Enter the area and choose the job. We’ll set a practical depth and tell you how much gravel to order.
Depth depends on what drives or walks over it, and a driveway is not one layer. A new gravel driveway is built in two or three lifts: a 4 inch base of coarse angular stone, then a 2 to 3 inch surface layer of smaller stone. Each lift gets compacted before the next goes down. Putting 6 inches of loose stone in at once gives you 6 inches of loose stone — it never knits together, and the tyres push it aside within a season.
Topping up an existing driveway is different. You are filling ruts and replacing what has scattered, so 2 inches of surface stone is usually enough. Measure a rut at its deepest point rather than eyeballing the whole drive; most people over-order here.
A walking path needs far less. 2 inches over landscape fabric holds up fine, because foot traffic does not displace stone the way a car does. A patio or shed base wants 4 inches of compacted crusher run under whatever sits on top, and a French drain trench is filled to whatever depth the trench was dug.
This is where most orders go wrong. Suppliers work from a numbered sizing system, and asking for "gravel" gets you whatever is in the nearest pile. The numbers describe the size of the stone, not the rock type.
#57 stone is roughly 3/4 inch and the general-purpose choice — driveway surfaces, drainage, concrete aggregate. It drains well but stays slightly loose underfoot because the stones are all one size with nothing to fill the gaps. #8 is around 3/8 inch, smaller, and packs tighter, which makes it a better final layer if you want a firmer walking surface.
Crusher run — also sold as QP, quarry process or dense grade — is crushed stone with the stone dust left in. That dust is the point: it fills the voids and lets the layer compact into something almost solid. Use it for bases and lower driveway lifts, never as a top layer where you want drainage.
#2 stone is the big one, 2 to 2.5 inches, used as the bottom lift on a soft or badly drained driveway. Angular is what you want throughout. Rounded stone rolls rather than locks, which is exactly why pea gravel makes a poor driveway.
Both units are normal and which one you get quoted depends on where you buy. Quarries weigh trucks, so they sell by the ton. Landscape supply yards load with a bucket and sell by the cubic yard. Neither is wrong, and the calculator gives you both so you can order in whichever unit the person on the phone uses.
As a rough conversion, one cubic yard of crushed stone runs about 1.4 tons, though it climbs after rain because wet stone carries water weight you also pay for. Ordering on a dry day is worth a few dollars on a large load.
Watch the minimum. Most yards will not deliver under 1 ton, and many charge the same delivery fee for 1 ton as for 5. If your job needs 1.5 tons, ordering 2 usually costs a few dollars more in material and nothing extra in delivery — and leftover stone fills the low spot you will find next spring.
Material runs roughly $15 to $75 per ton picked up, depending on stone type and how far you are from a quarry. Decorative and washed stone sits at the top of that range; crusher run and basic driveway stone at the bottom.
Delivery is the part people forget. It is usually a flat trip charge of $50 to $150 within a local radius, plus more beyond it, and it does not shrink because your order is small. On a small job delivery can cost more than the stone. That is the real argument for ordering enough the first time.
Enter your supplier's price in the cost field above and the calculator converts it across tons, yards and bags so you can compare two quotes given in different units.
Skipping landscape fabric under a driveway or path. Without it the stone works down into the soil and the soil works up into the stone, and within two years you are ordering the same tonnage again.
Not compacting between lifts. A plate compactor rents for about $70 a day and is the difference between a driveway that holds its shape and one that ruts by autumn. Tick the compaction box in the calculator if you plan to use one — compacted stone needs roughly 20 percent more loose material to finish at your target depth.
No edging on anything narrower than a driveway. Loose stone migrates sideways under traffic, and a path without a border spreads into the lawn until it is too thin to walk on.
Volume is area multiplied by depth. Weight is that volume multiplied by the material's density.
volume = area × depth
tons = volume (cu ft) × 105 lb/cu ft ÷ 2000
order = volume × 1.1Density used: 105 lb per cubic foot. Crushed stone / driveway gravel, typical 100–115 lb/ft³ dry. Actual delivered weight varies with moisture and stone size, so treat tonnage as an estimate and confirm with your supplier.
The recommended order adds 10% on top. Material settles, ground is never perfectly flat, and a second delivery costs far more than a little extra gravel.
Bag count assumes 0.5 cu ft bags, rounded up to whole bags.
Both are normal and suppliers quote either. Bulk gravel is usually sold by the ton at the quarry and by the cubic yard at landscape suppliers. This calculator gives you both figures, so you can order in whichever unit your supplier uses without doing the conversion yourself.
About 114 sq ft at 2 in deep, or roughly a 10 ft x 11 ft area. At 4 in deep it drops to about 57 sq ft. Use the coverage tool above to check any depth — that is what it is for.
54 bags, if the bags are the common 0.5 cu ft size, because there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. That is why bulk delivery is far cheaper than bags for anything bigger than a small path.
4 to 6 in for a new driveway, built up in layers and compacted as you go. Topping up an existing driveway takes about 2 in. Go deeper if the ground underneath is soft or heavy vehicles use it.
Ground is never perfectly flat, gravel settles into the soil beneath it, and some is lost in handling. A 10% overage covers that. If you are compacting the gravel, tick the box — compacted gravel needs about 20% more loose material to finish at your target depth.