Enter the area and choose the job. We’ll set a practical depth and tell you how much topsoil to order.
Topsoil is not a graded product the way stone is, and two yards from two suppliers can be very different material. What you ask for matters more than the price.
Screened topsoil has been run through a mesh to pull out rocks, roots and clods. It spreads evenly and is what you want for lawns and any finished surface. Unscreened is cheaper and fine as bulk fill under something else, but it will fight you with a rake.
Garden mix or compost-blended soil is topsoil cut with organic matter, typically somewhere around a 70/30 to 60/40 split. It is the right call for vegetable beds and new planting beds, and the wrong call for levelling under turf, where too much organic matter keeps settling as it breaks down.
Ask two questions before ordering: is it screened, and where did it come from. Soil stripped from a construction site can carry compaction, weed seed and whatever the site had in it.
A new lawn from seed or sod wants 4 to 6 inches of topsoil over loosened subsoil. Less than 4 inches and roots hit compacted ground in the first dry spell, which is why thin new lawns brown out in July while established ones cope.
Top-dressing an existing lawn is the opposite extreme: 1/4 to 1/2 inch, worked in with the back of a rake so grass blades still show through. Burying a living lawn under an inch of soil smothers it. If you need to raise a lawn more than half an inch, do it over several passes across a season.
Garden beds take 8 to 12 inches of workable soil, since that is the root zone for most vegetables and perennials. Raised beds get filled to within an inch or two of the top rail, and they settle — expect to top up after the first season.
Filling low spots is measured at the deepest point, not averaged. Enter the deepest depth and the area of the depression, and treat the result as generous rather than exact.
Stone has a stable weight. Soil does not. Screened topsoil runs roughly 2,000 to 2,400 lb per cubic yard dry, and saturated soil after a wet week can approach 3,000 lb for exactly the same volume of dirt.
That is why almost every supplier quotes soil by the cubic yard: volume is what you actually need, and weight is what the weather did that week. The calculator shows tonnage because some quarry-side suppliers still quote it, but if you are given a choice, buy by volume.
It also matters for delivery. A standard single-axle dump truck carries around 5 yards of soil comfortably; the same truck manages more stone by volume before it hits its weight limit. If your order is large, ask how many loads it will take, because each one may carry a trip charge.
Topsoil is the biologically active upper layer — organic matter, structure, the material things actually grow in. Fill dirt is subsoil with the organics screened or weathered out, sold to occupy space and stay put.
Use fill dirt for the bulk of a large volume — raising a grade, backfilling, building up a base — and cap it with 4 to 6 inches of topsoil for anything that has to grow. Filling 2 feet of low ground with pure topsoil is expensive and, worse, it keeps settling for years as the organic content decomposes.
The reverse mistake is just as common: spreading fill dirt where seed is going. Nothing establishes in it, and the fix is to buy topsoil anyway.
Volume is area multiplied by depth. Weight is that volume multiplied by the material's density.
volume = area × depth
tons = volume (cu ft) × 78 lb/cu ft ÷ 2000
order = volume × 1.1Density used: 78 lb per cubic foot. Screened topsoil, typical 2,000–2,400 lb per cubic yard (74–89 lb/ft³). Saturated soil weighs considerably more. 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 topsoil.
Bag count assumes 1 cu ft bags, rounded up to whole bags.
By the cubic yard, in most of the US. Weight varies enormously with moisture — the same yard of soil can weigh 2,000 lb dry and 3,000 lb after rain — so volume is the more reliable way to order. This calculator gives both.
27 bags at 1 cu ft each, 18 at 1.5 cu ft, or 14 at 2 cu ft. Bagged soil costs several times more per cubic yard than bulk, so bags only make sense for small jobs or where a truck cannot reach.
Screened topsoil typically runs 2,000 to 2,400 lb per cubic yard. Sandy soil sits at the lighter end, clay-heavy soil at the heavier end, and saturated soil can reach 3,000 lb. Check your trailer or truck rating before hauling it yourself.
4 to 6 in. Just as important, till the new topsoil into the existing subsoil rather than laying it on top — grass roots will not cross a hard boundary between two layers, and a thin layer over compacted ground gives you a lawn that dries out every summer.
Yes, but only a quarter to half an inch at a time. Any deeper buries the grass crowns and the shoots cannot get through. If you need to raise a low spot by more than that, do it over several applications a few weeks apart.
Topsoil is the screened upper layer with organic matter in it, and it is what plants grow in. Fill dirt is subsoil — inert, cheaper, and valued because it compacts and stays put. Use fill dirt for bulk below about 6 in and topsoil for the top layer.