Cost guide · 2026

Foundation repair cost per pier

The per-pier price is the number everyone shops on and close to the least useful number in the quote. Two honest contractors can look at the same house and arrive at $6,000 and $22,000, and the gap is almost never that one of them is overcharging.

Your total is three numbers, not one

A foundation repair quote is the product of three decisions, and only the first is the per-pier price everybody asks about:

$300–$2,800 Per support point, by type
8–20 Typical count on a whole job
+$150–$250 Per linear ft to reach interior points

Multiply those out and the range for one house is enormous. Which is why a contractor who quotes you a per-pier price on the phone, before anyone has measured your floors, has told you nothing about what your repair will cost — and something useful about how they sell.

About these figures

Foundation Repair IQ does not quote prices and does not perform repairs. The figures below are general industry ranges published for orientation only — not quotes, not estimates for your property, and not binding on any contractor. Foundation pricing is set by the contractor after an on-site evaluation, and your actual cost may fall outside any range shown here.

What one support point actually costs

Five products, five prices, all of them legitimately called "a pier" in conversation. The full method comparison is on the main cost guide; what matters here is that the word is doing a lot of work.

Support point General range What the money buys
Concrete pressed piling $300 – $600 Fast, no rig, the Texas volume product
Steel pressed piling $700 – $1,200 Driven deeper past soft saturated clay
Steel push pier $1,200 – $1,900 Load-tested at each point as it is installed
Helical pier $1,400 – $2,500 Torque reading verifies capacity; works on light loads
Drilled pier $1,000 – $2,800 Bored to rock where limestone is shallow

What is included in a per-pier price

This is where quotes that look comparable stop being comparable, and it is worth going through line by line before signing anything.

Normally included Frequently extra — ask
The pier and the bracket Engineer's design and post-repair sign-off ($400–$1,000)
Excavating the access pit Elevation survey ($300–$800)
Installation labor City permit
Backfilling the hole Hydrostatic plumbing test ($250–$600)
Basic site tidy-up Restoring broken concrete, landscaping, flowerbeds
Interior access — tunneling or slab coring
Post-tension cable locating before any coring
Drainage correction to address the cause

Several of those run into four figures. A quote that is genuinely all-in at a higher per-pier rate can easily cost less than a cheaper one that excludes the survey, the engineer and the restoration.

Why interior piers cost more than perimeter piers

The pier is identical. Reaching it is not, and access is frequently the larger number.

A perimeter pier is installed from outside — dig a pit against the footing, install, backfill. An interior pier sits under the middle of the slab, and there are only two ways to it: break through the floor inside the house, or tunnel underneath from outside.

Three ways a contractor reaches a support point Three cross-sections of a house on a slab. The first shows a pier installed from outside at the perimeter. The second shows an interior pier reached by cutting through the slab from inside the house. The third shows an interior pier reached by hand-digging a tunnel underneath the slab from outside. Route 1 Perimeter Dig outside, press, backfill Machine access. Fastest and cheapest per support point. Route 2 Through the slab Cut a hole in the floor Flooring out, concrete cut, patch after. Post-tension cables must be located first. Route 3 Tunnel underneath hand-dug Dig in from outside, under the slab Interior untouched, but priced per linear foot of tunnel before any pier goes in.
A support point on the perimeter and the same support point in the middle of the house cost very different amounts, because of what it takes to reach it. This is the single biggest reason two quotes for one house can differ by a multiple — check whether both include interior work before comparing the totals.

Breaking through means flooring removed, dust indoors, restoration afterwards, and on any post-tension slab the cables have to be located first. Tunneling avoids all of that but runs roughly $150 to $250 per linear foot, and a single interior point can sit twenty or thirty feet from the nearest exterior wall. Either way, an interior point can cost several times what the pier itself does.

If your quote includes interior piers — common on older, thinner slabs that deflect between widely spaced supports — establish which access method is priced, because swapping one for the other changes the total substantially.

Where the count comes from

The count drives your total more than the unit price does, and it should come from a measured elevation survey across the whole floor plan.

It should not come from where the cracks are. Cracks appear where the structure is weakest — a window corner, a door opening, a brick course — not necessarily where the movement is greatest. A design built around visible damage can easily miss the part of the house that is actually dropping.

The red flag

A specific pier count and price given before anyone has taken elevation readings at your house. There is no way to produce that number honestly, which means it was produced some other way. Ask to see the readings the design is based on — a contractor working properly will have them and will hand them over.

Comparing two quotes with different counts

This is the skill worth having, and it is mostly a matter of reducing both quotes to the same three facts before you look at either total: the product, the count, and the exclusions.

Say one contractor proposes 10 pressed pilings at $500 each and another proposes 18 push piers at $1,500. That is $5,000 against $27,000 — and it is not a pricing disagreement, it is a design disagreement. One has concluded that a limited perimeter repair on a cheap product will hold; the other has concluded the house needs more points and verified capacity at each one.

Useful questions, in roughly this order:

  • What elevation readings is the count based on, and can I see them?
  • Why this many points, and what are the unsupported sections expected to do?
  • Which of these are interior points, and how are you reaching them?
  • What happens to the price if the piers have to go deeper than assumed?
  • Which of the items on the "frequently extra" list above are in this number?
  • Who issues the warranty — you, or the pier manufacturer?

If the two contractors give materially different answers to the second question, that is what an engineer's evaluation is for. A few hundred dollars from someone with nothing to sell resolves a five-figure disagreement.

Questions about per-pier pricing

How much does foundation repair cost per pier?

It depends entirely on the type of support point, and the spread is wide. Concrete pressed pilings — the volume product on Texas slab perimeters — generally run $300 to $600 each. Steel pressed pilings run roughly $700 to $1,200. Steel push piers, which are driven hydraulically and load-tested as they go in, run about $1,200 to $1,900. Helical piers run $1,400 to $2,500, and drilled piers $1,000 to $2,800 depending on depth to rock. So before a per-pier figure means anything you have to know which product it describes. A $400 quote and a $1,600 quote are frequently both honest and simply not for the same thing.

How many piers will my house need?

No one can answer that honestly before a measured elevation survey, and a count given over the phone is a sales number rather than an estimate. The design should come from readings taken across the whole floor plan — not from where the cracks happen to be visible, because the cracks appear where the structure is weakest rather than where the movement is worst. As a rough orientation, a single settling corner might need a handful of points, one full elevation of a typical single-story house considerably more, and a two-story with masonry more again. Typical whole-job counts land somewhere between eight and twenty. The count matters more than the unit price, which is why it deserves more scrutiny.

What is included in the price of one pier?

Normally the pier itself, the bracket that connects it to the footing, excavating the access pit, the installation labor, and backfilling the hole. What is frequently not included, and what you should ask about line by line: the engineer's design and post-repair sign-off, the elevation survey, the city permit, a hydrostatic plumbing test, restoring landscaping or concrete that gets broken during access, interior access where tunneling or slab coring is needed, and any drainage correction. Several of those can add thousands to a job that looked complete on the quote. The per-pier price is the headline, not the total.

Why do interior piers cost more than perimeter piers?

Because the pier is the same and reaching it is not. A perimeter pier is installed from outside: dig a pit against the footing, install, backfill, done. An interior pier sits under the middle of the slab, so the crew either breaks through the floor inside your house — with the flooring, the mess and the restoration that implies, plus locating post-tension cables first — or tunnels underneath from outside, which commonly runs $150 to $250 per linear foot of tunnel and can mean twenty or thirty feet of tunnel per point. Tunneling usually costs more but avoids demolition indoors, which on an occupied house is generally worth paying for. If a quote includes interior points, ask which access method is priced.

How do I compare two quotes with different pier counts?

Convert both to the same three facts before you look at the totals: the product, the count, and what is excluded. A quote for 10 pressed pilings at $500 and a quote for 18 push piers at $1,500 differ by a factor of five, and the difference is a design judgment about how much of the house needs support and how definitively — not necessarily about honesty. The useful questions are why each contractor arrived at their count, whether an elevation survey informed it, and what happens if piers run deeper than assumed. If one count is much lower, ask what they expect the unsupported sections to do. If one is much higher, ask what each additional point is carrying.

Is a cheaper per-pier price a worse repair?

Not inherently, and it is worth resisting the assumption. Concrete pressed pilings are cheap because the installation is quick and needs no drilling rig, and on deep uniform Texas clay they perform acceptably on a great many houses — they are the volume product for good reason. The upgrade to steel push piers buys verified capacity at each point, greater depth, and usually a manufacturer-backed warranty, and there are identifiable situations where that is worth several times the price. Outside those situations it is simply a more expensive way to hold the same house up. We work through when the upgrade earns its money on our push piers vs pressed pilings page.

More on what drives the total: the main cost guide, slab foundation repair costs, and pier and beam repair costs. For how each support method works, see repair methods.

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