What it costs to put sod down, as three named cost publishers print it — HomeAdvisor, LawnStarter and Homewyse — each range kept as its own and never averaged, with the date each page was updated. Put your own quotes in and see where they fall.
2,000 sq ft · any grass · replacing a lawn · laid by a pro
$3,300 – $9,000 to have it soddedHomeAdvisor $4,000–$9,000 · LawnStarter $3,300–$7,260 · Homewyse $4,400–$7,360. Each publisher’s own range, side by side — never averaged.
HomeAdvisor $4,000 – $9,000 $2.00/sq ft – $4.50/sq ft
resodding an existing lawn $2.00–$4.50/sq ft
Plus delivery if the quote lists it separately: $65–$230 per truckload.
Page updated 2026-06-19 · HomeAdvisor — How Much Does Sod Installation Cost in 2026?
LawnStarter $3,300 – $7,260 $1.65/sq ft – $3.63/sq ft
installed (their whole grass table) $0.77–$1.79/sq ft + removing the old grass $0.88–$1.84/sq ft
Page updated 2025-12-27 · LawnStarter — How Much Does Sod Cost in 2026? — Luminita Toma
Homewyse $4,400 – $7,360 $2.20/sq ft – $3.68/sq ft
$2.20–$3.68/sq ft, its basic job
Homewyse prints one national range for a basic job on a favorable site; grass type, removal, grading and awkward shapes are not broken out, so nothing is added to it.
Page updated 2026-09 · Homewyse — Cost to Install Sod — 2026 Cost Calculator
Prices read 2026-09-27. A published range is a national figure: your area, your yard and the season move it — which is what the quotes are for.
Sod, seed or hydroseed — for this lawn
| For this lawn | Published range | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Seeding, done by a pro | $180 – $300 ($0.09–$0.15/sq ft) | LawnStarter — How Much Does It Cost to Seed a Lawn in 2026? — Adrian Nita |
| Seeding | $200 – $400 ($0.10–$0.20/sq ft) | HomeAdvisor — How Much Does Sod Installation Cost in 2026? |
| Hydroseeding | $140 – $420 ($0.07–$0.21/sq ft) | LawnStarter — How Much Does Hydroseeding Cost in 2026? — Rela Catucod |
| Sod, laid by a pro (above) | $3,300 – $9,000 | the three publishers above |
Seed is a fraction of the price and weeks slower: sod is a lawn the day it goes down. How many pallets or rolls to order is the sod calculator’s job.
Quick answer: the publishers disagree, so here are all three. For a 2,000 sq ft lawn where the old grass has to come out, HomeAdvisor prints $2 to $4.50 per square foot to resod ($4,000–$9,000), LawnStarter $0.77–$1.79 installed plus $0.88–$1.84 to remove the old lawn ($3,300–$7,260), and Homewyse $2.20–$3.68 for a basic job ($4,400–$7,360). Laying it yourself, the sod and one delivery run about $490–$2,120 for the same lawn. Grading, awkward shapes and your part of the country move all of it, which is why your own quotes go in beside the ranges.
How to use it
Type the area you are sodding (or copy it from the lawn size calculator). Pick the grass if you know it, say whether an old lawn has to come out first, and whether a pro or you will lay it. If the ground needs grading, or the lawn curves around beds and trees, say so: two of the publishers price those, and the tool adds them only to the publisher that prints them. The answer is the span from the lowest publisher’s low to the highest one’s high, and under it each publisher’s own range, what it is made of, and the date that page says it was last updated. Got quotes? Put them in and each one says where it falls.
Why three ranges and not one number
Because the three publishers do not measure the same thing, and averaging them would hide that. HomeAdvisor (updated June 2026) prices a new lawn on bare soil at $1 to $2.50 a square foot and resodding an existing lawn at $2 to $4.50, and gives an all-in range for each grass. LawnStarter (December 2025) gives each grass’s price with and without installation, and prices removing the old grass ($0.88–$1.84 a square foot) and tilling and grading ($0.90–$2) as separate jobs. Homewyse (September 2026) prints one national range for a basic job on a favorable site, $2.20 to $3.68 a square foot. A tool that blended those into one “average cost” would be inventing a number none of them published. Fixr’s page was read too, and left out: it was last updated in January 2025.
What moves the price
- Taking the old lawn out. The biggest single difference. HomeAdvisor’s resodding range starts where its new-lawn range ends, “because crews first have to strip and haul away the old grass”.
- The grass. In LawnStarter’s table, installed prices run from $0.77–$1.26 for Bahia to $1.35–$1.78 for centipede. In HomeAdvisor’s all-in table, from $1.20–$2.40 (Bahia) to $1.75–$2.85 (centipede).
- Grading. HomeAdvisor adds $1 to $3 a square foot where the ground is uneven or sloped; LawnStarter’s tilling and grading runs $0.90 to $2.
- The shape. Curves, slopes and obstacles: up to 10% more by HomeAdvisor, 15 to 20% by LawnStarter.
- Delivery. Both put it at $65 to $230. HomeAdvisor says many installers roll it into the quote and some list it separately, so the tool notes it rather than adding it to a pro’s price.
Doing it yourself
The sod is the cheap part: HomeAdvisor puts it at $0.35 to $0.85 a square foot, and LawnStarter by grass from $0.20 (Bahia) to $0.85 (centipede). The tool adds the extra to order that the sod calculator uses — 5% by Mississippi State, 10% by Purdue — and one delivery. What it does not add is the work: renting a sod cutter to strip the old lawn, a tiller, a roller, and a lot of lifting. LawnStarter puts a pallet at $150 to $450 for 450 to 500 square feet, and HomeAdvisor warns a pallet weighs “well over a ton”. LawnStarter’s advice on timing is the one to follow: schedule the delivery for the day you lay it.
Sod or seed?
Seed is a fraction of the price: LawnStarter prints $0.09 to $0.15 a square foot for a pro to seed a lawn and $0.07 to $0.21 for hydroseeding, and HomeAdvisor $0.10 to $0.20 for seeding. The table under the tool works those out for your lawn next to the sod figures. What sod buys is time: it is a lawn the day it goes down, while seed takes weeks to fill in and a season to thicken, and it wants the right time of year. For a slope that would wash out, or a lawn you need to walk on this summer, that time is worth paying for.