Cubic Yard Calculator: Dirt, Topsoil, Fill & Excavation
Measure in feet, enter depth in inches, and get cubic yards for any mix of areas. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet and covers 324 square feet at 1 inch deep.
Delivered soil and mulch settle once spread and watered, and some material is always lost to grading and cleanup. Suppliers sell in half-yard or full-yard increments, so the 15% allowance usually rounds you to the increment you would have had to buy anyway. Running short costs a second delivery fee; running slightly long costs nothing but a low spot filled.
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Who this calculator is for
Two kinds of projects end at the same question. Filling projects bring material in: topsoil for a new lawn, soil for raised beds, gravel for a driveway base, fill dirt for a low spot. Digging projects take material out: a patio dig-out, a trench, a stump hole, the over-dig around a buried tank. Both are priced and ordered in cubic yards, and both start with the same three measurements: length, width, and depth.
The calculator handles both directions. Fill mode adds a settling allowance and translates the total into bags for small jobs and an optional cost at your supplier's price. Dig-out mode applies soil swell and material weight, because dug soil takes more truck space than it did in the ground and haulers charge by the load. The dig-out math is shared with our cubic yards to tons calculator, so the two tools always agree.
The math: L × W × D ÷ 27, or the ÷324 shortcut
The textbook formula works in feet: length times width times depth, all in feet, divided by 27, because a cubic yard is a 3 × 3 × 3 foot cube. A 12 by 20 foot parking pad excavated 9 inches (0.75 feet) deep is 12 × 20 × 0.75 = 180 cubic feet, and 180 ÷ 27 = 6.67 cubic yards.
Nobody measures mulch depth in feet, though, which is why the ÷324 shortcut exists: square feet times depth in inches, divided by 324. The divisor is just 27 cubic feet times 12 inches per foot. A 10 by 15 foot garden bed getting 6 inches of soil is 150 square feet × 6 ÷ 324 = 2.78 cubic yards. Order three yards and you have the settling allowance built in. If you already have a figure in cubic feet, the cubic feet to cubic yards converter does the ÷27 step on its own.
How deep? Depth guide by application
Depth is the input people guess wrong. Standard working depths for common applications, as used by the calculator's preset dropdown:
| Application | Typical depth | Cubic yards per 1,000 sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| Lawn topdressing | 1 in | 3.1 |
| New lawn from seed | 4-6 in, uses 5 | 15.4 |
| Sod base | 3 in | 9.3 |
| Raised garden bed | 8 in | 24.7 |
| Concrete slab | 4 in | 12.3 |
| Gravel driveway base | 8 in | 24.7 |
| Tank pit / excavation | varies | use the excavation calculator |
Bags per cubic yard, by bag size
| Bag size | Bags per cubic yard |
|---|---|
| 40 lb bag (≈0.75 ft³) | 36 |
| 1 ft³ bag | 27 |
| 2 ft³ bag | 14 |
Past about half a cubic yard, bulk delivery is almost always cheaper than bags.
What a cubic yard weighs
Weight decides truck loads and disposal budgets. As a single planning figure, mixed excavated soil at 110 lb/ft³ weighs about 2,970 pounds (1.49 US tons) per bank cubic yard. Topsoil runs lighter, wet sand and concrete debris heavier. The full material-by-material table, with swell factors and truck load counts, lives on the cubic yards to tons calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate cubic yards?
Multiply length by width in feet to get square feet, multiply by depth in feet, and divide by 27 (the cubic feet in a cubic yard). When depth is in inches, the shortcut is square feet times inches divided by 324. A 10 by 15 foot bed at 6 inches deep is 150 square feet times 6 divided by 324, which is 2.78 cubic yards.
How many cubic feet are in a cubic yard?
27 cubic feet. A cubic yard is a 3 by 3 by 3 foot cube, and 3 times 3 times 3 is 27. Our cubic feet to cubic yards converter handles the division and shows the work.
How much dirt do I need?
Measure each area's length and width in feet, decide the depth the application needs (1 inch for topdressing, 4 to 6 inches for new lawn soil, 8 inches for a raised bed), then run each area through the calculator and let it sum them. Add about 15 percent when ordering, because delivered soil settles once spread and watered and suppliers sell in half-yard increments.
How much does a yard of dirt cover?
One cubic yard covers 324 square feet at 1 inch deep. Spread thicker, coverage drops proportionally: 108 square feet at 3 inches, 81 square feet at 4 inches, and about 54 square feet at 6 inches. That 324 figure is also the shortcut divisor in the square-feet-times-inches formula.
How many cubic yards of topsoil do I need for a new lawn?
New lawns seeded into imported topsoil typically need 4 to 6 inches of material. At 5 inches, every 1,000 square feet of lawn takes about 15.4 cubic yards. For topdressing an existing lawn at half an inch to 1 inch, the same 1,000 square feet needs only 1.5 to 3 cubic yards.
How many bags of soil equal a cubic yard?
About 36 of the common 40-pound bags (roughly 0.75 cubic feet each), 27 one-cubic-foot bags, or 14 two-cubic-foot bags per cubic yard. Bagged material costs several times more per yard than bulk delivery, so the break-even is usually around half a cubic yard: below that, bags are convenient; above it, bulk wins.
How much does a cubic yard of dirt weigh?
Between roughly 2,700 and 3,240 pounds depending on soil type and moisture: about 1.35 to 1.62 US tons per cubic yard. Weight is what limits truck loads and disposal budgets, and our cubic yards to tons calculator converts your yardage with material presets and swell factors.
How do I calculate cubic yards for an irregular area?
Split the space into simple shapes: rectangles for the main runs, triangles for angled corners, circles for round beds. Calculate each piece at its own depth and add them together; the calculator's Add another area button does exactly this and totals the pieces for you.
Should I calculate dig-out volume the same way as fill volume?
The geometry is the same, but the result behaves differently. Fill volume is what you order, plus a settling allowance. Dig-out volume grows 12 to 35 percent once excavated (soil swell), and haul-off is billed by truck load and disposal weight, not by the in-ground yardage. The calculator's digging-out mode applies swell and material density automatically. For tank pits specifically, use the soil excavation calculator, which handles pit geometry and overdig.
How many wheelbarrow loads are in a cubic yard?
About 9 to 14 loads: a standard 3-cubic-foot wheelbarrow takes 9 heaped loads per cubic yard, while a smaller 2-cubic-foot barrow takes about 14. Moving several yards by wheelbarrow is a real workout; more than 3 or 4 yards is usually worth positioning the delivery drop closer to the work.
Depth guidance and bag equivalents were compiled by USTContractors.com from standard landscaping and earthwork estimating practice; soil densities and swell factors are shared with our soil weight tools. Last updated July 2026.
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