EstimatorKitBulk material by the yard
Cubic yards to order, rounded the way a yard sells them
The cubic yards to book are each section of the job times the depth it goes down at, and this gives three figures rather than one: the measured figure, the whole yards the invoice will actually say, and the difference between them. It applies the minimum load your supplier will send, splits the total into pickup, trailer or dump truck loads, and — once you type in your own quoted yard price, delivery charge and short-load fee — reduces the whole thing to a delivered cost per yard that a second quote can be held against.
- 27 ft³ per yard
- Whole-yard rounding
- 5 hauler sizes
A drive and its turnaround go on one ticket. Add each rectangle separately rather than averaging them — an L reads as two.
the standard bulk delivery, and the one most price lists are built around — overwrite the figure with what yours carries.
Add your yard’s prices to cost the delivery
Read all four off your own quote. Nothing is prefilled with a regional average, because the same yard of the same product moves by a factor of three across the country.
Order this many
4 cu yd
- Measured volume
- 3.56 cu yd
- Rounded up by
- 0.44 cu yd
- Total area
- 288 sq ft
- Cubic feet
- 96
The measured figure is 3.56 yd³. Suppliers sell whole yards and this one will not go below 1, so the ticket reads 4 — you are paying for 0.44 yd³ you did not measure, which is the number to argue about, not the total.
1 load at 10 yd³
Capacity here is the box, not the axles. Check the weight of 4 yd³ of whatever you are ordering before you hitch anything to a car.
One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet — a cube three feet on every side.
What each vehicle carries
Typical box capacities, not ratings. Every one of them is editable in the calculator, because the figure that decides a real load is the payload plate on the vehicle and the weight of the specific material going into it.
| Vehicle | Typical load | What limits it |
|---|---|---|
| Half-ton pickup, 6.5 ft bed | 1 yd³ | Level with the rails is nearer 2 yd³, but on stone the payload rating runs out long before the box does |
| 6 × 12 dump trailer, 24 in sides | 3 yd³ | The box takes more than the axles are rated for once the material has been rained on |
| Single-axle dump truck | 5 yd³ | The small truck a yard sends into a subdivision or down a shared drive |
| Tandem dump truck | 10 yd³ | The default bulk delivery, and the load most price lists are built around |
| Tri-axle dump truck | 15 yd³ | Needs headroom to raise the box and ground that will carry it loaded |
What a yard costs once a truck has to move it
The cubic yard survives as a trade unit because it matches the equipment. A loader bucket holds a yard or two, a dump body is built in whole yards, and a dispatcher can look at a truck and count the load without weighing anything. That convenience is also the source of the friction every customer meets: the yard is a big unit relative to a domestic job. A 200 square foot bed at three inches is 1.85 yards, and the supplier will invoice two, so a seventh of the delivery is material you never designed a use for. Knowing that before the call is the difference between planning where the surplus goes and finding a pile in the driveway on Saturday morning.
Two charges sit on top of the material and both are quoted separately, which is why a cheap price per yard means very little on its own. The delivery fee pays for the round trip and does not care how full the truck is. The short-load fee is the same idea aimed at the plant: below a threshold the supplier sets, sending the truck out half empty costs them a full cycle, and they add a flat charge to cover it. On a small job those two can exceed the material itself — which is exactly when a delivered cost per yard is the only honest comparison between two suppliers, and why this page insists on computing it from numbers you were quoted rather than any average of ours.
The other half of the order is the weight, and it is not shown here on purpose: a yard of mulch and a yard of hot mix differ by more than a ton, so the tonnage question belongs on the construction calculator, where the density is picked per material and its source is printed beside the result. The same page counts bags, for a job small enough that bags win; the cubic feet shown here beside the yards are the unit printed on them.
Ordering by the yard
How many cubic feet are in a cubic yard?
27, because a cubic yard is a cube three feet on every side and 3 × 3 × 3 is 27. It is worth holding on to because it explains why the number looks so small: a patio that measures 320 cubic feet is under twelve yards, and someone expecting the figure to be in the hundreds assumes an error. It is also why a single yard is more material than most people picture — it fills roughly nine wheelbarrows.
Why is bulk material sold by the cubic yard rather than by weight?
Because the truck is loaded by volume and the box is a known size. A yard is what a loader bucket and a dump body are scaled to, so a driver can count the load visually and a dispatcher can plan the day without a scale. Some pits do sell by weight — asphalt and crushed stone usually do — which is why the yard-versus-ton distinction is a live one on every aggregate quote.
Why will the yard not deliver the 1.4 yards I actually need?
Because a delivery is priced as a trip, not as a quantity. Landscape suppliers set a minimum load — often two or three yards for bulk soil, stone or mulch — and below it you either pay for the minimum anyway or collect it yourself. That makes the number this page reports a starting point rather than an order: enter the minimum from your own supplier and it shows what you will actually be billed for, which is usually more material than the bed needs and worth finding a second use for.
How many yards will fit in my pickup?
Less than the bed holds, on anything heavier than mulch. A half-ton pickup bed measures close to two cubic yards level with the rails, but the payload rating stops you near one yard of damp topsoil and well under one of stone. The capacity figures on this page describe the box; the number that governs is the payload sticker in the driver's door jamb, and it is the one that decides whether the trip is legal.