EstimatorKitFree weight-to-volume converter
Tons to cubic yards depends on the material
One ton is 0.71 cubic yards of road gravel, 1.0 of screened topsoil and 2.5 of shredded hardwood mulch, so the conversion starts by naming what is being weighed. Pick the material and this converts in both directions from its published loose density, shows the same quantity in pounds, metric tonnes and cubic feet, and gives the answer as a band rather than a false decimal because moisture moves a real stockpile. The density field is editable, and a price quoted per ton can be set against a price quoted per yard on one basis.
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- 9 materials
- Both directions
- Editable density
Two quotes, two units? Put them on one basis
One pit sells by weight, the next by volume, and the two numbers are not comparable until the density does its work. Fill either box or both.
5 tons of gravel, 3/4 in road is
3.57 cu yd
- Pounds
- 10,000
- Metric tonnes
- 4.54
- Cubic feet
- 96.4
- One ton is
- 0.71 cu yd
- One cubic yard is
- 1.4 tons
Treat that as 3.04 to 4.11 cu yd rather than a single figure — a working band, not a measurement: moisture and grading move a delivered yard by roughly this much either side of a published figure. Anyone quoting a weight-to-volume conversion to three decimal places is quoting the arithmetic, not the pile.
Loose delivered weight, by material
Compiled 2026-09-02. Every figure is typical rather than fixed — the right-hand column says what moves it, and the calculator above lets you replace any of them.
| Material | lb per yd³ | yd³ per ton | What moves it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asphalt, hot mix | 3,915 | 0.51 | mix design and compaction achieved |
| Gravel, 3/4 in road | 2,800 | 0.71 | moisture and grading; a wet load is heavier |
| Pea gravel, 3/8 in rounded | 2,650 | 0.75 | moisture and how washed the load is |
| River rock, 1–3 in | 2,800 | 0.71 | stone size and how rounded it is |
| Crushed stone base | 2,700 | 0.74 | stone type — trap rock runs heavier than limestone |
| Sand, washed concrete | 2,700 | 0.74 | moisture; damp sand weighs noticeably more |
| Topsoil, screened | 2,000 | 1 | moisture and organic content — this one moves the most of any row here |
| Compost, finished | 1,000 | 2 | moisture and how finished it is |
| Mulch, shredded hardwood | 800 | 2.5 | species and moisture |
How to convert tons to cubic yards
The material is the conversion; the arithmetic is the easy part.
Name the material before anything else
The material is the conversion — everything else is multiplication. Nine of them are prefilled with a published loose weight per cubic yard, and they run from shredded hardwood at 800 lb to hot mix asphalt at 3,915, so picking the wrong row is not a rounding error but a factor of nearly five. If what you have is not on the list, pick the nearest and overwrite the number.
Convert in whichever direction the paperwork runs
Coming off a scale ticket you have tons and need yards; going to a landscape supplier you have yards and need to know what will arrive on the axles. Both directions use the same density, so the answer is reversible: run it one way, then the other, and you land back where you started. Alongside it you get pounds, metric tonnes and cubic feet, because the three turn up on different tickets.
Replace our density with the one your supplier quotes
The density field is the whole calculation and it is meant to be edited. A pit that publishes a figure for its own product knows more than any table does, and entering it shows both answers at once — theirs and the published one — with the difference in tons spelled out. Where you have two quotes in two different units, the price panel converts both onto one basis so they can actually be compared.
Technical specifications
| Materials | Nine, each with its own published loose delivered weight |
|---|---|
| Range across the table | 800 lb/yd³ for shredded hardwood to 3,915 for hot mix asphalt — a factor of 4.9 |
| Directions | Tons to cubic yards and cubic yards to tons, from the same density |
| Density field | Prefilled per material and fully editable; your supplier's figure overrides ours |
| Ton used | The 2,000 lb US short ton; metric tonnes are shown alongside at 2,204.62 lb |
| Working band | Every answer is also given ±15%, because moisture and grading move a real pile |
| Quote comparison | A per-ton price and a per-yard price converted onto one basis at your density |
| Leaves the browser | Nothing — not the tonnage, not the density, not the two prices |
Frequently asked questions
How many cubic yards is one ton?
It depends entirely on what the ton is made of, which is why this page asks first. A ton of 3/4 in road gravel at 2,800 lb per cubic yard is 0.71 yd³; a ton of shredded hardwood mulch at 800 lb is 2.5 yd³, three and a half times as much space for the same weight. Anyone quoting a single universal number for this has picked one material and not told you which.
Why did two loads of the same product weigh differently?
Water, mostly. Aggregate stockpiles sit outside, and a pile that has taken two days of rain can carry several percent of its weight as moisture that will drain away on your job. Screening and grading account for the rest: a well-graded material packs its fines into the voids between the coarse particles and weighs more per unit of space than a single-size product does. Both effects are the reason the density here is a range rather than a constant.
Is a ton 2,000 lb or 2,240 lb here?
2,000 lb — the US short ton, which is what a domestic scale ticket means by the word. The metric tonne is 1,000 kg or 2,204.62 lb, about 10% heavier, and the long ton of 2,240 lb survives only in a few older marine and commodity contexts. The conversion shows tonnes alongside tons for exactly this reason: on an imported product the difference is real money.
Is it better to buy aggregate by weight or by volume?
By weight, if the material is dry and the scale is certified — you pay for what is actually there, and a ticket is a document. By volume the risk moves onto you in the other direction: a heaped yard and a struck yard differ, and nobody weighs the difference. The practical answer is that you rarely choose; the pit sells the way it sells, and the useful skill is converting the quote so two suppliers can be compared.
Where do the densities on this page come from, and can I trust them?
Each is a published loose delivered weight, compiled 2026-09-02, and every one is marked as varying rather than fixed. They are typical figures for the named product, not measurements of your specific pile, which is why each row carries a note saying what moves it and why the field is editable. A supplier's own published density always beats this table — and the scale house beats both.
Does a compacted cubic yard weigh more than a loose one?
Yes, and the figures here are loose delivered weight, which is the one that matters on the truck. Compacted in place, the same material occupies less space for the same weight, so an in-place density is higher — asphalt is the extreme case, quoted at 145 lb per cubic foot compacted. Ordering is done in delivered volume and the paving spec is written in compacted thickness, which is why the two numbers should never be swapped for one another.
About density, and why one answer cannot serve
Weight and volume are related by density, and density is a property of the material rather than of the units, so a page that answers this question without asking what the material is has answered a different question. The spread on the table above is nearly five to one from top to bottom: one cubic yard of hot mix weighs 1.96 tons and one cubic yard of shredded bark weighs 0.4, and both look like a heap. That is why aggregate is quoted per ton in some regions and per yard in others, and why a customer who converts with a general-purpose factor found on a forum can order half of what the job needs and not find out until the truck has gone.
There are three densities for any aggregate and they are not interchangeable. Loose delivered weight is what fills a dump body, and it is what this page uses, because it is the one that governs both the ticket and the axle load. Compacted in-place density is higher — the same mass in less space once it has been plated or rolled — and it is what a paving specification is written against. Particle density, the weight of the stone itself with no voids at all, is higher again and appears mainly in lab work. Reading a compacted figure onto a delivery, or the reverse, is the mistake that produces a twenty percent error while every individual number involved was correct.
The honest form of this answer is a range. Moisture alone moves a stockpile by several percent, and grading moves it again, so the tool reports a band around every figure rather than three decimal places it cannot justify. Where the difference matters — a large delivery, a tight budget, a bridge you have to cross — the fix is a certified scale ticket, not a better table. Once you have the quantity settled, the delivery side is the cubic yard calculator, and if you are working from a measured surface instead of a ticket, square feet to cubic yards asks for the one term that conversion needs. Material-specific depths and coverage sit on the gravel calculator and, for the heaviest row in the table by some margin, the asphalt calculator.
What happens to the tonnage and the prices
Every number on this page is worked out by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading it in. Nothing you type — measurements, quantities, the prices your supplier quoted you — is uploaded, logged or kept, which is also why the calculators carry on working on a site with no signal.
Two quoted prices side by side say who you are buying from and roughly what you are building. Both are multiplied in this tab and neither is transmitted; there is no supplier on the other end of this page and no referral being earned from either of them.