Sand Calculator
Ask a yard for sand and you could be handed any of six products, priced by the ton, planned by the square foot and sold bagged by the pound. This sand calculator starts from which sand the job actually needs, then gives you the volume, the tonnage and the sack count together.
Your result
What to order
1 tons (0.74 yd³) of masonry / mason sand for 240 sq ft at 1" deep
Quarries sell sand by weight and load it by volume, so quote the tonnage and let them convert.
- Area covered
- 240 sq ft at 1" deep
- Bags against bulk
- 40 sacks at 50 lb is 1 tons. Above about 27 bags the handling alone usually decides it, whatever the price works out at.
- Will it fit in a pickup?
- A half-ton pickup safely takes about 0.46 yd³ of sand, so your 0.74 yd³ is roughly 2 trips. Sand is among the heaviest materials by volume, so the bed fills by weight long before it looks full.
- How this is worked out
- 240 sq ft × 1" ÷ 12 ÷ 27 = 0.74 yd³ × 2,700 lb ÷ 2,000 = 1 tons
Calculate how much sand you need
Area in square feet, multiplied by depth in inches, divided by 324. That gives cubic yards directly, because a cubic yard spread an inch deep covers 324 square feet. Multiply the yards by the weight of your grade to get tons, which is the unit a quarry will actually quote in.
A 240 sq ft patio on a 1 inch bedding course works out at 0.74 cubic yards. In paver sand that is 1 tons, or 40 fifty-pound bags if you were buying it in sacks. The same patio bedded at two inches, which people do reach for, would be 1.48 yards and a patio that settles into ruts within a season.
Measure the area rather than the perimeter of the project. A path that runs round two sides of a patio is a separate rectangle, and adding it as its own area is more accurate than rounding the patio up to cover it. Every extra inch of depth on a large area is another delivery, so the arithmetic is worth doing once properly.
Sand type: masonry, concrete, play, paver, fill
Sand is not one material. The differences that matter are grain size, whether it has been washed, and whether the grains are rounded or angular. Angular sand locks together and holds a level; rounded sand rolls and stays loose, which is exactly what you want in a sandbox and exactly what you do not want under a paver.
| Sand | Grain | Lb per yd³ | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masonry / mason sand | Fine, washed | 2,700 | Mortar, block work and under pavers as bedding |
| Concrete / sharp sand | Coarse, angular | 2,600 | Mixing concrete, and base under slabs |
| Paver bedding sand | Coarse, washed | 2,700 | The 1 inch setting bed under pavers |
| Play sand | Very fine | 2,400 | Sandboxes and play areas, washed and screened twice |
| Fill sand | Unwashed, mixed | 2,900 | Backfill, raising grade and bedding pipe |
| Leveling / topdressing sand | Fine, screened | 2,600 | Levelling low spots in a lawn |
The column to read across is the weight one. Fill sand at 2,900 lb a yard against play sand at 2,400 is a spread of about 21%, which on a five-yard order is most of a ton either way. Substituting one sand for another because it was in stock changes both the tonnage and how the job performs.
Masonry sand, and where mason sand differs
Masonry sand is fine, washed and uniformly graded, screened to remove the coarse particles that would stop mortar working smoothly off a trowel. Mason sand is the same product under a shorter name — the two terms are used interchangeably at every yard, and asking for either gets you the same pile.
Its main job is mortar for brick, block and stone, mixed roughly three parts sand to one part cement. Beyond that it is the default choice for paver joints, for bedding under flagstone, and for anywhere a smooth, consistent fine sand is wanted. At 2,700 lb a cubic yard, a yard is about 1.35 tons or 54 fifty-pound bags.
Where it is the wrong answer is structural bedding. Because the grains are fine and rounded, masonry sand compacts less predictably than the coarse angular concrete sand specified for a paver setting bed. Plenty of patios are laid on it and most are fine, but if the surface will carry vehicles, use concrete sand and keep the mason sand for the joints.
Results in yards, tons and bags, and which one to order in
Three units, one material, and they rarely agree. Quarries price sand by the ton and load it by the bucket, landscapers plan by the cubic yard because that is how depth maths works, and every big-box store sells it by the fifty-pound sack. A quote in one unit tells you almost nothing about a quote in another.
A cubic yard of masonry sand is 1.35 tons and about 54 bags. So a ton is a little under three quarters of a yard, and a yard is most of a pallet of sacks. If you are comparing a bulk price against a bag price, convert both to the same unit before deciding, because the difference is usually larger than it first looks.
Order in whatever unit your supplier quotes, but confirm which one they mean. The single most expensive mistake on a sand order is reading a per-ton price as a per-yard one, which makes a load look about a third cheaper than it is and leaves you short when the bill arrives.
Sand coverage and depth guide
One cubic yard covers 324 sq ft at 1 inch, 162 at 2 inches and 81 at 4. Per ton the figures move with the grade, because a ton of light play sand is more cubic yards than a ton of heavy fill.
| Depth | Sq ft per cubic yard | Sq ft per ton | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5" | 648 | 480 | lawn leveling |
| 1" | 324 | 240 | paver bedding |
| 2" | 162 | 120 | sandbox |
| 4" | 81 | 60 | base course |
| 6" | 54 | 40 | sandbox fill |
Read the middle column for planning and the right-hand one for ordering. Coverage per cubic yard is fixed geometry and never moves; coverage per ton drops as the sand gets heavier, so a ton of fill sand goes noticeably less far than a ton of play sand at the same depth. If a supplier quotes tons and you planned in yards, that column is where the two reconcile.
The depth to be strict about is the paver bedding course. One inch, screeded flat, and no more — the sand is there to seat the paver, not to level the base beneath it. Every extra inch is somewhere the pavers can sink unevenly once traffic starts, and it is the most common reason a patio goes wavy in its second year.
Everything else on the table is more forgiving. Levelling turf wants half an inch because the grass has to grow through it, a sandbox wants four to six because children dig, and bedding under pipe or slab wants four or more because it has to be compacted. Only the paver course has a single right answer.
Sand weight per yard, and what a truck can take
Between 2,400 and 2,900 lb per cubic yard dry, and several hundred pounds more after rain. Sand is one of the heaviest materials by volume in landscaping, heavier than topsoil and heavier than most gravels, which makes it a poor candidate for collecting yourself.
A half-ton pickup rated at around 1,250 lb of payload takes roughly 0.46 of a cubic yard of masonry sand before it is at its limit. Not one yard — under half. The bed will still look nearly empty, which is how people end up driving home overloaded without realising it.
At the other end, a tandem dump rated for 14 tons carries about 10.4 cubic yards of sand. Between those two numbers is most of the practical advice: anything above half a yard is worth delivering, and anything above ten yards is a single load rather than two.
Levelling a lawn with sand, and when not to
Half an inch a pass, spread and worked in with the back of a rake so the grass still shows through. Half an inch across 1,000 sq ft is 1.5 cubic yards. Repeat the following season if the lawn is still uneven rather than going deeper in one go.
Pure sand is the wrong choice on most lawns. On clay it creates a layer that water perches on top of, and the result is worse drainage rather than better. A sand and compost topdressing mix, or straight compost, does the levelling job without the perched water table — which is why the compost calculator has a topdressing rate built into it.
Sand levelling genuinely belongs on sandy or already free-draining soils, on golf and sports turf where the whole profile was built on sand, and for filling small hollows and animal damage rather than resurfacing a whole lawn. If the lawn is uneven because the ground beneath moved, sand on top treats the symptom.
What sand costs
Roughly $25 to $60 a ton collected for bulk sand, and $40 to $90 a ton delivered, with fill sand cheapest and washed play sand dearest. Per cubic yard that is about $34 to $81 collected.
Bagged sand runs $5 to $9 for a fifty-pound sack, which works out at $324 a cubic yard equivalent at $6 a bag. That is roughly four times the bulk price, and the crossover comes early: above about half a yard, or 27 bags, bulk wins even after a delivery charge.
Delivery is charged per load rather than per ton, usually $75 to $150 inside a normal radius, so one larger order almost always beats two small ones. Distance from the quarry moves the delivered price more than the sand itself does, which is why it pays to ring two or three yards and ask for the delivered rate rather than comparing pickup prices.
Sand questions
How much sand do I need?
Square feet × depth in inches ÷ 324 gives cubic yards, then multiply by the density of that sand for tons. A 240 sq ft patio on a 1 inch bedding course takes 0.74 cubic yards, which is about 1 tons or 40 fifty-pound bags.
How much sand do I need calculator?
Enter the area and the depth above and it returns all three units at once. The part worth setting properly is the sand type: fill sand at 2,900 lb a yard and play sand at 2,400 lb a yard give tonnages about 21% apart for the same hole.
How many bags of sand do I need?
Divide the total weight by the bag weight. At 2,700 lb per cubic yard and 50 lb per sack, one cubic yard is about 54 bags. Bags are sold by weight rather than volume, so the count comes off the tonnage, not the cubic yards.
How much sand is in a cubic yard?
27 cubic feet, weighing roughly 2,400 to 2,900 lb depending on the grade and how wet it is. That is 1.35 tons for a typical masonry sand, and about 54 fifty-pound bags if you were buying the same volume in sacks.
How much sand to level a yard?
Half an inch a pass, and repeat rather than going deeper. Half an inch over 1,000 sq ft is 1.5 cubic yards. Burying grass under more than that in one go kills it, so levelling a badly uneven lawn is a job across two or three seasons.
How much sand will I need for a sandbox?
Length × width × depth in feet, divided by 27. A 6 by 6 ft box filled 6 inches deep is 0.67 cubic yards, or about 32 bags of play sand. Use washed and screened play sand rather than builders sand, which is sharp and stains.