Buyers compare stone by the square metre of material. Projects are lost — or won — on the cost of everything that has to happen around it. A 20 mm granite panel and a 3 mm flexible sheet are not competing products; they are competing systems, and the systems have very different bills.
Start with the number that drives everything
Weight is the root cause of most of the cost difference. A traditional 20 mm stone cladding panel weighs roughly 52–58 kg per square metre. One KASARO sheet, at 2–4 mm, comes to around 3 kg per square metre installed.
That single figure cascades: it decides whether you need a secondary frame, whether a crane is on site, how many people can lift a sheet, and whether the substrate has to be strengthened before anything is fixed to it.
Installed weight, typical values
- KASARO flexible stone
- ≈ 3 kg/m²
- 20 mm solid stone
- 52–58 kg/m²
- Ceramic tile
- 18–24 kg/m²
- HPL laminate
- 8–11 kg/m²
The four cost lines that move
1. Structure and substrate
Solid stone carried above the ground floor needs mechanical anchors, a structural substrate and usually a secondary frame. The structural load on the facade moves from negligible for a thin bonded sheet to high for a 20 mm panel system. On a new build this is a steel line item; on a retrofit it can decide whether the project is viable at all.
2. Access and lifting
A two-person team can carry a full elevation of flexible stone in a day. The same elevation in 20 mm stone needs lifting equipment and a trained crew. Scaffolding, hoists and access equipment are almost never in the material price — but they are always in the project budget, and they scale with weight and panel size.
3. Cutting and waste
Flexible stone is cut on site with a utility knife. Solid stone is cut with a wet saw and a diamond blade; tile with a wet saw; HPL with a panel saw. Knife cutting means off-cuts are small, sheet utilisation typically exceeds 92 per cent, and a site error does not mean a return visit with a diamond blade.
4. Programme
Lighter, faster fixing compresses the installation programme. On a fit-out where the cladding sits on the critical path, a week saved on the wall is a week saved across every trade waiting behind it.
The cost index, and what it excludes
In our specification table we publish a typical installed cost index, with flexible stone at 1.0 against solid stone at 2.6–3.4, ceramic tile at 1.1–1.4 and HPL at 0.8–1.1.
The index is indicative only. It excludes scaffolding, substrate preparation and access equipment — the three lines that favour thin, light systems the most.
That is not hedging. It is the honest reading: if you add access and substrate work back in, the gap widens in favour of the thin sheet, because those costs scale with weight. But the index is a starting point for a project conversation, not a quotation.
Where flexible stone is the wrong answer
We would rather say this than sell around it. Flexible stone is not a universal substitute:
- Floor applications — it is a wall and ceiling material.
- Structural stone — where the stone is doing load-bearing work.
- Very heavy abuse surfaces — solid stone will take damage a thin sheet will not.
- Applications needing thickness the series does not offer — we will tell you when a 2–4 mm sheet is not appropriate.
Where the material is right, the saving is real and it is structural, not cosmetic. Where it is wrong, buying it is the expensive option.
Getting to a real number
Send us the elevation, the substrate and the access conditions. We return a panel layout, a cutting schedule and a project-specific quotation — and, if flexible stone is not the right answer, we say so before you specify it.