Mudjacking vs Polyjacking vs Slab Replacement Cost 2026
Mudjacking costs $3.20 to $8.00 per sq ft on the evidence we could check: the five bids the City of De Pere, Wisconsin received for sidewalk mudjacking in 2025 and 2026. For polyjacking (foam lifting) we found no published per-square-foot price; one Minneapolis-St Paul foam contractor lists $500 to $1,200 for a sidewalk section and $1,200 to $2,500 for a driveway. Replacing a 10x20 driveway section with a new 4-inch slab is about $2,120 in our cost model, before the old slab is broken out and hauled away.
What Cities Pay for Mudjacking
Mudjacking prices are rarely published, but public bids are. The City of De Pere, Wisconsin put out small sidewalk mudjacking contracts in 2025 and 2026 and published every bid. Both bid tabs price per square foot of slab raised; the 2025 specification measures it joint to joint and says the unit price covers traffic control, drilling the holes, the grout and sealing the holes afterwards.
| Contract | Per sq ft | Bidder |
|---|---|---|
| 25-19 (1,250 SF) | $3.20 | J & S Concrete Services LLC |
| 25-19 (1,250 SF) | $4.00 | Badger Concrete Lifting, LLC |
| 25-19 (1,250 SF) | $8.00 | RaiseRite Concrete Lifting, Inc |
| 26-19 (1,000 SF) | $4.00 | Badger Concrete Lifting LLC |
| 26-19 (1,000 SF) | $6.00 | J & S Concrete Services LLC |
Project 25-19 (1,250 sq ft of sidewalk, bids opened 30 January 2025) and Project 26-19 (1,000 sq ft, 2026). These are unit prices on a city program with many slabs and no small-job minimum. A single job at a home is usually quoted as a whole job, so expect a higher price per square foot on a small area.
How it is done, from De Pere’s mudjacking specification: holes 1 to 2 inches across are drilled through the slab, spaced 12 to 18 inches from a joint or crack; a grout with at least 7 percent Portland cement, stiff enough not to leak but fluid enough to spread, is pumped in until the slab is back to grade; the slab is set to a fall of 1/4 inch per foot; and the holes are cleaned out and filled with a stiff 1:3 cement mix.
The grout adds weight to the ground under the slab, and the larger holes stay visible as patches. On soil that has stopped moving, that matters little; on soft or still-settling ground it can matter a lot.
Foam Lifting: How It Differs, and What We Could Price
Polyjacking injects a two-part polyurethane that expands under the slab and lifts it. The holes are smaller (5/8 inch in PolyLevel’s system, which its maker says can be walked or driven on 15 minutes after installation), and the foam is light: lifting foams are sold by density, for example Alchemy AP Lift 430, a 3 lb per cubic foot foam its seller lists with an unconfined expansion of 24 times.
We could not verify a per-square-foot price. No public bid we found priced foam lifting, and the per-square-foot ranges that appear online come from cost directories rather than from contractors’ own price lists. The nearest thing to a published price is one contractor’s job ranges:
| Foam Level job | Published range |
|---|---|
| Small repairs | $300 to $800 |
| Sidewalk sections | $500 to $1,200 |
| Driveways | $1,200 to $2,500 |
| Garage floors | $1,000 to $4,500 |
From Foam Level’s cost page (last updated 18 March 2026). The company says pricing is not based on square footage alone and that actual prices depend on site conditions. One firm in one metro area, so treat it as an example, not a national range.
What Replacing the Slab Costs
A new slab is priced the same way as everything else on this site. In our cost model a 4-inch, 4,000 PSI slab with wire mesh on a 4-inch stone base is about $2,120 for a 10x20 driveway section ($1,320 to $3,790) and about $3,410 for 20x20 ($2,210 to $5,700). Those figures do not include breaking out the old slab and hauling it away, which we have not yet priced from a published source; see the removal and replacement page.
Public bids give a second reference. The City of Baraboo, Wisconsin’s 2026 sidewalk-replacement bids (opened 26 March 2026) priced new 4-inch concrete sidewalk at: $6.75, $7.48, $9.00, $9.50 per sq ft from four bidders (bid tabulation; the tab does not say whether removal is in that price). Set beside De Pere’s $3.20 to $8.00 for mudjacking (both Wisconsin cities, both public programs), the middle mudjacking bid, $4.00, is about 49% of the middle new-sidewalk bid, $8.24. The ranges overlap, so compare quotes on your own slab.
Replacement is the only real fix when the slab itself has failed (broken into pieces or badly cracked across its thickness), when it was too thin or unreinforced for what now drives on it, or when the ground under it has to be dug out and rebuilt. Lifting a broken slab raises broken pieces.
Which Option for Which Situation
| Situation | Mudjacking | Polyjacking | Replace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slab sound, settled, cause has stopped | Lowest cost | Smaller holes, lighter fill | Usually not needed |
| Soil still moving (clay, washout, leak) | Fix the cause first | Fix the cause first | Often the durable answer |
| Slab broken or cracked through | Lifts broken pieces | Lifts broken pieces | Usually the answer |
| Too thin or weak for its use | Does not fix it | Does not fix it | Pour to the right spec |
| Replacement planned within a few years | Cheapest stopgap | Works, costs more | Wait for the plan |
| Visible decorative slab | 1 to 2 in patches | Smaller patches | Clean restart |
This is our editorial guide, not an engineering assessment. The patch sizes come from De Pere’s mudjacking specification and PolyLevel’s product page. If the slab supports part of a building, or the settling is recent and fast, have a structural engineer look first.
How to Evaluate Contractor Recommendations
A contractor usually recommends the work it does: mudjacking firms recommend mudjacking, foam firms recommend foam, and general concrete contractors recommend replacement. None of these is necessarily wrong, so get at least one quote for each approach on the same slab.
Ask each one: what caused the settling, and has it stopped? How long do you expect the fix to last, and will you write that into a warranty? What happens if it settles again: a free re-lift, a credit, or nothing? How many holes, where, and how will they be patched?
Be wary of a firm that recommends its own method before looking at the slab, cannot explain the cause, pushes for a same-day decision, or offers no written warranty. Compare quotes on what the fix should achieve and how long it is guaranteed, not only on the headline price. If you already have a replacement quote, our quote checker compares it with the model.
How We Price a Slab
Every installed price on this site comes from one model: published ready-mix and materials prices, plus crew hours priced at Bureau of Labor Statistics wages, plus overhead and margin. The low figure uses the lowest published input and our lowest assumption at every step; the high figure uses the highest. The crew hours, overage and margin are our own estimates, not published figures, and are listed below so you can check them against your quote. Worked example: a 10 x 20 ft replacement driveway section (new pour only) (4-inch, 4,000 PSI, wire mesh, broom finish, 4-inch stone base).
| Line | Low | Typical | High | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ready-mix concrete | $342 | $395 | $475 | 2.47 cu yd plus 5 to 10% overage, at published per-yard prices |
| Delivery and small-load charges | $50 | $110 | $519 | Per-truck charges from the same price lists (10 yd per truck) |
| Crushed-stone base | $130 | $162 | $221 | 4 in compacted crusher run |
| Reinforcement | $48 | $48 | $48 | 6x6 10-gauge mesh panels, lapped |
| Form lumber | $23 | $34 | $45 | Perimeter boards, shared across reuses |
| Crew labour | $503 | $882 | $1,401 | Crew hours x BLS wages x employer costs |
| Overhead and margin | $219 | $490 | $1,084 | 20% to 40% on direct cost |
| Installed total | $1,320 | $2,120 | $3,790 | Rounded to the nearest $10 |
Not included: excavation and soil haul-off, removing an old slab, permits, pumping, decorative finishes and sealing. Totals are national; the calculators’ state option swaps in that state’s BLS wages and leaves concrete and materials at the published lists.
Published inputs (read 13 October 2026)
- Ready-mix, per cubic yard: 3,000 PSI $127.05 to $165.00, 4,000 PSI $132.00 to $175.00, from Supreme Concrete (Los Angeles, CA), Minimix Concrete (Pequannock, NJ), Gehring Construction & Ready-Mix (Columbus, NE, list dated 2026-01-01), Scenic City Ready Mix (Tennessee, list dated 2024-08-03).
- Small orders and trucks: short-load charge $50 under 4 yd (Gehring) or $100 at 5 yd or less, plus $100 more at 2 yd or less (Scenic City); per truck, no charge within 20 miles (Gehring), a $35 surcharge (Scenic City), or $363.88 Zone A delivery plus a $55 environmental fee (Supreme).
- Crushed-stone base: $44.00 to $74.75 per cubic yard from D & L Supply (Central New York, $44.00/yd), JMJ Companies (Lynchburg, VA, $39.50/ton), Golden Landscaping Supply (Cumming, GA, $50.00/ton), Yard Works Landscape Supply (Fort Mill, SC, $74.75/yd); per-ton prices converted at 2,450 lb per yard.
- Steel, forms, poly: #4 rebar 20 ft $8.99, 6x6 10-gauge mesh 4x8 panel $6.99, 2x6x12 $14.32, 2x4x16 $12.13, 6-mil poly 8 ft 4 in x 100 ft $59.99, rebar chair $0.33 (Menards online prices; Home Depot and Lowe’s pages could not be read that day). That works out to $0.24 per sq ft for mesh and $0.74 per sq ft for a rebar grid, materials only.
- Wages: BLS OEWS 47-2051 cement masons (May 2025) 25th percentile $22.60, median $27.41, 75th $32.15 an hour; 47-2061 construction laborers $18.57, $22.66, $28.72. Employer costs from BLS ECEC June 2026, construction industry ($51.96 total compensation per $36.13 of wages, x1.44): a crew hour costs $29.60 to $43.77.
Our assumptions (estimates, not published figures)
- Crew: half cement masons, half laborers.
- Setup per job: 8 to 16 crew hours (layout, stripping, cleanup).
- Per 100 sq ft: 4-inch 4 to 7 crew hours, 6-inch 5 to 8.5, 8-inch 6 to 10; add 0.5 to 1 for mesh or 1.5 to 2.5 for rebar.
- Concrete overage 5% to 10%; base stone ordered at 1.2x its compacted volume; form boards charged at half to all of their price.
- Overhead and margin 20% to 40% of direct cost.
- 6-inch and thicker slabs use 4,000 PSI mix; thinner slabs 3,000 PSI.
Sources: City of De Pere, WI bid tabulations for Project 25-19 and Project 26-19 (sidewalk mudjacking) and its Project 25-19 bidding documents (special provisions and Section 32 01 20 Mudjacking); City of Baraboo, WI 2026 public works bid tabulation (Proposal #4); Foam Level concrete lifting cost page; PolyLevel system page; Alchemy AP Lift 430 product listing; and, for the new-slab figures, the published ready-mix, stone, materials and BLS wage inputs listed in the method above. All read 13 October 2026. Crew hours, overage, overhead and margin are our estimates.