Turn area and depth into cubic yards, delivered tons and bags of topsoil — with settling built in.
Topsoil Calculator
Inputs
2 in to topdress an existing lawn, 4–6 in for new seed or sod.
Loose soil settles once watered and walked. 15% is typical.
Results
Topsoil needed
2.47 yd³
V = L × W × (depth ÷ 12) ÷ 27; weight at 2,100 lb per loose yd³
Calculated with BuildCalculators.com
Calculated with BuildCalculators.com · buildcalculators.com/topsoil-calculator
Estimates are for planning only — confirm quantities with your supplier or contractor before ordering.
Topsoil is bought in cubic yards and delivered in tons, and the arithmetic between your tape measure and the truck is the same as every volume order: area × depth ÷ 27. What is particular to soil is what happens after delivery — it settles. Loose screened soil loses 10–20% of its height once watered and walked, so the order carries a settling allowance the way a concrete order carries waste.
V = L × W × (depth ÷ 12) ÷ 27order = yd³ × (1 + settling ÷ 100)tons = yd³ × 2,100 lb ÷ 2,000bags = ft³ ÷ 0.75 ft³ per bagScreened topsoil arrives fluffed by the screening itself — full of air. Water and foot traffic close that structure over the first weeks, and the level drops. 15% is a working average; go lower for a contained raised bed you will fill and top up, higher for soil spread loose and raked.
Dry, screened loam — the midpoint of the 2,000–2,200 lb range suppliers quote. Moisture moves it fast: the same yard after rain can pass 2,500 lb. The weight line matters mostly for hauling, where the limit is always the axle, not the bed.
Screened topsoil is the general-purpose surface layer this calculator prices. Garden and raised-bed mixes are topsoil cut with compost — dearer per yard, right for planting beds. Fill dirt is unscreened subsoil for raising grade only; grass grows badly in it and it costs less for a reason. Order the layer you are actually building.
Volume scales linearly with depth, so the depth decision is the cost decision. Seed and sod want 4–6 inches of root zone; topdressing an existing lawn wants ½–1 inch, repeated seasonally, so the grass grows through it. Doubling depth doubles the trucks.
Preparing bare ground for seed.
Order about 14 cubic yards
Fifteen tons is two tri-axle deliveries for many suppliers — one reason to order the whole job at once and pay one round of delivery fees.
Levelling and feeding an existing lawn.
About 1.7 cubic yards — clearly a bulk order
Sixty-two bags is a pallet and change. The bulk yard-and-a-half costs less than half as much, delivery included.
One deep bed, filled once.
1.3 yd³ — bulk if a truck can reach, bags if not
For planting beds, price the garden-mix blend rather than straight topsoil — the compost fraction is what the vegetables were going to need anyway.
| Depth | Coverage |
|---|---|
| 1 in | 324 ft² |
| 2 in | 162 ft² |
| 4 in | 81 ft² |
| 6 in | 54 ft² |
| Job | Depth |
|---|---|
| Topdress an existing lawn | ½–1 in per season |
| Overseed repair | 1–2 in |
| New lawn, seed or sod | 4–6 in |
| Vegetable beds | 8–12 in of bed mix |
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Screened topsoil, bulk | $30–$60 per yd³ |
| Garden / bed mix, bulk | up to $75 per yd³ |
| Delivery | $50–$150 per trip |
| 0.75 ft³ bag | $2–$4 |
Soil pricing is local in a way rock is not — a yard of screened loam is cheap near farmland and dear in a city, with the 2026 bulk range at $30–$60 per cubic yard plus delivery.
A cubic yard is 36 bags at 0.75 ft³. In bags that is $70–$150 and a lot of carrying; in bulk, $30–$60 plus a shared delivery fee. The crossover sits around half a yard — below it, bags win on convenience; above it, the pile in the driveway wins on everything but tidiness.
Fees run $50–$150 per trip and trucks carry 10–15 yards of soil, so consolidation is the lever: one 14 yard delivery beats two 7 yard trips by a full fee. Measure every bed and low spot before booking the truck.
Unscreened soil saves a few dollars a yard and delivers roots, stones and clay lumps you will be raking out for a season. For anything you will seed or plant, screened loam is the floor, not an upgrade.
The bed looks perfect on delivery day and sits an inch low a month later. Fifteen percent covers normal settling; the calculator makes it explicit so the top-up truck is not a surprise.
Fill raises grade; topsoil grows things. Using fill under 2 inches of topsoil is correct construction — using it instead of topsoil produces the lawn that never quite works.
More than about an inch of topdressing smothers grass rather than feeding it. Deep corrections happen in lifts, a season apart — or accept a reseed.
A yard of soil is a ton, more after rain. That is the safe limit of a full-size pickup and past the limit of most trailers people own. Two trips are cheaper than an axle.
The site is never uniformly bare. Probe a few spots for existing soil depth and order the difference — the calculator prices the depth you need to add, not the depth the packaging suggests.
At 4 inches deep, 1,000 × 0.333 ÷ 27 ≈ 12.3 cubic yards — call it 14 with 15% settling. At 2 inches, half that. One cubic yard covers 81 ft² at 4 inches deep.
About 2,100 lb dry and loose — roughly a US ton. Wet soil can push past 2,500 lb, which is why a full-size pickup safely hauls only about one yard.
4–6 inches for a new lawn from seed or sod; grass roots want at least 4. For topdressing an existing lawn, ½–1 inch at a time, so the grass grows through rather than smothers.
Bulk, above roughly half a cubic yard. A yard is about 36 bags at 0.75 ft³ each — $70–$150 in bags against $30–$60 bulk plus delivery. Bags win only for small jobs, or where a truck cannot reach.
Cubic yards and bag counts for any bed
Tons and cubic yards for gravel, stone, base and sand
Base course tons for driveways, patios and slabs
Length, width and depth into cubic yards
Area for rectangles, circles and triangles
Embed the Topsoil Calculator anywhere — it is free, stays in sync with this page, and sizes itself to fit. The only condition is the credit line in the snippet, which links your readers to the full version with the formulas and worked examples.
This calculator uses published constants from named industry sources, each asserted in an automated test that runs on every build. The formula is printed with the result above, and any correction we make is logged on the changelog.
It is a planning estimate. It does not replace an engineer, a site visit or a written quote — confirm quantities with your supplier before ordering.