groundmath
Every figure cited · all verified since Jul 31, 2026

Landscaping & Sitework Calculators

Know exactly how much to order — and why.

Sod, topsoil, gravel, and stone calculators that show their formula, cite every number to a real source, and never hide waste or compaction inside the answer.

Start with cubic yards How we source our data
18 calculators 14 cited materials 31 sources data v2026.14
Your estimate
5.05 cubic yards
Bed 1 · 24 × 18 ft432.0 ft²
Bed 2 · circle, 12 ft113.1 ft²
Depth3 in
✓ Source: NIST SP 811 — every step shown

Choose a calculator

18 free landscaping & sitework calculators

Lawn & Soil

Sod Rolls, slabs & pallets, waste shown. Open → Topsoil Yards, weight & bags on cited density. Open → Fill dirt Fill to grade with DOT allowances. Open → Raised bed soil Cited mixes, split by ingredient. Open → Compost Rates two extensions agree on. Open →

Gravel, Stone & Sand

Pea gravel Honest tonnage range, never a point. Open → Crushed stone Compaction as its own line item. Open → Sand Cited depth presets for every job. Open → Stone Tonnage by type, never averaged. Open → Driveway gravel Cited lift depth, counted once. Open → River rock Depth by stone size, coverage per ton. Open →

Fences & Walls

Brick Counts and mortar from BIA tables. Open → Retaining wall Blocks, base, and the height limit. Open → Fence post depth Hole depth, and the frost line myth. Open → Fence post concrete Bags per post, displacement subtracted. Open → Fence pickets Real board widths, not nominal names. Open →

Measuring

Lawn area Measure once, use everywhere. Open → Cubic yards Area + depth → order size. Open →

Built to be checked

Shows its math

Every page renders its formula and versions it, so you can follow each step from square feet to tons.

Cites its data

Densities and factors from university extensions, DOT reports, and federal references — linked and dated.

Honest about uncertainty

Where the truth is 1.75–2.1 tons per yard, that's what you get — named, adjustable, never baked in.

What one confident number hides

Most material calculators take a length, a width and a depth and hand back one figure. The arithmetic is rarely wrong. What is wrong is what gets folded into it silently: a tons-per-cubic-yard conversion borrowed from somebody else's quarry, a waste percentage nobody names, a compaction allowance applied whether or not your job compacts anything. You cannot check that number, and you cannot argue about it with a supplier. On a gravel driveway the cited depth is already the loose, as-spread lift, so adding compaction on top charges you twice for the same air — roughly 40 % more gravel than the job needs.

Why tonnage is a range and not a point

Bulk stone is measured in cubic yards and often sold by the ton, and the factor between the two belongs to the quarry — parent rock, gradation and moisture all move it. Across the four stone types here the cited conversions span 1.5–2.1 tons per cubic yard: the same hole, the same depth, a different invoice. Printing one figure does not resolve that spread, it hides it. So these calculators show both ends of the published range, name the source, and let you enter your supplier's own factor — and treat any tonnage as a planning figure until the scale ticket settles it.

Waste and compaction get their own line

Two corrections change an order enough to matter, and neither belongs inside the answer. Cutting waste is what you lose to offcuts around curves, sprinkler heads and bed edges — extension guidance puts it at 5–10 % for sod, and it is added to your measured area as its own line. Compaction is a volume change, not a fudge factor: loose material shrinks when it is rolled, so a compacted base consumes more than its finished volume. Each page applies it in the direction its own cited depth calls for, and drops it where nothing is compacted.

Who this is for

Two people, mostly. The homeowner ordering bulk material for the first time, who needs to know what a cubic yard is, whether bags or a truckload is the cheaper mistake, and how much slack the quantity already carries. And the contractor checking a supplier's number before signing for it, for whom the formula and the cited conversion matter more than a friendly result box.

Both get the same page: formula version, data version, and the date the figures were last checked against their sources. Those dates are recorded by hand, when someone opens the source and confirms it still reads the same. The badge above carries the oldest of them, so it holds for every figure on the site — nothing here re-dates itself at build time.