it is easy to overlook and it is rarely small. The companion below lets you add old-surface removal to see how much it shifts the total.

Slope, access, and site conditions

Site access is the cost factor most often underestimated, because it does not appear on any material list yet can move the labor and equipment bill substantially. A driveway a paving machine and a roller can drive straight onto, with room to maneuver and stage the hot-mix trucks, is far cheaper to pave than the same driveway on a tight, steep, or awkward lot where the equipment cannot reach and more of the asphalt has to be placed and worked by hand. Hand-laying asphalt is slower and harder to compact evenly than machine paving, so a difficult-access drive costs more per square foot for the same finished area.

Slope adds its own complications beyond access. A steep driveway is harder to pave to a consistent thickness, harder to compact evenly, and more prone to the hot-mix sliding before it sets, so it can call for a stiffer mix or extra care that adds to the labor. Slope also drives the drainage design, since water runs faster on a grade and can erode edges or pool at the bottom if the driveway is not shaped to handle it. Odd shapes, curves, and tight corners raise the hand-work share too, because a paving machine lays a straight, even mat most efficiently. Two identical-area driveways can quote well apart on slope and access alone, so describe your site honestly when you ask for bids and expect a difficult lot to carry a premium.

Region and the price of hot-mix

Region moves an asphalt driveway cost through two channels at once: the price of the hot-mix and the local labor rate. Hot-mix asphalt is heavy and does not travel well once it leaves the plant, since it has to be laid while hot, so a driveway far from an asphalt plant carries a higher delivered price and a tighter working window than one nearby. That haul sensitivity means asphalt prices vary not just by state but by how close you sit to a plant, and rural drives can pay a premium simply for distance. The mix specified matters too, since a heavier-duty or higher-grade mix costs more per ton.

The second channel is labor, and because paving is skilled, equipment-heavy work, the local wage rate moves the largest lines on a bid. The same driveway costs differently in a high-cost metro than in a low-cost rural county, and the swing is not small. Layered on top is the volatility of asphalt itself: because it is petroleum-based, hot-mix prices rise and fall with oil in a way that can make a quote from last season inaccurate today. All of this is why a national average per-square-foot figure is only ever a starting point, and why the honest move is to get several local bids that price your driveway with current hot-mix and local labor rather than trusting any single published number.

Total asphalt driveway cost by size

Scaling the per-square-foot rate up to whole-project totals is where the numbers become real, so here are a few common driveways priced illustratively as standard new installs at roughly 5 dollars per square foot. A single-car driveway, about 12 feet wide by 24 feet long, is roughly 288 square feet, an illustrative 1,200 to 2,200 dollars depending on thickness, base, and access. A two-car driveway, about 20 feet wide by 24 feet long, is roughly 480 square feet, in the 2,000 to 3,600 dollar range for a standard build. A long or wide drive of 800 square feet or more, a longer rural approach or a three-car width, climbs past that, often well into five figures once base rebuild and difficult access are added.

The pattern is that totals climb directly with area, and area grows with both width and length, so a small increase in each can add up fast. Change the scope and the whole range shifts: a resurfacing overlay on a sound base lands well below a full new install of the same size, while a driveway that needs its base rebuilt or an old surface torn out climbs above it. Add extra thickness, a steep or tight site, or volatile hot-mix prices, and every figure moves up. Treat these as starting points, not quotes: measure your own area with our square-footage manual, pick a rate for your scope, and get local bids, because regional hot-mix and site conditions will move your total more than any table can predict. The companion below does this math on your own dimensions.

Asphalt versus concrete, gravel, and pavers

Asphalt is one of several driveway surfaces, and where it sits on cost depends on which alternative you compare it to. On up-front installed cost, asphalt usually falls toward the lower-middle of the field: cheaper than concrete or pavers, and dearer than a loose gravel drive. Gravel is the cheapest to install because it is loose stone spread and compacted with no pour or paving, which our gravel driveway cost brief covers in full. Concrete is poured and finished as a rigid slab, typically dearer than asphalt up front but longer-lived, as our concrete driveway cost brief lays out. Pavers are individual units set by hand on a prepared base, the most labor-intensive and usually the most expensive per square foot.

The chart below places these surfaces side by side on illustrative installed cost per square foot, and it makes asphalt’s lower-middle position clear. What the chart cannot show is the other half of the decision: lifespan and maintenance. Asphalt is cheaper than concrete to install but generally lasts fewer years and asks for periodic sealcoating and eventual resurfacing, while concrete lasts longer with lighter upkeep. Asphalt does flex with freeze-thaw movement better than a rigid slab, is quick and cheap to patch, and can be resurfaced rather than fully replaced when the surface wears. Gravel is cheapest to build but needs the most regular regrading. The right surface is the one whose installed cost and lifetime upkeep together fit your budget and your climate, not the one with the lowest sticker.

The table below sets the common surfaces side by side on illustrative installed cost and typical lifespan, since the two together are what an honest comparison weighs. Read every figure as a planning band, not a quote, because your region, your site, and the maintenance you keep up move all of them.

New install versus resurfacing and overlay

There are two very different asphalt driveway projects hiding behind the same question, and separating them changes the budget. A new install builds a driveway from the ground up: excavate, grade, build and compact a stone base, then lay and roll the asphalt courses. Resurfacing, also called an overlay, lays a fresh layer of hot-mix over a sound existing driveway, using the old pavement as the base. Because an overlay skips the excavation, the base building, and much of the disposal, it is meaningfully cheaper, an illustrative 2 to 4 dollars per square foot against roughly 3 to 7 for a full new build.

The catch is that resurfacing only works when the underlying base and pavement are structurally sound. An overlay follows the shape of whatever is beneath it, so it will not fix a failing base, deep alligator cracking, or serious settling for long, and paving over a driveway that is failing from below just buys a year or two before the new layer cracks along the old faults. If the base has failed or the surface is badly broken, the honest fix is a full replacement down to a proper base, even though it costs more. A paver should assess whether your driveway is a genuine overlay candidate before you budget for the cheaper option, because a resurfacing that fails early is more expensive than the replacement you avoided. Set the companion below to a resurfacing scope to see how much it trims your figure.

From price per foot to your total

Turning a per-square-foot rate into a real total is a short calculation, and it starts with the driveway’s area. Measure the length and the width in feet and multiply them for the surface area in square feet, adding the pieces if the drive is an L-shape or has a flared apron at the street. Then multiply that area by the per-square-foot installed rate for your scope: roughly 5 dollars for a standard new install, lower for a resurfacing overlay, higher for a difficult site or a rebuilt base. A two-car driveway of 20 by 24 feet is 480 square feet, which at an illustrative 5 dollars a square foot for a new install is around 2,400 dollars as a planning figure. Our estimator handles the area in seconds from your length and width.

Two adjustments make the total honest. First, apply a factor for the scope and the structure: a sound base that only needs an overlay pulls the figure down, while a base that must be rebuilt or extra thickness pushes it up. Second, add for the site: poor access, a steep grade, and especially the demolition and disposal of any old surface, which is a real line that never shows in the finished driveway. Run your own length and width through the estimator to get the area, then apply a local rate and these adjustments, and you have a number you can take into a bidding conversation. The companion below does the same math on your own driveway and lets you add old-surface removal to see how it moves the total.

Sealcoating cost and frequency

Sealcoating is the recurring maintenance that stretches an asphalt driveway’s life, and understanding it changes how you judge the surface against concrete. A sealcoat is a thin protective layer brushed or sprayed over the asphalt that shields it from the water, oil, and the sun’s UV that dry the asphalt binder out and make the surface brittle and prone to cracking. As an illustrative guide, most asphalt driveways are sealcoated every 2 to 4 years, with the first coat usually applied about a year after the driveway is laid so the fresh asphalt can fully cure first. Sealing brand-new asphalt too soon can trap the curing oils, so the wait is deliberate.

The cost is modest against the driveway itself. As an illustrative range, professional sealcoating runs somewhere near 0.15 to 0.30 dollars per square foot, so a two-car drive of about 480 square feet might land near 75 to 150 dollars a coat, and doing it yourself with sealer from a home center trims that to the price of the material and your afternoon. The balance to strike is periodic, not constant: sealing too often wastes money and can build up an uneven film, while never sealing lets water and UV shorten the driveway’s life and bring forward the far larger cost of resurfacing. Fill any cracks before you seal, since sealer is a surface protectant, not a crack repair. Budgeted across the years, sealcoating is small money that protects a large asset.

Crack filling and pothole repair

Between sealcoats, the other recurring asphalt maintenance is filling cracks and patching potholes before they spread, and it is cheap upkeep that prevents expensive failures. Asphalt cracks as it ages and as the ground moves beneath it, and a hairline crack left open lets water down into the base, where it undermines the support and, in a freezing climate, expands and levers the pavement apart. Filling cracks early with a pourable or hot-applied crack filler is inexpensive material and a realistic do-it-yourself job, and it keeps a small crack from becoming the deep, branching alligator cracking that signals a failing surface.

Potholes are the next stage, where the surface has broken through and a section has come loose, and they too are cheaper to fix early. A small pothole can be patched with cold-patch asphalt from a home center, tamped down, and driven over to compact, which is a genuine weekend repair. Larger areas of failure, or cracking that covers much of the driveway, are usually past the point where patching helps and point toward a resurfacing overlay or, if the base has gone, a full replacement. The honest maintenance rhythm is to seal on schedule, fill cracks as they appear, and patch small potholes promptly, because every one of those small jobs postpones the day the whole surface needs redoing. Neglecting them is how a driveway with 20 years in it fails in ten.

Lifespan of an asphalt driveway

A well-built and maintained asphalt driveway commonly lasts an illustrative 15 to 30 years, with something near 20 years a reasonable planning figure. That is generally shorter than a concrete driveway’s typical life, which is part of the trade-off for asphalt’s lower installed cost, but it is long enough that a driveway built and kept up well repays its cost many times over. The lifespan hinges on a few things: the quality of the base it was laid on, the workmanship of the original paving, the climate it endures, and, more than anything, the maintenance it receives over the years.

Maintenance is the lever that separates the long life from the short one. A driveway that is sealcoated on schedule, has its cracks filled early, and is graded to shed water off the surface can reach the top of the range, while one that is never sealed and left to crack can fail in half the time. Standing water, freeze-thaw cycles, tree roots, and heavy or point loads like a parked trailer jack are the main enemies. Asphalt also has a second life the rigid alternatives do not share as easily: when the surface wears out but the base still holds, a resurfacing overlay can extend the driveway rather than replacing it, effectively resetting the clock at a fraction of a full rebuild. That resurfacing option is a real part of asphalt’s whole-life value, and it is why the maintenance you keep up matters so much.

DIY versus hiring a pro

Whether to lay an asphalt driveway yourself comes down to equipment and timing, and for most people the answer is to hire it out. Unlike gravel you can spread with a rake or a small concrete pad you can pour from bags, hot-mix asphalt has to be laid and compacted while it is still hot, in a narrow window before it cools, which practically requires a paving machine or a skilled crew and a heavy roller to compact it evenly. The base preparation, grading to drain, and compaction that decide whether the driveway lasts are also machine work on anything but the smallest area. A new asphalt driveway is genuinely a professional job, and a poor amateur pave usually cannot be salvaged, only redone.

There is still real room for owner effort to trim the lifetime cost, just not in the initial pave. Sealcoating is a genuine do-it-yourself project many owners handle themselves with sealer from a home center, saving the labor line every few years. Filling cracks and patching small potholes with cold-patch are realistic weekend repairs that anyone can do and that meaningfully extend the surface’s life. Some owners also handle the demolition of an old, lightly damaged surface or clear and prep the area before the crew arrives. The pattern is that the skilled, equipment-heavy initial paving is where hiring a pro pays off most, and the ongoing maintenance is where owner labor saves the most over the driveway’s life. Match the decision to the task in front of you.

Labor and equipment share

Labor and equipment are the quiet giants of an installed asphalt driveway, together a large share of the bill, which is why regional wage rates and site access move the total more than the asphalt does and why owner-supplied maintenance saves real money over time. Building an asphalt driveway is skilled, machine-intensive work from start to finish: excavating and grading, building and compacting the stone base, running the paving machine or hand-laying the hot-mix, and rolling the surface to compaction, all against the clock while the asphalt is hot. Every one of those steps is time and equipment, and on a difficult site the hand-work multiplies. The hot-mix you see laid is often the minority of the total once all that labor and machinery are counted.

The chart below splits a built asphalt driveway into roughly where the money goes, and the labor-and-equipment share is the point of the picture. Because that share is so large, two things follow. First, the same driveway costs differently in different markets and on different sites, since local wages and access move the largest lines on the bid. Second, the volatility of hot-mix prices, tied to oil, means the material line itself can swing between quotes. When you compare bids, remember you are largely comparing labor, equipment, site conditions, and a volatile material price, not a fixed sticker, so ask each bidder what the quote includes and how the site will be worked before you judge one cheaper than another.

Ways to keep asphalt driveway cost down

An asphalt driveway cost has real levers, and pulling them before you order beats haggling after. The largest single choice is scope: if the existing driveway’s base and pavement are sound, a resurfacing overlay is far cheaper than a full tear-out and rebuild, so having a paver honestly assess whether you are an overlay candidate can save a large fraction. Right-sizing the driveway is the next lever, since cost scales directly with area, so paving only the width and length you actually need, rather than an oversized apron, cuts hot-mix and labor together. Choosing a simple rectangular shape over a complex curved outline keeps the machine paving efficient and the hand-work down.

More savings hide in timing and maintenance. Paving is seasonal, since hot-mix wants warm weather to lay and cure, so scheduling in a paver’s shoulder season rather than peak summer can find softer bids, and combining your job with a neighbor’s to share mobilization and a full hot-mix load can lower the per-driveway cost. Over the driveway’s life, the biggest saving is the cheapest work: sealcoating on schedule and filling cracks early, both realistic do-it-yourself tasks, postpone the far larger cost of resurfacing or replacement. What you should never cut is the base and the thickness, since a driveway laid thin over a poor base will fail early and cost more to redo than the saving ever justified. Cut on scope, size, timing, and your own maintenance labor, never on the structure below the surface.

Permits and the apron

The most overlooked line in an asphalt driveway budget is not a material at all, it is the permit, and it can shape the whole project. Many municipalities require a permit to build or replace a driveway, particularly where the driveway meets a public road, because the apron and the curb cut affect drainage and the public right-of-way. A permit carries a fee, and any required inspection is a step in the schedule that has to be planned around the paving. The rules are set locally rather than nationally, so the only reliable answer comes from your building or public-works department, and it is worth asking before you design the driveway, not after.

Beyond the permit itself, local rules can shape the driveway’s size and placement. Setback requirements govern how close a driveway can sit to a property line, maximum impervious-surface limits can cap how much of a lot can be paved, and drainage requirements can dictate how the driveway sheds water and where it goes. The apron where the driveway meets the street is often subject to its own standards, since it sits in the public right-of-way. Homeowner associations sometimes add restrictions on materials, so an association may weigh in on whether asphalt is even allowed. None of this is a code citation, since the specifics vary everywhere, but the point is that permitting and setback rules can change what you are allowed to build before cost even enters the picture. Confirm the local requirements early, because a driveway built outside them can have to be altered or removed at your expense.

A worked example: a two-car driveway priced

Nothing clarifies the method like one driveway costed end to end, so take a two-car drive, 20 feet wide by 24 feet long, laid as a standard new asphalt install on a reasonably accessible lot with no old surface to remove. The area is 20 times 24, or 480 square feet. At an illustrative 5 dollars per square foot installed for a new build, the base figure is around 2,400 dollars, which bundles the hot-mix, the base, the grading, the paving, and the compaction labor. That is the planning number before any scope or site adjustment, and it is exactly what the area method produces from a width and a length.

Now flex the inputs to see the levers. Switch the scope to a resurfacing overlay on a sound base at an illustrative 3 dollars a square foot and the same driveway drops toward 1,440 dollars, because the existing pavement serves as the base and there is far less excavation. Go the other way and add the removal of an old asphalt surface at an illustrative couple of dollars a square foot, and that is another several hundred to a thousand dollars before the new pave begins. Move the same driveway to a tight, steep lot that the paving machine cannot easily reach, and the labor share rises again. The 480 square feet of area is fixed by the dimensions in every case; what moves the total is the scope, the base, the site, and the swinging price of hot-mix, which is the whole lesson of this brief. Run your own driveway through the companion below and watch each lever move the number.

The bottom line

Asphalt driveway cost is set by a short list of things in roughly this order: the size, the scope, the base and structure below the surface, and the site. As an illustrative planning range, a new asphalt driveway runs about 3 to 7 dollars per square foot installed, near 5 at the midpoint, and you turn that into a total by multiplying by the area, width times length, not by guessing from the size alone. The scope is the biggest single choice, with a resurfacing overlay on a sound base well below a full new build, while thickness, the base, slope, access, and volatile hot-mix prices move the figure further. Asphalt sits below concrete and pavers on installed cost and above gravel, and it flexes with freeze-thaw better than a rigid slab, but it asks for sealcoating and eventual resurfacing that concrete does not. Price the scope, size the area with our estimator or the companion below, read our concrete driveway cost brief and gravel driveway cost brief to weigh the alternatives, then get more than one written bid. Do that and the quote you receive becomes a number you can judge rather than one that simply surprises you.

Treat this as workbench education, not a price quote or a paving specification. Every dollar figure here, per square foot, per ton, per project, and per maintenance task, is an illustrative planning range, and your site, your base, your driveway’s size and thickness, the slope and access of your lot, the removal of any old surface, your region, the current price of hot-mix, and the season will each move the real numbers, often significantly. An asphalt driveway carries vehicle loads and must be built with an adequate base, thickness, and drainage for your conditions, all of which are engineering decisions before they are cost decisions, and many places require a permit to build or replace one. Confirm your local permit, setback, and drainage requirements with your municipality, and have the base and pavement thickness specified for your soil and climate by a qualified paver. Build a budget only on live, written quotes for your driveway in your area.