Open any online marketplace and look through the listings for industrial floors. Offers listed side by side will differ in price per square metre by a factor of two. The first thought is usually this: someone is dumping prices and someone is overcharging.

Almost always, both are wrong. The prices are simply quoted for different things — and not a single listing says which. Below we break down what makes up the price of an industrial floor, so that you can compare offers against each other rather than take anyone’s word for it.

The main thing to understand about price per square metre

A price per square metre that does not state the coating thickness means nothing.

This is not nitpicking. Material consumption is roughly 1.3–1.7 kg per square metre for every millimetre of thickness. So a 4 mm floor needs twice as much material as a 2 mm floor over the same area. Twice. That is exactly the spread you see in the listings.

So the first question to ask a contractor is not “what does a square metre cost” but “what thickness, and why exactly that one”. We covered which thickness your load needs in the article “Epoxy self-levelling floor: how to choose the thickness for the load”.

If the answer gives you a price but no thickness, the conversation has not started yet.

The line most often hidden: the substrate

Substrate preparation is a quarter to a third of the cost of the work. And it is the easiest item to leave out of the estimate so that the total looks more attractive.

What it includes:

mechanical preparation — shot blasting, scarifying (milling) or grinding. These are three different technologies, with different prices and different results for adhesion;
repair: cracks, potholes, damaged joints, a weak top layer;
sometimes — a levelling layer, if level differences exceed what is permitted;
sometimes — a damp-proof membrane, if there is none under the slab.

This is easy to check. If the offer has a single line, “installation of a polymer floor, so much per m²”, there is no preparation in it. Then there are two possibilities: either it will not be done — and the coating will come away together with the weak top of the concrete — or it will be done, but billed as an extra once the floor has been opened up and there is no going back.

An estimate without substrate preparation is not cheaper. It is just later.

What the system itself consists of

A polymer floor is not “one coat of paint”. Every layer has to be costed at its own consumption rate:

Primer. Its consumption depends on the porosity of the concrete and can vary by a factor of one and a half to two; on a weak substrate the primer is applied in two passes.
Intermediate layer — filled with quartz sand, it provides the thickness and the load-bearing capacity.
Finish coat — it is responsible for chemical resistance, appearance and slip resistance.

When you are quoted “the price of the material”, ask what exactly it is the price of: a kit for the whole system, or a single component.

Details that are priced separately

A floor is not just its open area. These should appear as separate lines:

coves — the rounded floor–wall transition, measured in linear metres;
floor drains and drainage channels — the coating is taken into the body of the drain, which is manual work;
anchor grooves around the perimeter and along the floor drains — a mechanical key for the edge;
movement joints — they cannot simply be poured over;
line marking, zoning, marking of traffic lanes.

If these lines are missing, someone priced an area, not a floor. They will turn up on site anyway — the only question is at whose expense.

Coating type: this is where prices differ several-fold

Different tasks need different systems, and the price difference between them is bigger than the difference between contractors.

Epoxy floor	The basic option for dry production halls, warehouses, car parks.
Antistatic floor	More expensive than epoxy not because of a “special material” but because of the scope of work: a grid of copper tape over the whole area, connections to the earthing system, a conductive primer, a carbon-filled intermediate layer and a mandatory measurement with a test report.
Polyurethane floor	Where elasticity and resistance to impact loads and vibration are needed.
Polyurethane-cement floor	The most expensive per square metre, because its thickness starts at 4 mm and goes up to 9. But for a food plant with steam cleaning it is the only system that works; cheaper epoxy will come away there within a season, and the second floor will cost more than the first.

What costs least is the correctly chosen system. Not the cheapest one.

The cost that is not in the estimate: downtime

It is the last thing people think about, yet it is often bigger than the difference in material price.

The work goes in stages, and between them there are waiting times that cannot be cut short: preparation, primer, the interval between coats, the main layer, the finish, strength gain. You can usually walk on the floor after a day, and put it under full operating load after several days.

So a conversation about price must include a schedule: how many days the production hall will be out of action, and whether the work can be done in sections, area by area. A contractor who names only a price and no timeframe is selling you half a solution.

Ten questions before you sign

Print them out and check any quotation (commercial proposal) against them:

What is the coating thickness, and what load is it designed for?
What does substrate preparation include, and what technology is used for it?
Who will check the strength, moisture and flatness of the substrate before work starts, and how?
Is repair of cracks and potholes included, or is it priced separately?
How many layers are in the system, and what is the consumption of each?
Coves, floor drains, anchor grooves, movement joints — are they listed as separate lines?
Slip-resistance class — one for the whole site, or by zone?
How many days will the site be unavailable, and can the work be done in sections?
What does handover include: which measurements, against which document, and how are they confirmed?
What exactly does the warranty cover — the material, the work, or the whole system?

A quotation that answers all ten may turn out more expensive. The same quotation will almost certainly turn out cheaper in the end.

Why we do not publish a price list

We could. It would look solid and mean nothing — just like the listings we started with.

To name a price, we need three things: the area and condition of the existing substrate, the nature of the load (equipment, temperature, chemicals, wet cleaning) and the coating requirements, if the design sets any. With these three answers, the calculation takes one conversation, and every line will be visible in it.

Without them, any figure named is either a “from” price or a guess, and it will change on site.

What next

If you already have a quotation in hand, go through the ten questions above. If after that you want to compare it with our calculation, send us the area, the nature of the load and a photo of the existing floor. We will do the calculation and show you the estimate line by line — including the lines that were missing from the first quotation.

How much an industrial floor costs: what makes up the price