Is polyaspartic actually worth the extra money?

It depends entirely on how fast you need the floor back. On a 450 square foot double garage the premium works out at roughly $900 to $2,250 using rates from firms that price both materials. What that buys is a car back on the floor after about 24 hours instead of 72, and about 120 hours if the garage is sitting near the 10C application minimum. If you can leave the car outside for a long weekend, you are paying for speed you do not need.

Why does this tool only use two companies?

Because those are the two that publish a rate for both materials. If you take one firm's epoxy price and a different firm's polyaspartic price, part of the gap you measure is just the difference between two price lists, not between two products. Monarch quotes epoxy at $4 to $6 and polyaspartic at $7 to $12; GLI Ontario quotes $5 to $9 and $6 to $12. Same firm, same market, same page, so the difference is the material.

How much longer does epoxy really take in a cold garage?

Sherwin-Williams publishes a drying schedule for ArmorSeal 1000 HS at three temperatures. Heavy traffic is 48 to 72 hours at 25C and 4 to 5 days at 10C, and full cure moves from 7 days to 10. The same sheet sets 10C as the minimum air, surface and material temperature for application at all, which is why an unheated GTA garage is a spring-to-autumn job unless the applicator brings heat.

Does polyaspartic slow down in the cold the same way?

The Canadian applicator figure we can cite does not say so. Quick Coat states a one-day installation curing in 24 hours without qualifying it by temperature, so this tool holds polyaspartic at 24 hours in both cases rather than inventing a cold-weather penalty for it. That is a limit of the published evidence, not a claim that temperature does not matter. Ask any applicator quoting a winter job what their product's minimum temperature is.

Can polyaspartic go over an existing epoxy floor?

That is a question for the applicator holding the warranty, not for a calculator. What we can say from the pricing is that stripping an existing coating is a real line item: ProEpoxy charges $300 to $600 for previous coating removal on a garage. If a quote for a recoat does not mention the old coating at all, that is the thing to ask about before the deposit.

What does this add over your epoxy vs polyaspartic comparison page?

The comparison page sets the two systems side by side on durability, UV stability, warranty and finish. This page does the one thing that page cannot: it puts your own square footage and your own deadline into the arithmetic and tells you what the premium costs you specifically. Read the comparison for the properties, use this for the decision.

Epoxy or Polyaspartic: What the Faster Coating Costs You

Last updated: August 26, 2026By EpoxyFloorIndex Research Team

Polyaspartic costs more and cures faster. Everything else about the choice follows from those two facts, so this page prices both against your own floor rather than describing the chemistry. Give it a size and a deadline and it returns the premium in dollars, the wait in hours, and which one your deadline actually permits.

Is the polyaspartic premium worth it on your floor?

Floor size

Single bay, 250 sq ftDouble bay, 450 sq ftTriple bay, 650 sq ft

Or type the exact area in square feet

When do you need to park on it again?

Same dayNext dayIn three daysNext week or later

Will the garage be kept above 10C while it cures?

Yes, heated or a warm monthNo, it will sit near the 10C minimum

450 sq ft

Epoxy fits, with no slack at all

Epoxy

$1,800 to $4,050

Driveable after about 72 hours

Polyaspartic

$2,700 to $6,300

Driveable after about 24 hours

What polyaspartic costs on topcheapest against cheapest, dearest against dearest: $900 to $2,250
What that buys in waitingat 25C: 2 days back sooner

Rates: epoxy $4 to $9 per sq ft, polyaspartic $6 to $14, both taken only from firms that publish a price for each material (Monarch Epoxy Coatings; GLI Epoxy Flooring (Ontario guide)). Cure times are Sherwin-Williams' published drying schedule for epoxy and Quick Coat's own stated 24-hour cure for polyaspartic. Before 13% HST.

Why the comparison is restricted to two firms

Most published comparisons of these two materials take the cheapest epoxy figure they can find and the dearest polyaspartic one, which produces a premium that looks dramatic and measures nothing. A price difference between two companies is not a price difference between two products.

So this tool uses only Monarch Epoxy Coatings and GLI Epoxy Flooring's Ontario guide, because each of them publishes a rate for epoxy and a rate for polyaspartic on the same page, quoted into the same market in the same year (August 2026). The band is widened to hold both firms rather than averaged between them, so the range is wide on purpose: it is the honest spread of what these two say, not a single number pretending to be certain.

The timing half comes from somewhere else entirely, and it has to. Cure time is a property of a product, not of a market, so it comes from a manufacturer data sheet: Sherwin-Williams publishes ArmorSeal 1000 HS drying times at three temperatures, and that temperature sensitivity is the whole reason this decision is different in Toronto than it is in a warm climate. A GTA applicator, ProEpoxy, independently quotes 72 hours before vehicle traffic, which matches the 25C figure on that sheet.

Whole garages, both materials, same firm

The clearest evidence of the premium is a firm quoting both jobs itself. These are complete garages as each company describes them.

Published whole-garage prices for epoxy and for polyaspartic, quoted by the same firm, CAD before HST
Job, and the firm that quoted it	Published price
Two-car garage, standard epoxyMonarch Epoxy Coatings	$2,660to $5,000
Two-car garage, polyaspartic or premiumMonarch Epoxy Coatings	$3,800to $6,800
Single garage, 250 sq ft, epoxyGLI Epoxy Flooring (Ontario guide)	$1,250to $2,250
Single garage, 250 sq ft, polyasparticGLI Epoxy Flooring (Ontario guide)	$1,500to $3,000
Double garage, 450 sq ft, epoxyGLI Epoxy Flooring (Ontario guide)	$2,250to $4,050
Double garage, 450 sq ft, polyasparticGLI Epoxy Flooring (Ontario guide)	$2,700to $5,400

Frequently asked questions

Is polyaspartic actually worth the extra money?: It depends entirely on how fast you need the floor back. On a 450 square foot double garage the premium works out at roughly $900 to $2,250 using rates from firms that price both materials. What that buys is a car back on the floor after about 24 hours instead of 72, and about 120 hours if the garage is sitting near the 10C application minimum. If you can leave the car outside for a long weekend, you are paying for speed you do not need.
Why does this tool only use two companies?: Because those are the two that publish a rate for both materials. If you take one firm's epoxy price and a different firm's polyaspartic price, part of the gap you measure is just the difference between two price lists, not between two products. Monarch quotes epoxy at $4 to $6 and polyaspartic at $7 to $12; GLI Ontario quotes $5 to $9 and $6 to $12. Same firm, same market, same page, so the difference is the material.
How much longer does epoxy really take in a cold garage?: Sherwin-Williams publishes a drying schedule for ArmorSeal 1000 HS at three temperatures. Heavy traffic is 48 to 72 hours at 25C and 4 to 5 days at 10C, and full cure moves from 7 days to 10. The same sheet sets 10C as the minimum air, surface and material temperature for application at all, which is why an unheated GTA garage is a spring-to-autumn job unless the applicator brings heat.
Does polyaspartic slow down in the cold the same way?: The Canadian applicator figure we can cite does not say so. Quick Coat states a one-day installation curing in 24 hours without qualifying it by temperature, so this tool holds polyaspartic at 24 hours in both cases rather than inventing a cold-weather penalty for it. That is a limit of the published evidence, not a claim that temperature does not matter. Ask any applicator quoting a winter job what their product's minimum temperature is.
Can polyaspartic go over an existing epoxy floor?: That is a question for the applicator holding the warranty, not for a calculator. What we can say from the pricing is that stripping an existing coating is a real line item: ProEpoxy charges $300 to $600 for previous coating removal on a garage. If a quote for a recoat does not mention the old coating at all, that is the thing to ask about before the deposit.
What does this add over your epoxy vs polyaspartic comparison page?: The comparison page sets the two systems side by side on durability, UV stability, warranty and finish. This page does the one thing that page cannot: it puts your own square footage and your own deadline into the arithmetic and tells you what the premium costs you specifically. Read the comparison for the properties, use this for the decision.

Sources

Prices read August 2026from each firm's own published guide. Cure times quoted from the manufacturer data sheet named above, at the temperature that sheet states.