Travertine has the widest honest price range of any stone we sell: the same geological material can leave a Turkish factory at $18 per square meter or at $85, and both prices can be fair. This guide explains where in that range a given specification lands and why — so you can read a quotation and know what you are actually being offered.
Start with grade. Commercial grade (more filled holes, more color variation, thinner calibration tolerance) sits at roughly $18–30/m² for 1.2 cm tiles ex-works in 2026. Standard/select grade — the bulk of what architects specify — runs $30–55/m² depending on color and cut. Premium select, with tight uniformity from a single quarry bench, runs $55–85/m² and up for wide slabs. If a quote seems dramatically below these bands, ask what grade it is; nobody sells select-grade travertine at commercial-grade money.
Second, the cut. Travertine is a banded stone, and it can be sawn two ways: vein cut (along the bedding, showing linear bands) and cross cut (across the bedding, showing a cloudy, uniform figure). Vein cut wastes more block and typically prices 10–20% above cross cut of the same grade. Neither is 'better' — it is an aesthetic decision — but the two are not interchangeable in a running project, so specify it explicitly on every order.
Third, the filling and finish. Unfilled, brushed travertine is the cheapest to produce; filled and honed adds resin, labor and one more machine pass (typically +$5–12/m²); polished adds another. For exteriors — pavers, pool copings, façades — unfilled tumbled or brushed material is not a compromise, it is the correct spec: the open pores drain and grip. Paying for filled-and-polished stone to install around a pool is spending extra money to make the surface more slippery.
Fourth, format. 1.2 cm calibrated tiles in standard sizes (30×60, 60×60) are the efficient end. 2 and 3 cm cut-to-size, French pattern sets, and full 2 cm slabs each step the price up — slabs mainly because of freight: travertine slabs ship on A-frames and cube out a container before they weigh it out. As a rule of thumb for 2026 ocean freight, a 20-foot container carries roughly 24–27 tonnes of crated tiles — get your supplier to quote the landed math per square meter, not per container, and comparisons across suppliers become trivial.
One closing honesty note: every number above is an ex-works Turkish factory band for 2026 and will drift with energy prices and the lira. Treat published prices — including ours — as the start of the conversation, and the proforma invoice as the only number that counts. Our own travertine range lists live from-prices per square meter on each stone's page, and every price we show is the ex-works figure the proforma will carry.