Cubic Yard Calculator

Enter length, width and depth in whatever units you have them in, and get the volume in cubic yards, cubic feet and cubic metres, with an optional weight and cost.

Useful for concrete, soil, gravel, mulch, fill and anything else sold by the yard.

How to use the cubic yard calculator

Why use the Build Tally cubic yard calculator

The 27 that catches people out

A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, not 9 — the cube of three, not the square. That single factor is behind most volume mistakes. The other trap is mixed units: depth is usually given in inches while length and width are in feet, so a 20 × 10 ft area at 4 inches deep is 20 × 10 × 0.333 = 66.7 cubic feet, or 2.47 cubic yards. This calculator takes each dimension in its own unit so you never have to do that conversion by hand.

Volume, weight and how suppliers quote

Some materials are sold by volume and some by weight, and the conversion depends on density. A cubic yard of concrete weighs about 4,000 lb, topsoil around 2,700 lb, gravel about 2,800 lb, and mulch only 700 lb or so because it is mostly air. Suppliers may quote gravel by the ton and mulch by the yard in the same conversation, so knowing both figures lets you compare quotes properly. Enter a density above and the calculator returns the weight alongside the volume.

Coverage at a given depth

Working backwards from a cubic yard is often the more useful question. One cubic yard spread 1 inch deep covers 324 square feet; at 2 inches, 162 sq ft; at 3 inches, 108 sq ft; at 4 inches, 81 sq ft; at 6 inches, 54 sq ft. Those five numbers cover most landscaping decisions, and they are worth remembering. For anything you are ordering by the truckload, add 5–10% — settling, uneven ground and spillage all consume more than the arithmetic suggests.

Read the guide: How to Calculate Square Footage of a Room, a House or a Yard