Cubic Yards to Tons Calculator
Convert a measured volume into the tons suppliers actually sell, for stone, sand, topsoil, mulch and concrete — with coverage per ton and truckload counts.
Compacted depth. Loose material settles, so order for the finished depth.
Density is what converts a volume you measured into a weight you pay for.
One ton of crushed stone / road base covers about 58 sq ft at 4 in deep. That coverage figure is the fastest way to sanity-check a delivery — if the pile does not cover roughly what it should, weigh the ticket.
What this calculator does
Area and depth go in, along with the material. It returns the volume in cubic feet and cubic yards, the density used, the weight in tons and pounds, how many truckloads that is, and — most usefully — how much area one ton and one cubic yard each cover at your depth.
You can override the density with a figure from your own supplier, which is always the better number when you can get it.
The unit mismatch this exists to solve
You measure a driveway, a bed or a trench. What you have is a volume — a length times a width times a depth, in cubic feet or cubic yards.
You call a supplier. They quote by the ton.
Those units are not interchangeable and the conversion factor is not a constant. It depends on the material, and the range is enormous: from 0.4 tons per cubic yard for bark mulch to 2.0 for concrete. A five-fold spread.
Which is why “how many tons in a yard” has no answer without a second question.
Why quarries sell by weight
It is worth understanding, because it explains why you cannot simply ask for cubic yards.
A truck crosses a scale empty and crosses it loaded. The difference is an exact, repeatable, auditable number that neither party can argue with.
Volume in a truck bed is none of those things. It depends on how the loader filled it, how the material was heaped, how much it settled over the drive, and how the material was graded. Two trucks with visually identical loads can differ by ten percent.
So the industry standardised on the measurement that can be verified. You calculate in the unit that describes your job, and you buy in the unit that describes the truck.
The density table, and its limits
| Material | Tons per cubic yard |
|---|---|
| Bark mulch | 0.4 |
| Compost | 0.55 |
| Topsoil | 1.1 |
| Pea gravel | 1.3 |
| Sand | 1.35 |
| Crushed stone / road base | 1.4 |
| Asphalt millings | 1.95 |
| Concrete | 2.0 |
These are dry-weight trade averages, and they are good enough for ordering. They are not precise, and two things move them:
Moisture. Wet material weighs 10 to 30 percent more than dry. Since you buy by weight, a saturated load contains proportionally less material — you paid for water. This is a genuine effect and it is why a delivery after a storm looks smaller than the same tonnage in August.
Gradation. “Crushed stone” covers a wide range of sizes and blends. Dense-graded base with fines packs tighter and weighs more per yard than clean washed stone of a single size, which has more air in it.
Which is why the calculator lets you enter a supplier’s figure. Ask them. They know their own material, they weigh it every day, and their number beats any published average.
Coverage per ton: the number to actually remember
The most practically useful output here is not the tonnage. It is how much area one ton covers at your depth.
For crushed stone at 1.4 tons per yard:
| Depth | Coverage per ton |
|---|---|
| 1 in | ≈ 231 sq ft |
| 2 in | ≈ 116 sq ft |
| 3 in | ≈ 77 sq ft |
| 4 in | ≈ 58 sq ft |
| 6 in | ≈ 39 sq ft |
Two uses. First, estimating in your head at the supply yard. Second, and more valuable, checking a delivery: spread the pile and see whether it covers what it should. If a ticket says six tons and the material barely covers what four should, that is a conversation worth having while the truck is still there.
Compacted versus loose
The depth you calculate should be the finished, compacted depth, and the material will arrive loose.
Aggregate loses roughly 15 to 25 percent of its loose volume under proper compaction. So four inches of loose stone spread and rolled becomes about three inches of base. If you order for four inches loose, you finish with three, and the difference matters a great deal under a paver patio or a driveway.
Order for the compacted depth you want and accept that the pile will look generous before it goes down.
The reverse problem appears in excavation, where material swells on the way out of the ground — the same physics running the other direction, and the reason haul-off volume exceeds hole volume.
Truckloads
The truckload count uses loose cubic yards against your truck capacity, which is the right basis — a truck fills up by volume.
But weight usually binds first. A tandem dump rated for 14 cubic yards carrying crushed stone at 1.4 tons per yard would be hauling nearly 20 tons, which is beyond what most tandems can legally carry. In practice a tandem carries perhaps 10 to 12 tons of stone regardless of how much room is left in the box.
Ask the supplier what they put on a truck. The answer is usually a tonnage, not a volume, for exactly this reason.
What this leaves out
- Compaction, discussed above. Order for finished depth.
- Waste and spillage, which on a wheelbarrow job is real.
- Delivery minimums and fees, often a large share of a small order.
- Access. Where the truck can dump determines how far you move it by hand, and that is the actual cost of the job.
- Material selection. Base, drainage stone and decorative stone are different products for different purposes — the french drain calculator explains why using the wrong one there defeats the whole installation.
- Spreading and compaction equipment.
For the same conversion applied to a specific landscape material with its own pricing, see the gravel calculator.
How this is calculated
cubic yards = length × width × (depth ÷ 12) ÷ 27 tons = cubic yards × tons per cubic yard crushed stone 1.4 · sand 1.35 · pea gravel 1.3 · topsoil 1.1 mulch 0.4 · compost 0.55 · concrete 2.0 coverage per ton = 27 ÷ depth in feet ÷ density
Frequently asked questions
- How many tons are in a cubic yard?
- It depends entirely on the material. Crushed stone runs about 1.4 tons per cubic yard, sand 1.35, topsoil 1.1, and bark mulch only about 0.4. Concrete is close to 2.0. There is no universal conversion, which is exactly why ordering by the wrong unit goes so badly wrong.
- Why is aggregate sold by the ton when I measured a volume?
- Because quarries weigh trucks. A loaded truck across a scale is an exact, auditable measurement, whereas volume in a truck bed depends on how it was loaded and how much it settled in transit. So you calculate in volume, because that is what a hole or a driveway is, and you buy in weight.
- How much area does a ton of gravel cover?
- About 100 square feet at 2 inches deep, or 65 square feet at 3 inches, for typical crushed stone. That coverage figure is the fastest sanity check on a delivery — if the pile spreads to roughly the area it should, the ticket was honest.
- Does wet material weigh more?
- Yes, substantially — 10 to 30 percent more depending on the material and how saturated it is. Since you are buying by weight, a load delivered the morning after a storm contains less material for the same price. It is not usually worth arguing about, but it is worth knowing why the pile looks small.
- How much does a cubic yard of mulch weigh compared to gravel?
- A cubic yard of bark mulch weighs roughly 800 pounds; the same volume of crushed stone weighs about 2,800. That is why a yard of mulch is a wheelbarrow afternoon and a yard of gravel is a genuine equipment question, and why the truck delivering them is a different truck.