Stair Runner Cost Guide

A stair runner can totally transform your staircase. Whether you live in a modern or traditional home, a stair runner will make a show-stopping statement and set a seriously stylish tone for the rest of your space. With so many colours, styles, and accessories available, it’s a great chance to get creative and design your dream stair runner. Instagram and Pinterest are full of inspiring stair runner ideas to give you plenty of ideas, but it’s also useful to know the average cost of a stair runner before you get too carried away!

If you’re thinking about fitting stair runners in your home, there are a few things you need to include in your budget. Your total stair runner cost will be dictated by the carpet and the design you choose, but there’s also the fitting costs to consider. So, if you’ve been looking with heart-eyes at stunning stair runner photos and wondering ‘how much does it cost to carpet stairs?’, we’ve put together a guide that answers this question and more.

How much does a stair runner cost?

It can be tricky to know how much to budget for a stair runner when working out your renovation costs. The cost of a stair runner is made up of two parts: the design and installation. Every single factor of the design has an impact on how much the stair runner costs, from the pile of the carpet to the shape of your stairs. Whatever your budget, we can work with it to create a stair runner you’ll really love.

Factors that affect the cost of a stair runner

The cost of a stair runner can depend on several things:

The price of the carpet – The carpet material and the quality will affect how much your stair runner carpet costs.
The amount of carpet – How wide are your stairs? How much wood do you want to leave showing on each step? How many stairs do you need to carpet? The wider and longer your stairs are, the more carpet you’ll need.
The shape of your stairs – Do your stairs have a turn in or a landing in the middle? Straight stairs are the cheapest to carpet, while curved stairs can be trickier to fit and often require more carpet.
The design of the carpet – Using patterned carpet like stripes and tartan to make your stair runner costs more than plain because you need to allow for pattern repeats when cutting it to size.
The type of edging - Whipping is the most affordable type of edging whereas fabric tape in linen, cotton or leather will cost more.
The type of fitting – Opting for a Hollywood fitting (where the carpet is fitted on each step like a bull nose and tacked underneath) adds an additional cost.
Stair rods or clips – If you go for these decorative extras, they’ll also bump up the overall cost. The length, style and material of the stair rod, as well as how many you need plus the fitting cost can all change the price.

The carpet itself will make up most of the cost so it’s important to choose the right one. Being on the stairs, it needs to be strong and durable. It should also suit your lifestyle and your personal taste. Our stair runner buying guide looks at all the different carpet types, materials, and colours to help you narrow down our extensive carpet collection.

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What is the average stair runner cost?

The price of a new carpet can range from £5 per square metre to over £100 per square metre.

Budget carpet: £5-£15 per m2
Mid-range carpet: £15-£30 per m2
Luxury carpet: £30-£50+ per m2

You can work out a rough cost for the carpet by measuring your staircase, which we explain how to do in our measuring guide. You’ll need to measure:

Staircase length = tread + riser x number of steps
Edging length = total length x 2

For the average straight staircase of 12 steps which is 6m long, a stair runner would cost around £50 for a budget carpet, £100 for a mid-range carpet and £200 or more for a luxury carpet.

You also need to include the cost of the stair runner edging. This ranges from £7.99 per metre for whipping (where the raw edge of the carpet is bound with yarn) to £29.99 per metre for taping, where fabric is sewn along each side of the runner. Double the length of the runner to work out how many metres you need.

Tapi Top Tip – You’ll probably be fitting landing carpet at the same time as your stair runner, so remember to work out the measurements and costs for that as well. Instead of having full carpet, you could continue your runner along your hallway – it’s up to you! Take a look at our measuring guide and our carpet cost guide for everything you need to know.

How much do stair rods cost?

When calculating how much is a stair runner, remember to include any decorative accessories. Stair rods and stair clips are optional, but they do add a pinch of pizazz! They come in a range of lengths, finishes, and designs, and you can expect to pay a little more for the ones with fancy finials. Simple styles start from £9.99 each for a 70cm rod. Most people choose not to have a rod where the stair meets the floor, so you’ll need one fewer than your total number of stairs.

Tapi Top Tip – The size of the stair rod excludes the bracket and finial, which adds another 5-6cm each end. We stock one style of stair rod in two sizes but if you’re looking for something else, pop into a Tapi store and one of our floorologists will show you a smorgasbord of stair rod options and we’ll give you a quote.

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How much does stair runner cost to fit?

You’ve designed your stair runner and you’ve calculated the amount of carpet - now it’s time to work out the stair runner fitting cost. We can arrange fitting with one of our trusted fitting partners who have years of experience installing stair runners and stair carpets. Here’s a quick breakdown of the fitting costs:

Carpet fitting: from £5.50 per m2

Underlay: from £7.99 per m2 (the underlay fitting cost is included with the carpet when you buy both from Tapi)
Grippers: £2.50 per metre (total length = 2 x width of runner x number of stairs)

There’s also likely to be an extra fitting fee to cover the fitting fiddliness of stairs. Taking all these things into consideration and doing some rough sums, you can expect stair runner fitting costs to start from around £150.

If you’re a keen bean when it comes to DIY and want to install a stair runner yourself, we’ve got a helpful stair runner fitting guide that takes you through the process, step-by-step (no pun intended).

Additional stair runner fitting costs to consider

On top of the basic stair runner installation costs, there are some other things you might need to include in your budget:

Uplift of old carpet: from £1.50 per m2
Disposal of old carpet: from £4 per m2
Whipping preparation: from £4 per stair (this is where the carpet is taken away and pre-cut ready for whipping)
Stair rod installation: from £4.50 per rod
Stair preparation: Although we are unable to offer this service, you or a professional decorator will still need to sand, prep and probably varnish or paint your stairs before your new runner can be fitted. It probably needs a little TLC before its makeover!

So how much is a stair runner? Based on a typical straight set of stairs, the cost of a stair runner will start from around £600.

Hopefully, you should now have a better idea of what to budget for your stair runner. We have hundreds of stair carpets in our collection waiting for us to wave our magic wand and transform one of them a bespoke stair runner for your home. Why not arrange a one-to-one appointment in-store at your nearest Tapi or book a free home visit and let us come to you. You can also order some free samples online to see which carpet matches your design moodboard or check out our hallway runners if you want to continue the look beyond your stairs.

*The prices quoted in this article were correct at the time of publication. Fitting prices can vary dependent on location, minimum fitting fee applies. Please visit your local Tapi store for a more personalised quote from our expert floorologists.

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