Mulch and soil calculator
Bed length, width and depth. Yards and bags out. Three inches of mulch is the usual spec; two for a top-up.
Your numbers stay in this browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
How it is figured
Area times depth in feet is cubic feet; divide by 27 for yards. A 40 by 4 bed at 3 inches is 40 cubic feet, 1.5 yards, with five percent for settling and the edges.
One cubic yard covers about 108 square feet at 3 inches, 162 at 2 inches, 81 at 4 inches. Bags are 2 or 3 cubic feet; 13.5 of the 2 cubic foot bags make a yard, so past half a yard, bulk delivery is cheaper and lands in one pile instead of forty bags.
Mulch settles and compost shrinks, so order a little over. Topsoil under new sod wants 4 to 6 inches, and the volume adds up fast; use the sod job on the landscaping guide to see the whole price.
From the quantity to the bid
The calculator gives you the material count. The bid gives the customer one price and the scope in plain words, and keeps the count as your cost math. The how to bid landscaping jobs guide works the whole price with example numbers, and the landscaping proposal template is the layout. Materials at cost plus markup, labor at your rate, then the job price calculator adds them up and sets the deposit.
Questions contractors ask
How many bags of mulch in a yard?
13.5 bags at 2 cubic feet, 9 bags at 3 cubic feet. Most garden centers price bulk mulch by the yard and it is cheaper past about half a yard.
How deep should mulch be?
Three inches for a new bed over bare soil or fabric, two inches to refresh an existing bed. More than four inches starves the roots of air and holds too much water against stems.
How much does a yard of mulch cover?
108 square feet at 3 inches deep, 162 square feet at 2 inches, 81 square feet at 4 inches.
How do I bid landscaping?
Measure the area, list materials by quantity at cost plus markup, labor by the day. The <a href="/guides/how-to-bid-landscaping-jobs">landscaping bidding guide</a> prices a sod job and beds.
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