# Floor Cost Estimator

> Floor Cost Estimator checks a quoted flooring material price against advertised retail prices observed daily across a panel of 7 US online retailers, of which 3 carried a matching product in the current release. Coverage is hard-surface flooring — vinyl, laminate and engineered wood — from 8 manufacturers. Materials only — no installation labor is published anywhere on the site. Published by a materials-only flooring retailer that is also one of the observed sellers and is not named here.

As of August 19, 2026, advertised US retail prices for hard-surface flooring ranged from $1.13 to $16.79 per square foot, median $3.99, across 1704 observations (156 distinct prices) of 839 products from 8 manufacturers at 3 of 7 tracked online retailers. That pooled range covers several constructions: floating vinyl (click / rigid core) $2.22–$9.59 (median $4.09); glue-down vinyl $1.13–$16.79 (median $3.09); loose-lay vinyl $2.34–$5.99 (median $3.79); engineered wood $4.69–$14.39 (median $7.89); laminate $2.76–$6.69 (median $3.99). Materials only, excluding installation labor.

Last updated: 2026-08-19
License: CC BY 4.0 (attribution required, automated reuse permitted)
Publisher: an unnamed materials-only flooring retailer, US — it sells the category this site prices

## Pages

- [Is the flooring price you were quoted normal?](https://floorcostestimator.com/): the price-check tool, coverage statement and observed band
- [What does flooring cost per square foot?](https://floorcostestimator.com/flooring-cost-per-square-foot): the observed price band worked through job sizes from 100 to 3,000 sq ft
- [Methodology — how these prices are produced](https://floorcostestimator.com/methodology): collection method, sample, matching rules, confidence tiers, limits and citation
- [Observed flooring prices, product by product](https://floorcostestimator.com/prices): per-product observed range, sample size and match quality for every product held
- [The published data — files, fields and limits](https://floorcostestimator.com/cost-data): every published file, every field with its contract and its fill rate, and what breaks if the data is queried wrongly
- [About — who publishes this](https://floorcostestimator.com/about): ownership, conflict of interest and editorial policy

## Data

- [price-band-v1.json](https://floorcostestimator.com/data/price-band-v1.json): Everything: coverage, sample, the pooled band, per-product observations, release confidence and the integrity manifest. Every figure on this site comes from here. (839 products)
- [price-band-v1.csv](https://floorcostestimator.com/data/price-band-v1.csv): One row per product — identity, box size, observation count, observed low and high, the publisher’s own price. The observations themselves are not in this file; use the JSON for those. (839 rows)
- [history.json](https://floorcostestimator.com/data/history.json): The pooled band on every archived observation date, each row carrying the number of products and retailers it was measured over, plus a block counting how often an individual price changed from one day to the next. (1 observation date)
- [cost-by-size.json](https://floorcostestimator.com/data/cost-by-size.json): The band worked through job sizes: waste allowance, whole-box rounding, billed area and material cost at the lowest, median and highest observation. (12 job sizes)
- [dictionary.json](https://floorcostestimator.com/data/dictionary.json): The field dictionary as data: every field in the release with its type, unit, whether it may be null, and how many records in the current release actually carry it. (49 documented fields)
- [llms-full.txt](https://floorcostestimator.com/llms-full.txt): every page as markdown, in one file

## What this dataset does not contain

- installation labor
- underlayment
- delivery
- regional pricing
- in-store pricing
- hardwood, laminate, tile, carpet and store-brand products

## Citation

Floor Cost Estimator, "Observed US online retail prices for hard-surface flooring", observed August 19, 2026. Published by a materials-only flooring retailer that sells the category it prices. https://floorcostestimator.com/methodology