Topsoil is sold by the cubic yard
Soil is the material that most often gets ordered short. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, which covers 324 square feet at a single inch deep — so a lawn that needs four inches of new soil is a serious delivery, not a few bags in the boot of a car.
The estimate comes down to area, depth, and one density figure for the tonnage. Get those right and the order is straightforward. The mistakes are almost always in the depth.
How deep should topsoil be?
Depth is set by what you are growing, not by what looks tidy. Penn State Extension's lawn establishment guidance gives the benchmark most turf programmes use: a minimum of 4 to 6 inches of good-quality topsoil at firmed or settled depth is what a good lawn needs to establish.
| Task | Depth |
|---|---|
| Top-dressing an existing lawn | 1/4–1/2 in per pass |
| New lawn from seed or sod | 4–6 in |
| Planting beds and borders | 6–8 in |
| Raised vegetable beds | 8–12 in |
| Filling low spots and ruts | Match the surrounding grade |
Two of those rows are where people get into trouble. Top-dressing more than about half an inch at a time smothers the grass you are trying to help. And building a bed as a thin layer over compacted clay is the classic failure — it looks right for a month, then the roots hit the barrier underneath and the plants stall in the first hot spell.
The formula
cubic feet = area (sq ft) × depth (in) ÷ 12
cubic yards = cubic feet ÷ 27
tons = cubic yards × density (tons per cubic yard)
The shortcut worth knowing: 1 cubic yard covers 324 square feet at 1 inch, so cubic yards = area ÷ 324 × depth in inches. For screened topsoil the working density is about 1.2 tons per cubic yard. Wet soil runs heavier, so treat it as a planning number rather than a promise.
Three worked examples
A 1,000 sq ft new lawn at 4 inches
- Volume: 1,000 × 0.333 = 333 cu ft
- Cubic yards: 12.35 cu yd
- With 10% for settling: 13.6 cu yd
- Weight at 1.2 t/yd³: about 14.8 tons
At roughly 6 cubic yards to a truckload, that is two or three deliveries. This is the point where a garden project quietly becomes a logistics exercise — which is exactly what the calculator is for.
A 20 × 10 ft planting bed at 6 inches
- Volume: 200 × 0.5 = 100 cu ft
- Cubic yards: 3.7 cu yd; with 10%, 4.1 cu yd
- Weight: about 4.4 tons
Top-dressing 500 sq ft at 2 inches
- Volume: 500 × 0.167 = 83 cu ft
- Cubic yards: 3.1 cu yd; weight about 3.7 tons
Two inches in one go is already four times the half-inch-per-pass limit for top-dressing an established lawn. Split it across several passes a few weeks apart and the grass grows through instead of being buried.
Coverage at a glance
| Depth | 1 cubic yard covers | A 6-yard truckload covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 in | 324 sq ft | 1,944 sq ft |
| 2 in | 162 sq ft | 972 sq ft |
| 3 in | 108 sq ft | 648 sq ft |
| 4 in | 81 sq ft | 486 sq ft |
| 6 in | 54 sq ft | 324 sq ft |
The second column is the one that reframes a job: a single truckload at 4 inches covers less than 500 square feet.
Topsoil vs fill dirt
These two get confused constantly, and buying the wrong one is an expensive way to learn the difference. Topsoil is the dark, organic, biologically active layer that plants actually grow in. Fill dirt is the mineral subsoil beneath it — denser, essentially free of organic matter, and useless as a growing medium.
Fill dirt has exactly one job: changing grade. Filling a hole, raising a low corner, building a base under a patio or a shed. Topsoil goes on top of that, and the two are not interchangeable in either direction. The right sequence for a level-and-plant job is fill dirt first to set the grade, then 4 to 6 inches of topsoil to grow into.
Screened, unscreened and blended
"Topsoil" on a delivery docket is a label, not a specification, and in many states the sale is not closely regulated. Three questions are worth asking before you order.
- What is it screened to? Screened topsoil passes through a screen — commonly a half-inch mesh — which takes out rocks, sticks and clods. Unscreened material can carry 5 to 15% debris by volume, and that is precisely the material that interferes with seeding and root penetration.
- Where did it come from? Good soil has a source and a storage history. Soil stripped from a demolition site is not the same product as soil screened from a field, even when both arrive in identical trucks.
- Is it blended? A topsoil and compost blend carries more organic matter and holds water better, which matters most on sandy or heavy clay ground. It is usually worth the upcharge for beds, and usually unnecessary for a lawn that will be fed anyway.
Weight, loads and trucks
Soil is heavy, and this is the constraint that catches people out. Screened topsoil runs about 1.2 tons per cubic yard, and wet soil can be 20 to 30% heavier than dry.
A dump truck runs out of payload before it runs out of volume. A nominally 15-yard truck may only legally carry around 10 yards of wet soil. That is why a large order splits into several loads even though the arithmetic says one truck would fit.
For planning, assume roughly 6 to 8 cubic yards of topsoil per load unless your supplier says otherwise, and expect the 13.6 cubic yard lawn above to arrive in two or three deliveries. Book them back to back so the soil is not sitting in a heap while you rake out the first load.
Order 10% extra — and know why
Fresh topsoil settles. Air gaps collapse as it is spread, watered and walked on, and organic matter keeps breaking down, so a layer spread to exactly four inches in October is thinner by spring.
Every calculator on this site returns the mathematical answer and nothing else; this page is no different. The 10% allowance is a separate judgement applied on top, and it is a sensible one wherever the surface has to end up level — lawn, bed or graded area. For a raised bed, overfill by a couple of inches instead and let the bed do the settling.
Blend it into the subsoil
The one step that separates a soil job that works from one that fails happens at the interface. Penn State's guidance is specific: of the 4 to 6 inches of topsoil, about 2 inches should be worked into the upper 2 to 3 inches of the subsoil.
Done properly, that creates a gradual transition, reduces compaction at the boundary and improves drainage there. Skipped, you get a sharp seam between two materials of different texture — and water perches on it. Roots will not cross it willingly, so the plants sit in a shallow pan of soil with a hard floor underneath.
The same principle explains why the texture should roughly match your native ground. Sandy soil over tight clay traps water at the join, and heavy soil over sand drains too fast at the top. A supplier who asks what your existing soil is like is a supplier worth keeping.
Where the estimate goes wrong
- Ordering for area instead of volume. "Two inches" sounds shallow, but two inches across 1,000 sq ft is over six cubic yards — a serious delivery.
- Using the dry density on wet soil. A 20 to 30% weight difference is easily enough to overload a truck.
- Forgetting the top-dressing limit. More than half an inch at a time on an established lawn kills the grass underneath it.
- Layering over compacted ground. Break up the subsoil first. A good layer on a bad base is still a bad planting bed.
- Leaving the pile in one place. A cubic yard of soil left on a lawn for two weeks leaves a dead patch where it stood.
Tools for moving and grading topsoil
A cubic yard of screened topsoil runs about 1.2 tons, so the delivery is only half the job and spreading it is the other half. These are the tools that part of the work calls for.
- Wheelbarrow — Four inches over a lawn is several tons moved one barrow at a time. A deep tray and a pneumatic tyre are the difference between two trips and ten.
- Landscape rake — For pulling topsoil to a consistent depth and grading it before seed or sod, and for finding the low spots the weight has settled into.
- Garden fork — The page asks for about 2 inches of the new layer worked into the top 2 to 3 inches of subsoil. A fork does that at the transition without inverting the layers.
- Lawn roller — Rolling firms the soil so low spots show up before you seed. What the calculator calls settled depth is what you get after this pass.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The links above are affiliate links — if you buy through one, the price you pay is unchanged and a small commission helps keep these calculators free. Tools are listed because the job calls for them, not because of commission rates.
Sources and standards
Where these figures come from
Every formula on this page is implemented from the published reference material below. Where a value depends on a regional code, the calculator lets you override it rather than assuming one jurisdiction.
- Penn State Extension, Lawn Establishment — topsoil depth for turf establishment, blending topsoil into the subsoil, and grading and drainage guidance.
- University of Georgia CAES, Turfgrass Fertility — soil texture, organic matter, and the effect of compaction on turf roots.
- USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service — soil texture classes, bulk density and soil survey data.
Figures, formulas and reference tables last verified: 23 September 2026.