How much sand a job actually takes
Sand is estimated the same way as any other loose material: the area you are covering, multiplied by how deep it will lie. What makes sand its own calculation is the depth, which is unusually small and unusually specific. Bedding sand under pavers is about an inch — screeded flat and no deeper, because a thick bed keeps settling and the pavers move with it. A pool base is around two inches. A sandbox is eight to twelve.
Weight is where sand surprises people. At roughly 100 lb per cubic foot, a cubic yard is about 2,700 lb — more than a ton for a volume that looks entirely manageable in a wheelbarrow. ACI's figures for normalweight aggregate span 80 to 120 lb per cubic foot, which is why the results below show a low and a high estimate rather than one number. Moisture is the main driver, and it works in the direction people least expect: wet sand is heavier, not lighter.
Using this sand calculator
Enter the area and the depth, and you get the volume in cubic yards or cubic metres, the weight with its honest range, the area covered, and a count of half-cubic-foot bags.
The depth field's help text carries the common figures so you do not have to look them up mid-job. Shape and unit system are in the customize panel — the sliders icon at the top right — so a circular pool base or a triangular corner can be entered directly rather than being squared off into a rectangle first.
Extra for compaction defaults to 5% and is already in every figure shown. Sand consolidates once it is screeded and tamped, so you need slightly more of it than the empty space suggests.
The formula, worked through
Square feet times depth in feet gives cubic feet, and 27 cubic feet make a cubic yard.
A 12 ft × 12 ft paver patio bedded at 1 inch is 144 sq ft × (1 ÷ 12) = 12 cubic feet, which is 0.44 cubic yards. With 5% for compaction, 0.47 cubic yards — 26 half-cubic-foot bags, or about 1,260 lb. Because a bag holds half a cubic foot, a full cubic yard is 54 bags, which is the number that usually settles the bagged-versus-bulk question on its own.
The inches-to-feet conversion is the step to watch. A one-inch bed is one twelfth of a foot, and treating it as a foot inflates the order by a factor of twelve — the error is large enough to be obvious, but only if you check.
Choosing the right sand, and the right depth
Type matters as much as quantity. Bedding or concrete sand is coarse and angular, which is why it locks in place under pavers; play sand is washed and fine, and makes a poor base. Neither changes the volume arithmetic, but ordering the wrong one is a wasted delivery.
The most common and most costly mistake is bedding pavers too deep. An inch is a bedding layer; three inches is a cushion that will rut and dip within a season. Depth belongs in the compacted gravel base underneath, which the gravel calculator will size from the same footprint. For filling a raised bed rather than bedding a surface, the topsoil calculator is the right tool.
FAQ
How much does a cubic yard of sand weigh?
About 2,700 lb — 1.35 tons — when it's dry. But that figure carries a wide band around it. Sand runs anywhere from 80 to 120 lb per cubic foot depending on its grain size, its moisture, and how hard it's been packed:
| Condition | lb per cubic foot | Tons per cubic yard |
|---|---|---|
| Loose, dry | 80 | 1.08 |
| Typical | 100 | 1.35 |
| Wet or compacted | 120 | 1.62 |
Water fills the voids between grains rather than pushing them apart, so wet sand weighs more per cubic yard, not less. If you're buying by the ton after rain, you are partly buying water. If you're buying by the yard, you aren't — which is why the yard is the safer unit to order in.
How much sand goes under pavers?
One inch of bedding sand, screeded flat and left uncompacted until the pavers are laid. That's the layer this calculator sizes.
The temptation is to use more, so the sand can absorb the dips in a bad base. Resist it. A thick bedding layer keeps consolidating for years and the pavers sink into it unevenly. Depth belongs in the compacted gravel base underneath — 4 in for a patio, 6 in or more for a driveway.
Size the base course with the Gravel Calculator — same footprint, different depth.
How many bags of sand are in a cubic yard?
Fifty-four, at the usual half-cubic-foot bag: 27 ÷ 0.5 = 54. Each of those bags weighs about 50 lb, so a cubic yard is well over a ton of lifting, carried one sack at a time.
Bags are worth it below roughly a third of a yard — setting a few posts, levelling one small patio, filling a sandbox. Above that, bulk delivery is cheaper per yard and far cheaper in effort. This calculator rounds bags up, because stores don't sell halves.
Which kind of sand should I use?
They aren't interchangeable, and the wrong one fails slowly rather than immediately:
| Type | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Concrete / sharp sand | Mixing concrete and mortar; paver bedding |
| Masonry sand | Mortar, plaster, smoother finishes |
| Play sand | Sandboxes — washed and screened for safety |
| Polymeric sand | Sweeping into paver joints; binds when wetted |
Never bed pavers on play sand: the grains are rounded and washed, so they roll past each other instead of locking together, and the surface shifts. Weights, though, are close enough across all four that this calculator's range covers them.
My area isn't a rectangle. Can I still use this?
Yes. Open the customize panel (the sliders icon at the top right of the calculator) and change the shape — circle for a round pool base or fire pit, circle border for a ring, trapezoid for a patio that widens, triangle for a corner. The diagram redraws with your own dimensions labelled, so you can check you measured the sides it expects.
For an irregular outline, split it into simple shapes, run each one, and add the volumes together.
What else uses the same math?
The base course under the sand: the Gravel Calculator takes the same shapes and returns tonnage.
Pouring rather than laying? The Concrete Calculator adds bag counts and waste. Filling a bed with soil instead? The Topsoil Calculator runs the same area-and-depth math against soil bulk density.