A backyard court is a slab job with a scoreboard. The calculator above runs square footage times a finish rate, with example rates from $9 broom up to $16 stamped, but the details that make a court playable are not in the square footage. Here is what to get right.
Size the pad before you price it
A common half-court pad runs around 30 by 30 up to 30 by 50 feet. That is 900 to 1,500 square feet, driveway-scale concrete sitting in a backyard. At the example broom rate of $9, a 30 by 30 pad is $8,100, and a full 30 by 50 runs $13,500. Customers who ask for “a hoop pad” are often picturing something smaller, so walk the dimensions off with them in the yard before anyone falls in love with a number. The 30x30 slab cost page has the worked math for the most common size.
Flat and true matters more than pretty
A court is the one slab where the customer will notice a bad bounce before a bad edge. Hold your flatness standard tight, keep the crown minimal, and pitch just enough to drain. Texture is a real decision: light to medium broom gives grip without eating skin, and dead-smooth troweling turns slick with morning dew. Joints have to go somewhere, so plan the layout with the customer instead of letting the sawcuts land through the free-throw line by accident. Joint placement is one conversation that separates a court pour from a patio pour.
What the square footage does not include
Three things ride outside the per-foot rate. The hoop footing is its own dig and pour, sized to the post manufacturer’s spec. Court coating and striping, the painted acrylic surface most finished courts get, is usually a specialty sub or a coating company, so be clear about where your scope ends. And access matters at this volume: 900 plus square feet is multiple truckloads, and if the chute cannot reach the backyard, pumping belongs in the quote.
Court pads pour at 4 to 5 inches, and if vehicles will ever park on it, think driveway spec instead; 4 inch vs 6 inch slab covers that call. For the general method behind the rate, read how to price a concrete slab.
These rates are examples. PriceDesk runs this calculator with your own rates on your phone, free for 14 days, no card to start.