Sorting 140 driveway listings into a shortlist

The category mixes at least 3 trades, and Google's business label shows the mix fastest. That label is the one-line description Google Maps gives each business, separate from the site's own categories. Of the 140 listings in the Concrete Driveways category, 65 carry Concrete contractor and 36 carry Paving contractor. The category page itself shows 137 companies, because it folds branch records that share one phone number into a single row.

Another 7 carry Asphalt contractor, and the other 32 are spread over 7 labels, led by Construction company and Landscaper. Every figure is counted from the site's own records. The rating columns count every record in the group that has a Google rating.

The asphalt column counts records whose stored website text contains the word asphalt. That text is the page title, description, headings and a short excerpt the site saved from each company's own site. The last column counts records where the site matched stored Google reviews to the theme of driveway jobs.

Read the label, then the company's own website, because a paving label in this category usually comes with a mention of asphalt. Of the 36 Paving contractor records, 30 mention asphalt in their stored website text. By contrast, only 6 of the 65 Concrete contractor records do.

Most paving firms here also mention concrete: 33 of the 36 do. That suggests many of them sell both materials, so the label alone does not settle what a crew will pour on your lot. One record's business name even ends in "Asphalt Plant", under the Paving contractor label. The concrete or asphalt comparison covers the material choice itself.

Sealing companies are a third kind of business in the category. Of the 7 Asphalt contractor records, 6 have "seal" or "sealing" in their business name, and 10 of all 140 names contain the word. Ask a firm named for sealing whether it pours new driveways at all. Two more questions sort a paving or sealing firm quickly:

• Which material makes up most of your residential driveway work?
• Who on the crew places and finishes the concrete, and is that work subcontracted?

Most list driveways as one service among several. Only 18 of the 140 sit in the driveway category alone, and 13 of those 18 carry the Paving contractor label. Meanwhile 112 of the 140 also sit in Concrete Contractors, and 71 also list Concrete Patios & Walkways.

That overlap matters if the job includes a front walk or steps, since those 71 records list that work too. Decorative work is thinner: 14 of the 140 also list Stamped & Decorative Concrete.

The category is also not the whole pool. The site's review matcher found reviewers describing driveway jobs on 99 records across the index. Only 54 of those 99 sit in the driveway category. The rest carry other categories, so a company outside this list can still have a record of driveway work.

The listed areas lean west and north of downtown Toronto. The largest groups are in Etobicoke (22), North York (18) and Brampton (15). No area is recorded for 9 of the 140.

Toronto, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Burlington and Ajax have driveway pages too. A listed address is the one on the company's Google record, and it may not be where the crew works. The guide to what a listed address means covers that gap.

The site's crawler found a stated service area on the websites of 67 of the 140 companies but did not check those statements. Confirm your street is inside the area before booking a visit.

Driveway listings average a little lower than the index and carry more reviews each. The 135 rated driveway listings average 4.62, and all 703 rated listings in the index average 4.78.

The median driveway company holds 33 reviews, against a median of 20 across the index. Ratings below 4.0 appear on 14 driveway records, more than a third of the 37 such records in the whole index. One-star reviews make up 6.6% of the reviews held by the category's records, nearly twice the 3.5% share across the index. The index cannot say whether that reflects the work, the customers or longer review histories.

Small counts need the most care. Of the 49 driveway records rated exactly 5.0, 17 rest on fewer than 10 reviews. The site's methodology treats every company as if it started with 10 reviews at the dataset average of 4.78. A perfect score on a handful of reviews therefore moves less than it looks. The case against a single ranked list is set out in what a best contractor list cannot tell you.

Most say something, and none of it is checked. The site's crawler read at least one statement from the websites of 137 of the 140 companies. The methodology page says each one is shown on the company's profile with the exact sentence it came from.

Customer type is the most useful filter for a house driveway. Residential work is named on 102 of the sites and commercial work on 87. Just 6 name commercial or industrial clients without residential ones, so ask those whether they take house jobs.

A free estimate is offered on 97 of the sites. Fewer make claims about cover or guarantees:

• A licence or insurance sentence appears on 37 sites, and 32 of those say the company is insured.
• WSIB is mentioned on 11.
• A warranty or guarantee is mentioned on 15.

The methodology page says ConcreteFinder does not verify WSIB coverage, liability insurance or licences. Ask for the certificate and the warranty wording in writing.

Almost all of them answered. Of the 140 driveway records, 137 had a website that answered when ConcreteFinder fetched it on 5 September 2026. The methodology defines that as the address answering at that fetch, "not simply that a web address is stored".

Of the remaining 3, one has no web address on record, one answered that the page was not found and one failed on an expired security certificate. None of the 140 is among the addresses the site withholds because the domain now serves something else. The methodology also says ConcreteFinder "does not know which of these businesses have closed".

Published prices give a rough range to test quotes against, nothing firmer. Green Building Canada's 2026 guide says that in the GTA "expect $12 to $20 per square foot on average" for a concrete driveway. It calls broom finish, a plain brushed surface, the "Canadian default".

Most other published prices come from companies that sell the work. Toronto Concrete Repairs now quotes about $30 per square foot to take out an old driveway and pour a new broom-finish one, which it says puts a typical double-car driveway between $15,000 and $26,000 before HST. Nice Guy Concrete says most professional contractors, itself included, have "a minimum project investment of $5,500". The concrete driveway cost page lists every sourced row, including the lower table Toronto Concrete Repairs showed in August 2026 and has since replaced, and the permits and timing guide covers when and whether the City is involved.

Work from the record outward, then hand the open questions to the company.

1. Start with your area page. Use the driveway page nearest your street, or the full category.
2. Read the Google label. A Paving contractor or Asphalt contractor label means asking which material the crew pours most.
3. Check the other categories. If the walk or steps are part of the job, keep the companies that also list patios and walkways.
4. Read the review count before the rating. A 5.0 on a few reviews carries less weight than a 4.7 on a long history.
5. Open the company's own website from its profile. Confirm it answers, names residential work and states a service area that includes you.
6. Move the hard questions into writing. The guide on how to choose a concrete contractor in Toronto covers what a complete quote contains.