Clay Brick (Chicago Brick) vs Concrete Pavers

Clay brick vs. concrete pavers: cost, color and strength side by side

Florida contractor pricing puts clay brick pavers at $12 to $22 per square foot installed, with reclaimed or specialty brick running $25 to $50 or more, against $10 to $20 per square foot for concrete pavers of a comparable size and pattern (Angi, Apr 2026; Craft Pavers, Jul 2026; HomeGuide, Jan 2026). The gap in price traces back to how each unit is made. Clay brick is shaped and fired in a kiln at nearly 2,000°F, which bakes the color through the entire body of the unit rather than onto the surface. Concrete pavers are cast and cured with pigment mixed into or applied over the mix, which is faster and cheaper to produce at scale but means the color sits closer to the surface (Brick Industry Association, clay paver guide).

Compressive strength from the Brick Industry Association, a clay-brick trade group; sealing from ICPI Tech Spec 5, which covers concrete unit pavers, not clay brick.

Can clay brick handle a driveway, or is it patios and walkways only?

Both, depending on the unit. The paving-brick industry rates pedestrian and light-vehicular brick under one ASTM standard and heavier vehicular brick under a separate, thicker standard, so a driveway needs a vehicular-rated unit rather than a thin patio brick. Concrete pavers follow the same logic from the paver side: ICPI Tech Spec 2 specifies 2⅜ in. units for pedestrian areas and driveways and thicker 3⅛ in. units for streets and industrial pavement. What a driveway actually needs, in either material, is the base underneath built to the vehicular spec, not a thin patio section stretched to cover a parking pad.

When to choose clay brick

• A historic or traditional look matters more than minimizing upfront cost, especially near a brick-street neighborhood.
• Color permanence without resealing is worth paying for; a faded concrete paver eventually needs attention, a faded clay brick does not.
• A border or accent band is the goal rather than the whole field, which keeps the brick premium to a manageable square footage.
• Salvaged or reclaimed brick is available locally and matches the character of an older street or subdivision.

When to choose concrete pavers

• Budget per square foot is the deciding factor on a larger driveway or pool deck.
• A specific color, shape or surface texture is wanted that a local brick supplier does not stock.
• The project needs units in volume on a tighter schedule; concrete paver manufacturing runs are generally easier to match quickly than specialty brick orders.
• A future color refresh or sealer upgrade is part of the long-term maintenance plan anyway.

Clay brick's place in Central Florida's historic streets

Brick is not just a patio material here; it is the surface under entire neighborhoods. Winter Park still has roughly 19 miles of brick streets out of more than 100 miles of city roadway, and the city's own street-brick policy estimates a properly installed brick street lasts 40 to 50 years against 10 to 15 years for an asphalt overlay (City of Winter Park Street Brick Policy). That is a municipal road built on an engineered base, not a residential driveway, so the figure describes the material's durability potential rather than a warranty for a home project. Downtown Sarasota's streetscape used roughly 222,905 clay pavers cut into mosaic patterns at Main Street and Pineapple Avenue, which is one reason clay brick reads as the default historic surface on the Suncoast side as well as in Orange County (Pine Hall Brick, Sarasota streetscape). Reclaimed historic brick exists in limited supply through salvage yards and municipal reclamation programs, and availability varies year to year rather than on demand.

Under Florida's architectural-control statute, an HOA's governing documents can list approved paver materials, and where they do the association cannot block a homeowner's choice among the listed options (F.S. 720.3035). Neither brick nor concrete pavers are named in the statute itself, so what actually governs the choice is each community's own declaration and design guidelines, which is worth checking before ordering material.

Pricing a 600 sq ft driveway in brick vs. concrete pavers

Say you have a 600 square foot driveway section on a 1960s lot near a Winter Park brick corridor, and the plan is either a full clay-brick surface or a full concrete-paver surface in a similar herringbone pattern. At the published Florida ranges, the brick version runs roughly $7,200 to $13,200, and the concrete-paver version runs roughly $6,000 to $12,000, before base prep, edge restraint or any demolition of an existing surface.

Say instead the budget only stretches to concrete pavers for the full field, but the character of a brick street still matters to the homeowner. A common middle path is a brick border or soldier course framing a concrete-paver field, which keeps the brick premium to a narrow linear footage instead of the whole driveway.

Related reading

Our paver driveways page and paver patios page cover installation and base depth for both materials. For a full cost breakdown by size, see the paver driveway cost guide and paver patio cost guide. If the decision is pavers versus poured concrete rather than brick versus concrete pavers, pavers vs. concrete driveway covers that question directly, and travertine vs. concrete pavers compares a different premium material against the same concrete-paver baseline. What are the best pavers for Florida homes rounds up the material options in one place, and paver sealing covers the upkeep concrete pavers may need down the road.