Sand Calculator - Tons, Bags, Paver & Play Sand Cost

How to use it

1. Pick the job first. General sand, paver bedding, polymeric joint sand, sandbox, pool base, lawn leveling or fill. The job sets the depth, the sand type, the density, the bag on the shelf and whether the headline answer is a bulk order or a bag count. Every one of those is still yours to edit afterwards.
2. Measure the area in pieces. Rectangles, circles measured across rather than from the middle, ovals for a stadium shaped pool, or a square footage you already have. Feet and inches get separate boxes, so 12 ft 7 in never quietly becomes 12.7 ft, and each row shows its own dimension line in the takeoff.
3. Take off what is not getting sand. A firepit in the middle of the patio, a planter, a drive across the lawn. Mark a row as a deduction and it comes off the total as a negative row, printed as a negative in both square feet and cubic feet so the column still adds to the headline.
4. Set the depth, or the joint. Every mode except polymeric takes a depth in inches with the working range printed beside it. Polymeric replaces depth with geometry: your paver face in inches, the joint width, and how deep the joint is actually filled. Pool base adds a cove toggle for the wedge of sand around the inside of the wall.
5. Check the sand type and the density. All the presets sit at 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 100 lb per cubic foot and 1.35 tons per cubic yard, the same figures published on our gravel and cubic yard pages. Suppliers publish anything from 2,600 to 3,000 for dry sand, so if you are buying by the ton, type theirs.
6. Set the allowance and the order step. Screed allowance for bedding, top-up for polymeric because the joints settle on the first watering, leveling for a pool floor, compaction for fill that gets tamped. The order step rounds the buy volume up to what the yard will actually load, half a cubic yard by default.
7. Read the takeoff and the money. The ledger lists the measured volume, the cove, the allowances and the buy total in cubic feet, and every line adds to the total above it. The cost card converts 54 bags to the cubic yard so a shelf price and a delivered price are finally comparable, and prints the crossover where bags stop being cheaper.

At a glance

• 12 x 14 ft patio, 1 in paver bedding: 15.4 cu ft with the 10 percent screed allowance, 0.57 cu yd, 0.77 tons, 31 bags, order 1 cu yd
• The same patio at a 2 in guess: 30.8 cu ft and 62 bags: exactly double, for a bed that ruts
• 168 sq ft of polymeric, 4 x 8 pavers at 1/8 in joints: 0.95 cu ft of joint, 3 bags with the top-up, 88 sq ft per bag against a published 75 to 100
• 5 x 5 ft sandbox, 6 in deep: 12.5 cu ft, 25 bags of play sand, 1,250 lb, $137.50 at $5.50 a bag
• 15 ft round pool, 2 in base plus a 4 in cove: 35.3 cu ft, 1.76 tons, order 1.5 cu yd which weighs 2.03 tons, cove included
• 1,000 sq ft of lawn leveling at 3/8 in: 32.8 cu ft, 1.22 cu yd, 1.64 tons, order 1.5 cu yd bulk

How the math works

Every length is held in inches and every volume in cubic feet, so the divide by 27 happens once at the end and feet-and-inches entry stays exact. A rectangle is length times width, a circle is pi times the diameter squared over four, and an oval is a stadium, two half circles either side of a rectangle, because that is the shape an above ground oval pool actually is. Sections add, deductions subtract, the net is floored at zero. Volume is net area times depth over 12. Weight is cubic feet times the density over 27, and tons is that over 2,000: at the 2,700 lb per cubic yard default a cubic foot weighs 100 lb, a cubic yard is 1.35 tons, and a 0.5 cubic foot bag weighs the 50 lb printed on it, which is why those three numbers move together and none of them is hidden. Bags are the buy volume over the bag yield, rounded up, with the leftover stated. The bulk order line rounds the buy volume up to the step the yard loads in. Polymeric replaces depth with geometry: lay pavers on a grid and each paver plus its share of the joints occupies a cell of (L plus joint) by (W plus joint), so the joint's share of the finished surface is that cell minus the paver face, over the cell. For 4 by 8 inch pavers at a 1/8 inch joint that is 4.52 percent of the surface, which is 52.10 inches of joint in every square foot, and at a 1.5 inch fill depth 9.77 cubic inches of sand per square foot, or 88.45 square feet from a 0.5 cubic foot bag. The half perimeter shortcut every published explanation uses, 144 times (L plus W) over (L times W), gives 54 inches instead of 52.10 because it charges the joint's own area twice; the page prints both and says which is which. The pool cove is the perimeter in feet times half the cove width times its height, in square inches, over 144. Per section rows are apportioned against the printed total using largest remainder, so the column you read adds up to the figure it sits under, deduction rows included as negatives, rather than each row being rounded on its own and hoped over.

1. 1. Pick the job, because the job picks the sand

   This is the step every other sand calculator skips. Paver bedding is coarse washed concrete sand screeded at 1 inch. Joint sand is polymeric, bought by joint geometry. A sandbox is fine washed play sand in 50 lb bags. A pool base is fine screened mason sand by the ton. Fill is unwashed and cheap. Choosing the job sets the depth, the density, the bag and the unit the answer is printed in, and every one of those stays editable afterwards.

2. 2. Net the area, in pieces

   Break the job into shapes you can actually measure with a tape and add a row for each: a 12 by 14 ft patio, a 15 ft circle measured across, a 33 by 18 ft oval, or a square footage you already have. Then mark the things that are not getting sand as deductions. A 4 ft firepit inside a 20 by 20 ft pad takes 12.6 sq ft off 400, and it prints as a negative row rather than quietly vanishing into the total.

3. 3. Depth by job, not by feel

   Paver bedding 1 in, and it is a screed bed rather than a leveling course. Pool base 2 in. Sandbox 6 in, with 4 thin for digging and 8 generous and heavy. Lawn topdressing 3/8 in per pass, a quarter to a half inch being the working range. Fill whatever the finished depth is. The working range prints next to the field for every one of them, so an edit is an informed edit.

4. 4. Volume: area times depth, once

   120 sq ft at 2 in is 120 times 2/12, which is 20 cubic feet, which is 0.74 of a cubic yard. Cubic feet is the honest working unit here because the bag on the shelf is sold in cubic feet, the joint math lands in cubic inches, and only the bulk order is quoted in yards. The page carries all three and divides by 27 exactly once.

5. 5. Joint sand is geometry, not area

   Two patios of the same size can be four bags apart. Each paver plus its share of the joints occupies a cell of (L plus joint) by (W plus joint), so the joint is (cell minus paver face) over cell of the finished surface. For 4 by 8 pavers at 1/8 in that is 4.52 percent, or 52.10 inches of joint per square foot. Multiply by the joint width and the fill depth for cubic inches per square foot, divide by 1,728, and the bag count follows.

6. 6. The pool cove nobody counts

   An above ground pool needs a wedge of sand around the inside of the wall so the liner turns up on a slope instead of a crease. A 4 in by 4 in cove is a triangle of 8 square inches, run around a 47.12 ft perimeter on a 15 ft pool, which is 2.62 cubic feet. That is nearly 9 percent on top of the floor, and it is the single most common reason a pool order comes up short.

7. 7. Weight, and why it decides how you get it home

   Cubic feet times 100 lb gives pounds at the default density; over 2,000 gives tons. Sand is the opposite of mulch: at 2,700 lb a cubic yard the payload runs out long before the bed does. A half ton pickup rated at 1,500 lb takes 0.56 of a cubic yard of dry sand and 0.48 once the pile is wet, against a bed that would happily hold 2.2 yards.

8. 8. Bags or bulk, at your prices

   A 50 lb bag is 0.5 cubic feet, so 54 bags make a cubic yard. At $5.50 a bag that is $297 a cubic yard against $40 bulk, and the only thing keeping bags in the game is the delivery fee. Against a smallest delivered load of 0.5 cu yd plus a $75 fee, which is $95, bags win up to 17 of them and lose from 18. Waive the fee or collect it yourself and bulk wins at every size.

9. 9. Round the order to what the yard will load

   Most suppliers load in half yard increments with a one yard minimum. 0.57 of a yard is an order of 1, and 1.31 is an order of 1.5. That is not waste, it is the smallest thing they will sell you, and it is why the page prints the measured figure, the buy figure and the order figure as three separate lines instead of one rounded number.

Worked scenarios, start to finish

Real jobs with the numbers carried all the way through, so you can see how the estimate is built and check your own figures against them.

The judgement calls a pro makes

Decisions the tool cannot make for you, and how someone who does this for a living thinks them through.

One inch of bedding is a screed layer, never a leveler

The bedding course under interlocking pavers is 1 inch of screeded coarse sand, and that is a specification rather than a preference: it is thick enough for the pavers to seat into and thin enough that it cannot move. Every extra inch is sand that migrates sideways under load, and the surface follows it down into ruts and dips a season or two later. If the base is not flat, the answer is to fix the base, not to float the pavers on more sand. Our gravel calculator sizes the compacted base course, which is the layer that is allowed to do the leveling.

Concrete sand for bedding, mason sand for mortar and sandboxes

Concrete sand is the coarse washed sand graded to ASTM C-33. The grains are angular, so they lock instead of rolling, and the grading drains rather than holding water under the pavers. Mason sand is washed and screened finer, which makes a smooth mortar and a comfortable sandbox and makes it exactly the wrong bedding under anything that carries a vehicle. Ask at the yard by name: bedding sand, paver sand and C-33 usually mean the same pile, and stone dust or screenings do not. For mortar itself, our brick and concrete block calculators work the sand out of the mix ratio rather than by the yard.

Why the joint fill depth defaults to 1.5 inches

Polymeric sand fills the joint from the top of the bedding to just below the paver surface, and on a standard 2 3/8 inch paver over a screeded bed that working depth is about 1.5 inches. It matters because it is the one input a coverage chart cannot ask you about, and it scales the answer directly: fill 1 inch and you need two thirds of the sand, fill 2 inches and you need a third more. Our default is the depth at which the geometry reproduces the published coverage figures, which is the honest reason to use it rather than a claim about what is correct on your patio. If your pavers are thinner or the bed is high, lower it.

The coverage chart assumes brick sized pavers

The published bands, 75 to 100 sq ft per 50 lb bag at 1/8 to 1/4 inch joints, 40 to 60 at 3/8 to 1/2, 20 to 35 at 3/4 to 1, are written for standard rectangular pavers. Run the geometry on a 12 by 12 inch slab at a 1/8 inch joint and it comes out at 195 sq ft per bag, nearly twice the top of the band, and that is not an error in either direction: a slab has less than half the joint per square foot that a 4 by 8 brick does. When the tool's figure lands outside the band it says so and shows why, because a chart that cannot ask what you bought cannot be right for everything you might have bought.

Wet sand weighs more and measures exactly the same

Moisture adds roughly 10 to 20 percent to the weight of a pile and nothing at all to its volume. If you are ordering by the yard, ignore it. If the supplier prices by the ton, or you are checking whether a load is legal on your trailer, use the wet figure, because sand that has been sitting in an open yard after rain is wet. That single distinction is why this page shows volume and weight as separate answers instead of converting one into the other and moving on.

Bags below about a third of a yard, bulk above, the fee decides

Convert before you compare: 54 bags make a cubic yard, so a $5.50 bag is $297 a cubic yard against maybe $40 bulk. Bags are seven times the price per unit and they win anyway on small jobs, because a delivery fee is a fixed cost and a bag is not. At $40 a yard and a $75 fee the smallest delivered load is $95, so 17 bags is cheaper and 18 is not. Change either number in the cost card and the crossover moves with it. If you can collect it yourself, bulk wins at every size, and the only question left is what your vehicle can legally carry.

Common mistakes, and the fix

• × Typing 2 inches for paver bedding because it sounds like a safer margin.

  ✓ It doubles the order and it makes the patio worse. Screed 1 inch and put the extra effort into the compacted base, which is the layer allowed to level. On a 12 by 14 ft patio that one choice is 31 bags against 62.

• × Buying polymeric sand by patio area off the front of the bag.

  ✓ The coverage figure on the bag is a band for standard pavers, and your joint width and paver size move it by a factor of three or more. Put the paver face and the joint width in and let the geometry answer it: the same 100 sq ft is 2 bags of brick joints or 5 bags of 1 inch slab joints.

• × Guessing bag counts for a sandbox and going back for more.

  ✓ A 50 lb bag is 0.5 cubic feet, which covers 1 square foot 6 inches deep. A 5 by 5 ft box at 6 in is 25 bags and 1,250 lb, which is two car trips, not one. Work it out before you load the trolley.

• × Ordering pool base sand for the floor and forgetting the cove.

  ✓ The cove around the inside of the wall is real volume. A 4 in cove on a 15 ft pool is 2.62 cubic feet, nearly 9 percent on top of the floor, and it is the difference between finishing the job and driving back to the yard.

• × Leveling a lawn in one thick pass to get it over with.

  ✓ Over about half an inch buries the crowns and kills the grass. Do 3/8 inch per pass and repeat next season. On 1,000 sq ft that is 1.22 cu yd a pass instead of 3.24 for a one inch smothering.

• × Ordering the measured volume for backfill that gets tamped.

  ✓ Sand placed in lifts and compacted loses roughly 15 percent of its loose volume, so 50 cubic feet in the hole is 57.5 off the truck. Order loose, measure compacted, and the last lift comes up to grade.

• × Assuming a pickup will carry whatever fits in the bed.

  ✓ Sand is payload governed, not volume governed. A half ton rated at 1,500 lb takes 0.56 of a cubic yard dry and 0.48 wet, against a bed that would hold 2.2 yards. Check the sticker in your door jamb, then order delivery or take three trips.

Material and unit specifics

The 50 lb bag is 0.5 cubic feet, so 54 bags make a cubic yard

This one constant carries most of the page. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, so at 0.5 cubic feet a bag it takes 54 bags to make one, and at 2,700 lb per cubic yard that bag weighs the 50 lb printed on it. It is also what makes a shelf price and a delivered price comparable: multiply the bag price by 54 before you hold it against a per yard quote. The bag yield is an editable field because a few retail sand products are sold at 0.4 or 0.6 cubic feet, and the label is the number that counts.

Concrete sand (C-33)

Coarse, sharp, washed sand graded to ASTM C-33, and the specified bedding material under interlocking pavers. Angular grains lock instead of rolling, and the grading drains instead of holding water against the underside of the pavers. About 2,700 lb per cubic yard dry. It is also the sand in a concrete mix, which is why the same pile is often labeled both ways at the yard.

Mason sand

Washed and screened finer than concrete sand, which is what makes a smooth mortar, a comfortable sandbox and a pool floor smooth enough to sit under a liner. About 2,700 lb per cubic yard dry. The fineness that makes it pleasant is exactly why it is the wrong bedding under a driveway paver: fine round grains migrate under load and the surface goes wavy.

Play sand

Washed and screened fine sand sold almost entirely in 50 lb bags, which is why the sandbox job counts bags rather than yards. It costs several times what the same sand costs loose, and that premium buys clean, dry and carryable. Buy bags for a sandbox and buy bulk for anything past about a third of a cubic yard.

Fill sand

The unwashed material off the bottom of the screen, and the cheapest sand a yard sells. It carries silt and fines, so it compacts well and drains poorly compared with concrete sand. That is the right trade for backfilling a trench or raising a grade and the wrong one under pavers or in a sandbox. Allow 15 percent for compaction when it goes in in lifts.

Pool base sand is not pool filter sand

Pool base sand is a fine screened sand smooth enough that no grain telegraphs through a vinyl liner, and mason sand is what most suppliers hand you when you ask for it. Pool filter sand is a graded silica sold in 50 lb bags to go inside the filter tank. The two get confused at the counter often enough that it is worth naming which one you want, because filter sand at bag prices for a pool floor is an expensive mistake.

Polymeric sand

Graded sand blended with a polymer binder that sets when watered, so the joints resist washout, ants and weeds. It is sold in 50 lb bags at roughly $25 to $45 and its published coverage is always a band because the answer is geometry. It goes in dry, gets swept and vibrated into the joint, is blown clean off the paver faces, and then gets watered exactly as the bag says. Joints settle on the first watering, which is why this page adds a 10 percent top-up allowance by default.

Density, and what moves it

The tool defaults every sand to 2,700 lb per cubic yard dry, which is 100 lb per cubic foot and 1.35 tons per cubic yard, the same figure our gravel and cubic yard pages publish. Suppliers publish anything from 2,600 to 3,000 depending on the source pit, the grading and how the pile has been sitting. Wet sand runs 10 to 20 percent heavier at the same volume. If you are buying by the ton, the supplier's density is the one that decides your bill, so type theirs into the field.

Coverage per bag, at a glance

One 50 lb bag of sand covers 6 square feet 1 inch deep, 3 square feet 2 inches deep, 2 square feet 3 inches deep and 1 square foot 6 inches deep. One ton is 20 cubic feet, so it covers about 240 square feet at 1 inch, 120 at 2 inches and 80 at 3 inches. Those are the two conversions worth memorizing, and everything else on this page is those two plus your dimensions.

Reading your result

Read the takeoff from the top down. The measured line is what your dimensions actually contain, the cove and the allowance lines are what the job costs on top of that, and the buy total is the sum, which is why every line is printed rather than folded into one rounded figure. Below it, three answers say the same thing in three units: cubic yards for the bulk yard, tons for a supplier who prices by weight, and 50 lb bags for the shelf. The order line is separate from the buy line on purpose, because the yard loads in half yard steps and rounding 0.57 up to 1 is the minimum sale rather than waste. If the mode you picked is normally bought in bulk, the bag count is there for comparison, not as a recommendation, and vice versa. The contrast strip under the headline is the number a calculator that never asked about your job would have given you: for bedding it is the 2 inch guess, for joint sand it is the coverage the manufacturer's chart publishes for pavers like yours, and for fill it is the compacted volume you measured. When those two numbers are far apart, the gap is the point of the page.

Limitations

• These are estimates for ordering, not quotes. Confirm quantities and prices with your supplier before a large load goes on a truck.
• Densities vary by source pit, grading and moisture. The 2,700 lb per cubic yard default sits mid band; suppliers publish 2,600 to 3,000 for dry sand and a wet pile runs 10 to 20 percent heavier at the same volume.
• Polymeric coverage varies by brand and by how deep the joints actually fill. The published bands on this page are the figures common across the aisle rather than one manufacturer's chart, so check the bag you are buying.
• Pool base and sandbox depths are trade guidance, not engineering. Follow your pool manufacturer's manual where it differs, since it is the document your warranty refers to.
• This page sizes a sand layer. It does no structural, drainage or bearing design, and it does not size the compacted base course under a patio or a pool, which is what our gravel calculator is for.
• Mortar sand is not computed from bag counts here. Sand in a mortar mix comes out of the mix ratio, which the brick and concrete block calculators handle.
• Compaction and screed allowances are defaults from normal practice. Site conditions, a long barrow run or a windy day all move them, and every one of them is an editable field.

Frequently asked questions

How many 50 lb bags of sand are in a cubic yard?

54. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet and a 50 lb bag of sand is 0.5 cubic feet, so 27 divided by 0.5 is 54 bags, weighing 2,700 lb in total. That is also the conversion that makes a shelf price comparable to a delivered price: at $5.50 a bag, a cubic yard of bagged sand is $297 against roughly $40 for the same volume in bulk.

How much area does a 50 lb bag of sand cover?

A 0.5 cubic foot bag covers 6 square feet at 1 inch deep, 3 square feet at 2 inches, 2 square feet at 3 inches and 1 square foot at 6 inches. So a 5 by 5 ft sandbox filled 6 inches deep takes 25 bags, and a 12 by 14 ft patio bedded at 1 inch takes 28 bags before any screed allowance.

How far does a ton of sand go?

A ton is about 20 cubic feet at the usual 2,700 lb per cubic yard, which is 0.74 of a cubic yard. Spread out that covers roughly 240 square feet at 1 inch deep, 120 square feet at 2 inches and 80 at 3 inches. Suppliers who sell by the ton are selling you the same pile as the ones who sell by the yard: one cubic yard is 1.35 tons at that density.

How much sand do I need for a 15 ft round pool?

About 1.8 tons, and you should order 2. The floor of a 15 ft pool is 176.7 square feet, which at a 2 inch base is 29.5 cubic feet, plus 2.6 cubic feet for a 4 inch cove around the inside of the wall, plus a leveling allowance: 35.3 cubic feet, 1.31 cubic yards, 1.76 tons. Ordered at the usual half yard step that is 1.5 cubic yards, which weighs 2.03 tons. The trade quotes 2 to 3 tons for a pool this size for exactly this reason: leveling losses come out of the same pile.

How much sand do I need under pavers?

One inch of screeded bedding sand, which is 1 cubic foot for every 12 square feet of patio. A 12 by 14 ft patio is 168 square feet, so 14 cubic feet, or 15.4 with a 10 percent screed allowance: 0.57 cubic yards, 0.77 tons, 31 bags. Use coarse washed concrete sand (C-33), not mason sand, and do not go thicker to level a bad base. The compacted gravel base underneath is the layer that levels, and our gravel calculator sizes it.

How much polymeric sand do I need?

It depends on your paver size and joint width far more than on the patio area. For 4 by 8 inch pavers with 1/8 inch joints filled 1.5 inches deep, one 50 lb bag covers about 88 square feet, so a 168 square foot patio takes 2 bags of joint volume and 3 with a top-up allowance. Change to 12 by 12 inch slabs with 1 inch joints and a bag covers 27 square feet instead. Put your actual paver and joint into the tool rather than reading the front of the bag.

How many bags of play sand for a sandbox?

Multiply the area in square feet by the depth in inches, divide by 6, and that is your bag count. A 5 by 5 ft box 6 inches deep is 25 sq ft x 6 / 6 = 25 bags, which is 12.5 cubic feet and 1,250 lb. A 4 by 4 ft box at 4 inches is 11 bags. Use washed play sand rather than fill or concrete sand, and plan two trips: half a ton is more than most cars will take at once.

Is it cheaper to buy sand in bags or in bulk?

Bulk is far cheaper per unit and bags win anyway on small jobs, because the delivery fee is fixed. At 54 bags to the cubic yard, $5.50 bags work out at $297 a cubic yard against about $40 bulk. But the smallest load a yard will drop is typically half a cubic yard plus a $75 delivery, which is $95, so bags are cheaper up to 17 of them and lose from 18 onward. If you can collect it yourself, bulk wins at any size, subject to what your vehicle can legally carry.

How much sand can a pickup carry?

Less than the bed holds, because sand is payload governed. A half ton pickup rated at 1,500 lb carries about 0.56 of a cubic yard of dry sand and 0.48 once the pile is wet, against a bed volume of roughly 2.2 cubic yards. A three quarter ton at 3,000 lb roughly doubles it. Check the payload sticker in your driver's door jamb, and remember that passengers and tools come out of the same allowance.

What is the difference between mason sand and concrete sand?

Grain size and shape. Concrete sand is coarse, sharp and washed, graded to ASTM C-33, and the angular grains lock together, which is why it is specified as paver bedding and used in concrete. Mason sand is washed and screened finer and the grains are rounder, which makes smooth mortar and a comfortable sandbox and makes it the wrong choice under pavers that carry a vehicle. Both weigh about the same, near 2,700 lb per cubic yard dry.

Does wet sand weigh more than dry sand?

Yes, by roughly 10 to 20 percent, and it takes up exactly the same space. So if you are buying by the cubic yard, moisture costs you nothing; if you are buying by the ton, you are paying for water; and if you are hauling it yourself, wet sand is what takes a half ton pickup from 0.56 of a yard down to 0.48. Sand that has been sitting in an open supplier yard after rain is wet, so use the wet figure for anything to do with weight limits.

How much sand do I need for an aquarium?

Multiply the footprint in square inches by the sand depth in inches and by 0.058 to get pounds. A 20 gallon long is 30 by 12 inches, so at 1.5 inches of sand that is 30 x 12 x 1.5 x 0.058, about 31 lb. The constant is just the same 2,700 lb per cubic yard density expressed per cubic inch. Use an aquarium-grade sand rather than builders sand, which is not washed to that standard.