Sand Calculator
Bulk sand is sold by the cubic yard and bagged sand by the cubic foot, so those are the numbers this calculator leads with. Enter the area and the depth and you get the volume to order, the bag count and the coverage at that depth. Weight appears only if you type in a density from your supplier — no sand density is published here, and the page explains exactly why.
Results are estimates for planning purposes. Verify with your supplier, engineer, or a qualified professional before ordering material or performing work.
Which sand, and what it is actually called
Suppliers use trade names, and only some of them sit on top of a published standard. Knowing which is which is how you avoid buying sandbox sand for a patio.
| Name | What it is | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete sand | Coarse, angular, washed. Fine aggregate for concrete, and the usual bedding course under pavers because it locks up under load. | ASTM C33 / AASHTO M6 |
| Mason sand | Finer and more uniform than concrete sand. Mortar, grout, some pool bases. | ASTM C144 |
| Play sand | Washed and screened fine sand for sandboxes. Rounded grains — comfortable, and useless structurally. | None for grading |
| Fill sand | Whatever the pit produces, screened or not. Backfill, bedding for pipe, raising a low spot. | None |
The standards are named so you can look up your own specification; their gradation tables are copyrighted and are not reproduced here. If a supplier cannot tell you which of these you are being quoted, ask for a gradation sheet — every serious pit has one.
What a cubic yard of sand covers
| Depth | ft² per yd³ | yd³ per 100 ft² | 0.5 ft³ bags per 100 ft² |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 in | 324 | 0.31 | 17 |
| 1½ in | 216 | 0.46 | 25 |
| 2 in | 162 | 0.62 | 34 |
| 3 in | 108 | 0.93 | 50 |
| 4 in | 81 | 1.23 | 67 |
| 6 in | 54 | 1.85 | 100 |
Geometry only, no material assumption: 1 yd³ = 27 ft³ and 27 ft³ spread 1 in deep is 324 ft². Bag counts are rounded up for half-cubic-foot bags — check the cubic feet printed on yours, because bags are usually labelled by weight and the volume behind 50 lb depends on the sand and its moisture.
Why we will not tell you what a yard of sand weighs
Because the honest answer is a range so wide it is useless. FHWA's Soils and Foundations Reference Manual puts the dry unit weight of a clean fine-to-coarse sand at anywhere from 85 to 138 lb per cubic foot — a 62% spread, on one clean material, varying on nothing but how densely it happens to be packed. Moisture moves it again, and wet sand on a truck is a different load from the same sand in a bin.
A single number in the middle of that range would look precise and mislead you about half the time. So this page reports cubic yards, which are exact and are what a bulk supplier quotes in, and it will convert to tons the moment you give it a density that means something: tons billed × 2,000 ÷ (cubic yards ordered × 27), straight off a delivery ticket, is the density of your sand from your pit.
Two things sand is good at, one it is not
- It backfills well. A clean sand was the best-behaved material in the WisDOT weight-volume study: it expanded only 4% to 8% going from the ground to a stockpile, against 26% to 58% for clay. What you dig is close to what you haul, which makes the arithmetic on a sand job unusually reliable.
- It compacts with water and vibration, not kneading. Granular material wants a vibratory plate or a smooth drum, where clay wants a sheepsfoot. It still goes in lifts like everything else — the ceilings written into state specifications are in the compaction lift thickness calculator.
- It makes a terrible driving surface. A gravel road works because it is graded coarse to fine and its fines bind the stone into a crust; FHWA's gravel roads guide devotes a whole section to that binding characteristic. Clean single-sized sand has neither a coarse skeleton nor a binder, so tires push it around and rain carries it off. If that is the job, use the gravel driveway depth calculator instead.
How it's calculated
- Area
rectangle: A = length × width · circle: A = π / 4 × diameter² · triangle: A = base × height / 2- Volume
V (ft³) = A (ft²) × depth (in) / 12 → yd³ = ft³ / 27One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. Spread 1 inch deep it covers 324 ft²; at the 1 inch bedding course a patio usually gets, that is the whole story.- Volume to order
V order = V × (1 + extra % / 100)- Bags
bags = ceiling( V order (ft³) / bag size (ft³) )Take the cubic feet off the bag rather than assuming. A 50 lb bag is a weight, and the volume behind it depends on the sand and its moisture.- Coverage
ft² per yd³ = 324 / depth (in)- Weight, only from your own density
tons = V order (ft³) × density (lb/ft³) / 2,000No sand density is published on this site. FHWA's own soils manual puts a clean fine-to-coarse sand between 85 and 138 lb/ft³ on packing alone, before moisture — a 62% spread on one material. Read yours off a delivery ticket.
Frequently asked questions
Sources & references
- FHWA NHI-06-088 — Soils and Foundations Reference Manual, Volume I, Table 5-4: the dry unit weight of a clean fine-to-coarse sand runs from 85 to 138 lb/ft³ depending only on how densely it is packed — the reason no sand density is published here
- WHRP G22-05 — Weight-Volume Relationships and Conversion Factors for Soils and Aggregates of Wisconsin (WisDOT, December 2023): a clean sand (SP) measured expanding only 4–8% bank to loose, against 26–58% for clay — sand is the best-behaved material on a dirt job
- FHWA-OTS-15-002 — Gravel Roads Construction & Maintenance Guide (FHWA, August 2015), Section III: why a surface needs graded material with binding fines rather than clean sand, and what happens to a road that does not have them
Content checked against these sources — last reviewed August 30, 2026.