About the Soil Yard Calculator
Garden centres sell soil, compost and mulch in bags labelled in cubic feet, while landscape yards sell the same materials in bulk by the cubic yard. Plans and other calculators usually give an answer in yards, but you may be standing in a store aisle working out how many bags to put in the cart. Or you may have a pile of bags and want to know what that amounts to in yards.
This soil yard calculator converts in both directions for the common bag sizes. Choose whether to go from yards to bags or bags to yards, pick the bag size and enter the amount. It shows how many bags make a yard, and if you enter a bag price and a bulk price per yard it compares the two, so you can see what the convenience of bags costs.
How to Use the Soil Yard Calculator
Choose Yards to bags or Bags to yards.
Choose the bag size in cubic feet.
Enter the cubic yards or the number of bags.
Optionally enter the price per bag and the bulk price per yard.
The Formulas
bags per yard = 27 ÷ bag size
bags = ⌈yards × 27 ÷ bag size⌉
yards = bags × bag size ÷ 27Common bag sizes and bags per cubic yard:
0.75 ft³ 36 bags
1 ft³ 27 bags
1.5 ft³ 18 bags
2 ft³ 13.5 bags
3 ft³ 9 bagsStep-by-Step Examples
Two cubic yards in 1.5 ft³ bags, $5 a bag against $35 a yard bulk.
cubic feet 2 × 27 = 54 ft³
bags 54 ÷ 1.5 = 36 bags
bag cost 36 × $5 = $180
bulk cost 2 × $35 = $70Forty 1 ft³ bags.
yards 40 × 1 ÷ 27 = 1.48 yd³Bags or Bulk?
Bagged soil costs far more per yard. In the example, 18 bags at $5 make a yard costing $90, more than twice the bulk price, before delivery. Bulk delivery has its own costs: a delivery fee, a pile on the driveway and wheelbarrow work. For containers, small raised beds and patching lawns, bags are convenient and clean. For anything over about one or two yards, bulk is almost always cheaper even with delivery, and bulk soil is often a better product for lawns and large beds.
Different Bagged Products
Bags may contain topsoil, garden soil, potting mix, raised-bed mix, compost, manure or mulch. They vary a lot in weight and in what they are for. Topsoil is heavy and mainly mineral, for filling and levelling. Garden soil is topsoil with added organic matter. Potting mix is light and contains peat or coir, perlite and fertiliser, designed for containers rather than filling beds. Mulch and compost are light. The conversion between bags and yards works the same for all of them, as long as the bag is labelled by volume.
Quarts and Litres
Potting mixes are often labelled in quarts or litres. One cubic foot is about 30 quarts or 28.3 litres, so an 8-quart bag holds about 0.27 cubic feet and a 50-litre bag about 1.77 cubic feet. To use the calculator with these, convert the bag size to cubic feet first and choose the nearest size, or work out the bags per yard directly by dividing 27 by the bag's cubic feet.
Filling a Raised Bed
A raised bed 8 feet long, 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep holds 32 cubic feet, about 1.19 cubic yards. That is 32 one-cubic-foot bags or about 43 bags of 0.75 cubic feet. Many gardeners fill the bottom with cheaper bulk topsoil and finish the top few inches with bagged compost or raised-bed mix.
Topping Up Lawns and Beds
For topdressing a lawn, a thin layer of a quarter to half an inch of screened soil or compost is usually enough. A 1,000 square foot lawn at a quarter inch needs about 21 cubic feet, under a cubic yard, which is 21 one-cubic-foot bags. For refreshing a flower bed, an inch of compost over 100 square feet takes about 8 cubic feet. Small jobs like these are where bags make the most sense.
Storing Bags
Bagged soil and compost keep well if stored flat and off the ground, out of direct sun. Bags left in the rain can split and leak, and bags that dry out completely are hard to wet again. Buy close to when you need them, and check bags for tears before loading them into the car.
Checking a Bag's Real Volume
Soil can settle in the bag during shipping, and some bags are labelled by the amount of material before compression. Compressed bales of peat or coir expand a lot when opened, so a 2 cubic foot bale may give 4 cubic feet or more of loose material. Read the label for the expanded volume and use that figure when converting to yards.
Understanding Your Result
The headline gives the number of bags or the cubic yards.
The working line shows the conversion.
The bags per yard line shows how many bags of that size make a yard.
The bags vs bulk line compares the cost of each.
When Should You Use This Calculator?
Use it in the store to work out how many bags to buy.
Use it to compare bagged and bulk prices.
Use it to turn another calculator's yards into a bag count.
Common Mistakes
Assuming bags are 1 cubic foot. Check the label.
Buying dozens of bags for a large job. Price bulk delivery.
Filling beds with potting mix. It is designed for containers.
Forgetting settling. Fresh soil sinks; buy a little extra.