How Much Does It Cost to Install a Tile Floor?

Please note that the price information in this article was based on data from 2018 and may now be outdated. 

This depends on several factors. These factors include:

• The cost of tiling charged by your installer
• The type of tiles you want to use
• The state of the surface where you want the tile work to be done

The floor tiles can go anywhere from $35/m2 for plain ceramic types to $150/m2 for high quality porcelain tiles. To this price, you need to the hourly rate of the tillers. They can go from $45 to $60 per hour.

Some of them charge by square metre, but you should definitely try and get a quote per your entire project. That is the only way to be sure that the price includes all the work that needs to be done and there are no hidden costs.

Service Seeking tilers happily provide their quotes to those who want some work done. They will tell you how much they charge for your project, so you can ask them for different versions of your project, as well. Get your tiling quotes from excellent, local experts.

How much do tilers charge per hour?

Tiling work per hour is anywhere between $45 to $60. Again, these prices can be much higher if your project is complicated. For example, sometimes, it will cost the same to tile the floor of a small bathroom and the floor of a big living room. Why?

Sometimes, bathrooms are in terrible state. The old tiles need to be removed, the corners are inaccessible, the tiles need to be cut and tailored around fixed objects, like the toilet and the sink. All that complicates the tile installation and therefore costs more.

On the other hand, if you have just removed your wooden floor, from a nice, flat and smooth concrete floor, tiling it would be a breeze. So, even though the surface is much bigger, the tile installation cost can be lower, due to the simplicity of the work.

Image source: madnessandmethod.com

Although many tilers calculate their charges based on their hourly rate, you are more likely to get a per square metre quote, or even per job.

What Does a Tiler Do?

Now that you have the idea about the average cost of your tiling, you have to be wondering what are you paying for. What does that tile installation cost actually cover? In other words, what does a tiler do?

You will notice that this is not cheap work, so it has to be something more to it than just laying one tile next to the other.

The tiler does the following:

• Prepares the surface for tiling
• Calculates the number of tiles needed
• Cuts the tiles when necessary
• Lays the tiles
• Sometimes even removes the old tiles or the old flooring of different type

This is work that requires both strength, geometry and precision. These skills are needed to make sure that the tiling of your floor is just perfect. Here are the steps to tiling a floor:

1. Removing the old tiles if needed
2. Leveling the floor if needed
3. Applying the datum line for reference
4. Calculating the number and the position of the tiles
5. Mixing the adhesives for tiling
6. Applying the adhesive mixture to the floor
7. Placing one tile next to the other to form the desired pattern
8. Adding the tile separators to achieve the more professional look
9. Checking if the tiles are all in level
10. Applying grout over the tiles to fill the space between them
11. Wiping the remaining grout and enjoying the new tile floor

Within these 11 steps are also many sub-steps that tilers have to do when tiling your floor. That are those little things that make one tiling job more difficult and therefore more expensive than the other. These steps may vary for many reasons:

How much does it cost to install ceramic floor tile?

Your ceramic tiles are among the cheapest tiles that are the least difficult to work with. That is why this is probably the cheapest option when it comes to floor tiling. If you are being charged per square metre, you can get the price of $90 and up to $150. The cheapest ceramic floor tiles cost $35 per square metre.

So, let’s say you want to tile a 3m x 3m room. That makes it 9 m2. For the cheapest possible types of ceramic floor tiles, you will pay $35 per square metre. That makes $315 for tiles only. You should add 5% for additional price of adhesives and different treatments. That’s around $330.

Now, let’s look into the labour. If you get the lowest per square metre price of $90, it means that you will pay $890 as tile installation cost. Add that to the price of material, and you are looking at the cost of tiling that reaches $1,220.

The same calculation can be done for the top prices of these two items on the pricing list. The high price of ceramic floor tiling is $95. This means it is $855 for the tiles and then we’ll add the 5% for other, unpredicted costs. This takes us to the cost of tiles that is around $900

If you find the expensive tiler and your floor tiling is complicated, you will pay the cost of tiling which is $150.m2, that brings you to $1,350 for the 9m2 floor. The total is $2,250.

The cost of tiling for your ceramic tile floor of 9m2 can range from $1,220 to $2,250 if you take into consideration that there is no tile removal involved and that you are being charged by the square metre.

If you divide this by those 9 m2, this means that your cost of tiling the ceramic floor is $135 m2 – $250, tiles and labour included.

Ask for quotes from experienced Australian tilers and compare them with these calculations. You are now aware of the price ballpark, so you can make sure never to overpay. Keep in mind that the calculations here are crude estimates, while the tilers will give you precise cost of tiling for your individual projects.