Topsoil Calculator

Enter your dimensions above and the calculator returns the answer in the units suppliers actually sell in — cubic yards, cubic feet, tons and bags.

Typical topsoil depth by application

Topsoil is sold screened or unscreened by the cubic yard; for lawns you want screened loam, and for filling low spots unscreened is fine and cheaper.

What the numbers assume

The result uses a bulk density of 90 lb per cubic foot and a default waste allowance of 10%. Both are typical values, not measurements of your material — bagged products and different aggregate sources vary by 10% or more. Change the waste field if your subgrade is uneven or you are pouring against forms with complex edges.

Topsoil settles 15–25% after watering and compaction, so a 6-inch loose layer becomes roughly 4½ to 5 inches once it has rained twice. Order on the settled depth you need.

Costs shown are material only, based on a national average price you can edit. They exclude delivery, short-form fees, equipment rental and labour.

Topsoil is not a commodity with a fixed recipe. What arrives on the truck is screened loam — mineral soil with the rocks and roots taken out — plus whatever organic content the supplier happened to screen into it. Two yards from two pits forty miles apart can differ by half in organic matter, and that difference shows up in your wheelbarrow long before it shows up in your lawn. Volume is the easy part, and the topsoil calculator handles that arithmetic. The part worth understanding is why the same number of yards gives you a different bed every time.

What "a yard of dirt" actually contains

A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, always. What fills those 27 cubic feet is the variable.

Screened loam has been run through a screen — usually a ½ inch or ⅝ inch mesh — to pull out rocks, roots and clods. What remains is a mix of sand, silt and clay particles with some organic matter, typically 3–10% by volume. That organic fraction is what makes it darker, lighter and better at holding moisture than the subsoil underneath it.

Unscreened topsoil is the same material before screening. It is roughly 20% cheaper per yard and contains sticks, stones and the occasional brick. It is fine for filling a low spot or the bottom half of a deep raised bed. It is not fine for a seed bed, because you will be raking stones out of it for a season.

Then there is moisture, where the real surprises live. Loose screened topsoil weighs about 90 lb per cubic foot, so a cubic yard is roughly 2,400 lb — call it 1.2 tons, the figure on the methodology page. Wet topsoil runs about 20% heavier, so the same yard can tip 2,900 lb after three days of rain. The volume you ordered did not change; the load on your trailer did. That is why "a yard of dirt" is a volume measurement, not a promise about what you got. If the pile is half clay, the density number will not tell you — your hands will, when you squeeze a fistful and it ribbons instead of crumbling.

Settling is not waste, it is the second half of the order

Topsoil settles 15–25% in its first season. Water moves through it, the voids collapse, organic matter keeps breaking down, and the surface drops. This is not a defect and you cannot compact it away.

The consequence is easy to get wrong: the depth you order is not the depth you finish with. If you want a finished 6 inches on a new lawn, place roughly 7 to 7½ inches loose, because 6 ÷ 0.80 (a 20% loss) is 7.5.

Work an example you can check. A 1,000 sq ft lawn at a finished 6 inches:

1,000 ft² × 0.5 ft       = 500 ft³
500 ft³ ÷ 27             = 18.5 yd³  (finished depth)
18.5 yd³ ÷ 0.80          = 23.1 yd³  (loose, allowing for settling)
23.1 yd³ × 1.10          = 25.4 yd³  (with the 10% waste allowance)

A job that looks like 18.5 yards on paper is a 25-yard order. Round to 26 if the lawn has curves or beds cut into it — the same irregular-edge rule that applies to fill dirt.

Run it at overseeding depth instead — ¼ inch over the same 1,000 sq ft — and the picture inverts: 1,000 × 0.0208 = 20.8 ft³ ÷ 27 = 0.77 yd³, or 0.85 with waste. Under a yard. At that size bulk delivery rarely makes sense, because the delivery fee and minimum order cost more than the soil. Screened topsoil runs about $35 per cubic yard as a US national average for material only, but that is the default in the editable price field, not a quote. Your yard may be $28 or $48, and delivery is a separate line.

Screened or unscreened, and where the money goes

Spend the extra on screening when the surface will be seen and raked: lawns from seed, seed beds, anything you will drag a landscape rake across. Screening is a processing cost, and you are buying the labour you would otherwise do by hand.

Skip it when the soil will be buried or covered: the base of a deep raised bed, a fill layer under a patio, a low spot you intend to cap. Unscreened at roughly 20% less is the better buy there, and the stones you would have paid to remove become structural fill.

One caution on large orders: topsoil is sold by volume, but trucks are limited by weight. At 2,400 lb per yard, a 10-yard load is 24,000 lb — 12 tons — and that is a tandem-axle dump truck, not a pickup with a trailer. Ask what the truck can legally carry before deciding between one big delivery and two smaller ones.

Blending for beds: the 60/30/10

Straight topsoil in a raised bed is a mistake, and the most common one. In an open lawn, soil has somewhere to drain to. In a contained box, it does not. Straight loam settles into a dense, airless mass, and roots struggle — the same reason a lawn that gets driven over turns to hardpan.

A workable general blend by volume:

• 60% topsoil — the mineral body of the mix
• 30% compost — organic matter, nutrient holding, structure
• 10% coarse sand or perlite — drainage and pore space

The exact ratios matter less than the principle. Compost keeps the mix open and alive; sand or perlite stops the compost matting into a soggy layer. For vegetables or anything with deep roots, aim for 10–12 inches of finished mix, not the 6 you would use for a lawn.

For a 4 × 8 ft raised bed at 12 inches: 32 ft² × 1 ft = 32 ft³, or 1.19 yd³ of finished blend — about 0.71 yd³ topsoil, 0.36 yd³ compost, 0.12 yd³ coarse sand, plus waste. That coarse sand is the same product family as paver bedding, and it is worth knowing the two jobs are not interchangeable before you buy one bag of each — see the sand calculator.

When topsoil is the wrong material

Topsoil is a growing medium, not structural fill. Using it as fill costs you twice: you pay a premium for organic content you do not need, and you get a material that keeps settling for years.

Do not use topsoil to:

• Fill a deep hole or raise grade by more than about 6 inches. Use fill dirt at roughly $22 per cubic yard against $35, placed in compacted lifts. It is denser, cheaper and settles far less when placed properly.
• Fill where a stump or old foundation was. Organic material decays, and anything buried in the hole keeps sinking. Dig out the debris, fill in lifts, compact each one.
• Build a driveway or parking pad. Soil moves under load no matter how well you compact it. That job belongs to crushed stone — see the gravel calculator — and if the pad needs a hard surface, concrete is what actually carries a vehicle.
• Top up a bed already at grade. Adding soil above the surrounding grade moves the water somewhere else, usually into your foundation. Fix the drainage first.

The practical test is what grows on it. If the answer is grass, plants or anything with roots, order topsoil, screen it, and budget for the settling. If the answer is nothing, order fill and put a 4–6 inch topsoil cap on the part that will be planted. Getting that decision right saves more money than shopping around for a better price per yard.