Bags per cubic yard

A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, so bags per cubic yard is always 27 divided by what one bag holds. That gives 13.5 bags of 2 cubic foot mulch, 27 bags of 1 cubic foot soil, 54 bags of 50 lb sand, and 45 bags of 80 lb concrete pre-mix. Everything below is that one division applied to every bag size you will find on a shelf, plus what each bag actually covers on the ground.

The short answer

Whole bags only: you cannot buy half a bag, so round up. These are the sizes printed on the bags in a garden centre and a builders' merchant.

  • 13.5 bags per yd³ 2 cu ft bag Mulch, bark, soil
  • 18 bags per yd³ 1.5 cu ft bag Mulch, compost
  • 27 bags per yd³ 1 cu ft bag Topsoil, compost
  • 54 bags per yd³ 0.5 cu ft bag Sand, pea gravel
  • 45 bags per yd³ 80 lb bag Concrete pre-mix
  • 60 bags per yd³ 60 lb bag Concrete pre-mix

Bags per cubic yard by material

Bag sizes are not standard across materials. Landscape products are labelled by volume, concrete and soil are labelled by weight, and the same weight is a different volume in each material. This table gives both.

Common retail bag sizes and how many make a cubic yard
MaterialBag sold asVolume per bagBags per yd³Typical use
Concrete pre-mix80 lb0.60 ft³45Slabs, footings, posts
Concrete pre-mix60 lb0.45 ft³60Post setting, small footings
Concrete pre-mix40 lb0.30 ft³90Patching, small posts
Mulch (bark, hardwood)2 ft³2 ft³13.5The standard landscape bag
Mulch (some brands)1.5 ft³1.5 ft³18Cypress, cedar, dyed mulch
Rubber mulch0.8 ft³ (≈40 lb)0.8 ft³33.75Playground surfacing
Topsoil40 lb≈0.75 ft³36Sold by weight, not volume
Garden / raised-bed soil1 ft³1 ft³27Bed filling, top-up
Compost1 ft³1 ft³27Amending beds
Compost1.5 ft³1.5 ft³18Larger store bags
Play / paver sand50 lb≈0.5 ft³54Sandboxes, paver bedding
Pea gravel50 lb≈0.5 ft³54Paths, small drainage
River rock50 lb≈0.5 ft³54Borders, dry creek beds

Concrete bags

Pre-mix is the one that catches people out, because the number on the bag is the weight of dry mix, not the volume of wet concrete it makes. An 80 lb bag yields about 0.60 cubic feet, a little over half a cubic foot for a bag you can barely lift. That is why 45 of them go into a cubic yard, and why a yard of concrete in bags means moving 3,600 lb by hand.

Ready-mix and bagged concrete yields
ProductYieldPer cubic yardBest forNotes
Ready-mix (delivered)1 yd³ per yd³N/ASlabs, driveways, footings > ½ yd³Short-load fee under ~1 yd³
80 lb bag~0.60 ft³45 bagsSmall pads, posts, repairs~4,000 psi mixed
60 lb bag~0.45 ft³60 bagsPost setting, small footingsCommon fence-post size
50 lb bag~0.375 ft³72 bagsSmall repairs
40 lb bag~0.30 ft³90 bagsPatching, setting small posts
Cured concrete weightN/A~4,000 lb (2 tons)N/A145–150 lb/ft³

Work out your own pour with the concrete bag calculator, which takes slab dimensions and returns the bag count for all four sizes, or run it backwards from the bags you already have.

Mulch, soil and compost bags

Landscape bags are labelled by volume, so the maths is direct. The standard bag is 2 cubic feet, which makes a cubic yard 13.5 bags. Cypress, cedar and dyed mulches are often 1.5 cubic feet for the same shelf price, which is 18 bags to the yard, worth checking before you compare two brands on price alone.

Bags per cubic yard and coverage per single bag
Bag sizeBags per yd³Covers at 2″Covers at 3″Covers at 4″
2 cu ft bag13.512 ft²8 ft²6 ft²
1.5 cu ft bag189 ft²6 ft²4.5 ft²
1 cu ft bag276 ft²4 ft²3 ft²
0.75 cu ft bag364.5 ft²3 ft²2.25 ft²
0.5 cu ft bag543 ft²2 ft²1.5 ft²

Bed mulch goes down 2 to 3 inches, so one 2 cubic foot bag covers about 12 square feet at 2 inches or 8 at 3 inches. The mulch bag calculator and the topsoil bag calculator do this for your actual bed.

Coverage per bag at slab depths

Concrete goes down far thicker than mulch, so a bag covers very little ground. At the standard 4 inch slab thickness one 80 lb bag covers 1.8 square feet, a square about 16 inches on a side.

Square feet one concrete bag covers at slab thicknesses
Bag sizeYieldCovers at 4″Covers at 6″Covers at 8″
80 lb bag0.6 ft³1.8 ft²1.2 ft²0.9 ft²
60 lb bag0.45 ft³1.35 ft²0.9 ft²0.68 ft²
50 lb bag0.375 ft³1.13 ft²0.75 ft²0.56 ft²
40 lb bag0.3 ft³0.9 ft²0.6 ft²0.45 ft²

One cubic yard, in bags

The reason to know the bag count is usually to decide whether to buy bags at all. A cubic yard is a lot of bags and a lot of lifting, and past roughly ten bags the delivered price is often lower even after the delivery fee.

What a cubic yard means in bags
One cubic yardIn bagsFor scale
1 cubic yard of mulch13.5 bags of 2 ft³Covers ~160 ft² at 2″
1 cubic yard of soil27 bags of 1 ft³Fills one 4×8 ft raised bed 10″ deep
1 cubic yard of compost27 bags of 1 ft³Top-dresses ~650 ft² at ½″
1 cubic yard of sand54 bags of 50 lb≈1.35 tons delivered
1 cubic yard of concrete45 bags of 80 lb≈3,600 lb of dry mix to carry

Bagged material still wins when you need less than about half a yard, when you have nowhere to tip a pile, or when the job is spread over several weekends and loose material would wash or blow away in between.

The maths, if you want to check it

A cubic yard is 3 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft = 27 cubic feet. So:

  • Bags per cubic yard = 27 ÷ cubic feet per bag
  • Square feet one bag covers = cubic feet per bag ÷ (depth in inches ÷ 12)
  • Bags for a job = (length ft × width ft × depth in ÷ 12) ÷ cubic feet per bag, rounded up

If your bag shows only a weight, divide that weight by the material's density to get its volume first: roughly 100 lb per cubic foot for sand and gravel, 50 to 55 for a bagged garden-soil blend, and 20 for dry bark mulch. Note that bagged soil is lighter than the same soil delivered loose: retail bags are screened, dried and usually cut with peat or compost, which is why a 40 lb bag holds about 0.75 cubic feet while bulk delivered topsoil runs 75 to 85 lb per cubic foot. The how we calculate page lists every density figure and the standards behind them.

Last reviewed 2026-09-07. Spot a bag size we have wrong? Email hello@bulkmaterialcalculator.com with the brand and the label.

Frequently asked questions

How many bags of mulch are in a cubic yard?

13.5 bags of the standard 2 cubic foot size, because a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet and 27 ÷ 2 = 13.5. Stores sell whole bags, so a yard is 14 bags in practice. If your brand sells 1.5 cubic foot bags it takes 18 of them, and 1 cubic foot bags take 27.

How many 80 lb bags of concrete make a cubic yard?

45. An 80 lb bag of pre-mix yields about 0.60 cubic feet of finished concrete, and 27 ÷ 0.60 = 45. A 60 lb bag yields about 0.45 cubic feet so it takes 60 bags, a 50 lb bag takes 72, and a 40 lb bag takes 90.

How many bags of topsoil are in a cubic yard?

About 36 of the common 40 lb bags, which hold roughly 0.75 cubic feet each, or 27 bags if yours are sold by the cubic foot. Topsoil is bagged by weight rather than volume, so check the label. Bagged soil is also lighter than the same soil delivered loose, because retail bags are screened, dried and usually blended with peat or compost: do not assume 40 lb of bagged soil and 40 lb off a bulk pile are the same volume.

How many 50 lb bags of sand are in a cubic yard?

54. Sand runs about 100 lb per cubic foot, so a 50 lb bag is roughly half a cubic foot, and 27 ÷ 0.5 = 54 bags. That is about 2,700 lb of sand to carry, which is why a yard of sand is usually worth having delivered loose.

Why is a cubic yard 27 cubic feet?

Because a yard is 3 feet, and a cubic yard is 3 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft. Three cubed is 27. Every bags-per-yard figure on this page is just 27 divided by what one bag holds.

Is a 2 cubic foot bag of mulch really 2 cubic feet?

It is the volume of the mulch as bagged, loosely packed. Once you spread it and it settles you will get slightly less finished depth, which is one reason the calculators add a 10% allowance. Bags are also filled by volume at the plant with normal tolerance, so a pallet averages out even if one bag looks light.

How many bags do I need for 100 square feet?

At 2 inches deep, 100 square feet needs about 16.7 cubic feet, so 9 bags of 2 cubic feet, 12 bags of 1.5, or 17 bags of 1 cubic foot. At 3 inches it is 25 cubic feet: 13 bags of 2 cubic feet. Add a bag or two for settling and uneven ground.

How much does a cubic yard of bagged material weigh?

It depends entirely on the material. A yard of mulch is roughly 800 to 1,000 lb, topsoil about 2,200 lb, sand about 2,700 lb, and mixed concrete about 4,000 lb. Bagged, that is the same weight split across the bag counts in the tables above.

At what point is bulk cheaper than bags?

Usually somewhere between half a yard and one yard, depending on the delivery fee where you live. Bagged mulch commonly runs $3 to $5 for 2 cubic feet, which is $40 to $67 a yard before you have loaded anything; bulk mulch is often $30 to $45 a yard plus a flat delivery. Once you need more than about ten bags, price both.

How many bags of mulch fit in a car?

A sedan trunk takes about 6 to 8 bags of 2 cubic feet, an SUV with the seats down 15 to 20, and a half-ton pickup bed 30 to 40 bags, roughly two to three cubic yards of bagged volume, though the weight is the real limit on a wet delivery.

Do bags of concrete and bags of mulch use the same maths?

The formula is the same, 27 ÷ bag yield, but the yield means different things. A mulch bag is labelled with the volume inside it. A concrete bag is labelled with the dry weight, and the wet volume it yields is smaller than you would guess: an 80 lb bag makes only 0.6 cubic feet.

How many bags of gravel are in a cubic yard?

About 54 of the 50 lb bags, since gravel bags hold roughly half a cubic foot. Bagged gravel is priced for small jobs; anything over about a quarter of a yard is normally cheaper by the ton from a landscape yard.

Does the calculator round bags up?

Yes. You cannot buy 13.5 bags, so every calculator on this site rounds the bag count up to a whole bag and shows a second figure with the 10% waste allowance included, which is the number to buy.

What if my bag size is not listed?

Divide 27 by the cubic feet printed on your bag. If the bag only shows a weight, divide the weight by the material density (about 100 lb per cubic foot for sand and gravel, 80 for moist topsoil, 20 for dry bark mulch) to get its volume first.