What delivered has to mean
Ask three suppliers what paving costs in Bermuda and you can easily get three numbers that are not describing the same thing. One quotes the stone alone. One folds in freight. One calls itself delivered and quietly assumes a truck can reverse to the terrace. The fix is not to hunt for the lowest figure, because the lowest figure may simply be the one leaving the most work uncounted. It is to insist that every quote is broken into the same four lines, so you can see which supplier is carrying which risk and where the real difference sits. Once the lines are separated, most of the mystery disappears. You stop comparing headline rates and start comparing decisions, which is the only comparison that survives contact with a delivery date.
Line one: the stone itself
The first line is what the stone costs ex-yard, and it is the only line entirely within a supplier’s control. It moves with material, format, thickness and finish, and it is where genuine comparison starts. A thicker unit for a driveway is not the same product as a thin interior tile, so comparing a headline rate across two different depths tells you nothing useful about either. Fix the schedule first, then price it, and insist the same schedule goes to everyone bidding.
Line two: the ocean leg to Hamilton
Freight is the line that behaves least like a buyer expects, because it does not scale with quantity in a straight line. A container costs roughly what a container costs, so the cost per square foot falls sharply as you fill it and rises just as sharply when you do not. That single fact reshapes how a phased project should be ordered.
- Stone is heavy, so weight limits usually bite before volume does.
- A part-filled container carries the same base cost as a full one.
- Consolidating phases can move the per-unit number more than any discount.
- Rates move with equipment availability, so a freight quote has a shelf life.
Line three: the duty entry and clearance
Bermuda has no VAT, and since 1 July 2025 duty on building materials and supplies has been set at 10 percent, a reduction that covered items previously charged above that figure. Alongside the duty itself sit brokerage and wharf handling, neither of which is large but both of which are real. Ask your broker to confirm the classification for your specific goods in writing rather than assuming a rate, and put that written answer, not an estimate, into the budget you hand to a client. It is also worth checking the age of any duty figure you inherited. Budgets and supplier pages written before that change can carry an older assumption, and an out-of-date rate distorts a comparison in exactly the direction you would not want.
Line four: the road leg to site
The last mile is where Bermuda differs most from a mainland delivery. Vehicle size limits and narrow lanes mean material moves in smaller loads on planned runs, so access shapes this line far more than distance ever will. Two properties the same drive from Hamilton can easily carry very different trucking numbers.
- Gate width, gradient and turning space at the property entrance.
- Whether pallets can be set down near the work or must be carried.
- The number of separate loads the quantity will actually require.
- Waiting time, which is charged whether or not anyone is ready to receive.
The lines hiding inside the takeoff
Two projects with identical areas can order very different quantities, and the difference is decided on paper long before anyone orders. Plan shape, pattern and edge detail all change how much stone leaves the yard, and none of that shows up in a square-foot rate.
- Cuts against curves, radii and awkward plan outlines.
- Diagonal or fan layouts, which generate more offcuts than a square bond.
- Steps, risers and thresholds, which are separate items and often thicker.
- A modest reserve held back for repairs in later years.
What a published range does and does not tell you
Published ranges are useful for orientation and useless as a final number. They tell you which materials, formats and thicknesses sit in your bracket and which do not, which is exactly what you need at concept stage when the drawings are still moving. What they cannot do is price your access, your quantity or your customs entry, because those three things are specific to your job. Treat a range as the shape of the answer and a written quote as the answer itself. Used that way, a range saves everybody time, because it rules materials in or out before anyone spends a week costing something that was never going to fit the budget.
Getting a number you can build on
The quickest route to a defensible budget is to send the real information once, rather than a series of approximations that each need correcting. Ask us to price the stack against your takeoff instead of guessing at an average, and every line stays checkable by you, your broker and your installer.
- Areas by use, with the traffic each one takes.
- Thickness and format per area, or the questions you still have.
- Photographs of the approach, the gate and the intended drop point.
- Your target laying dates, so we can work back to a sailing.
A delivered price is only honest when you can see all four lines that made it.