A gravel pad is the everything job of this trade: RV parking, a shed base, overflow parking beside the driveway, a spot for the boat trailer. The calculator above prices it by square footage at an example rate of $1.50 per square foot. Here is what should be inside that rate, and the two details that decide whether the pad still looks like a pad in a few years.
The same pad, three different customers
An RV pad, a shed pad, and a parking pad price on the same math but fail different ways. The RV pad carries the most weight on the fewest contact points, so it wants a full-depth compacted section and a firm approach path. The shed pad has to be dead level and stay that way, because the shed doors rack the first time a corner settles. The parking pad mostly needs to shrug off turning tires, which chew loose rock. Same square-foot rate structure, different notes on the quote. Two quick size checks at the example rate: a 12 by 40 RV pad is 480 square feet, so $720. A 10 by 12 shed pad is 120 square feet, which comes to $180, and that is minimum-job-charge territory, because the truck and the compactor cost the same to bring out either way.
Edges are what keep a pad a pad
Rock spreads. Every tire that rolls off the edge and every freeze cycle pushes stone outward into the yard, and an uncontained pad slowly becomes a thin gravel stain twice its original size. Containment is the fix: landscape timbers, steel or plastic edge restraint, or digging the pad in so surrounding grade holds the rock. It is a real line item with real material cost, so put it on the quote instead of donating it.
Base rock, then finish rock
A pad built from one load of pretty rock rides like marbles. The structure comes from a coarser crushed base layer that locks together under compaction, with a finer crushed rock over it that tightens into a smooth, level surface you can walk on and park on. That is two materials, possibly two deliveries, and compaction time on each lift, which is exactly what your per-foot rate has to cover. The cost build-up works the same way as a driveway, and the full method is in how to price a gravel driveway, with driveway numbers on the gravel driveway cost calculator. For shed customers weighing rock against a slab, gravel vs concrete driveway covers the trade-offs.
The rate above is an example. PriceDesk runs this calculator with your own pad rate, add-ons, and minimum charge, free for 14 days, so the small pads pay their way too.