Pea Gravel Bag Calculator

Fifty four half cubic foot bags. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, and each bag holds half of one, so 27 divided by 0.5 gives 54. Because pea gravel weighs close to 100 pounds per cubic foot, a 50 pound bag holds about the same half cubic foot, so it is also about 54 bags by weight.

That is the whole calculation. Everything below is the same arithmetic applied to other bag sizes, depths and areas.

Every calculator, including the table above, assumes a half cubic foot bag weighs 50 pounds. Walk into a store and that is not what you find. Checking pea gravel listings at one national retailer in September 2026, bags all labelled 0.5 cubic feet were sold at 36, 45, 47, 48 and 50 pounds.

Three things cause the spread. Larger stone packs with more air between the pieces, so the same volume weighs less. Damp gravel weighs more than dry. And bags settle in transit, so a bag filled by volume at the plant is not always full when it reaches the shelf.

The practical rule is to buy by volume. Your project needs a number of cubic feet, and a bag labelled 0.5 cubic feet delivers that regardless of what the scale says. If the only figure on the bag is a weight, divide it by 100 to get the approximate cubic feet, then work from there.

Coverage only means something once a depth is attached to it. A bag that covers 6 square feet at 1 inch covers 2 square feet at 3 inches, and the same bag is being described both times.

Three inches is the usual depth for paths and patios, two inches for ground cover in beds, and four to six inches for a driveway surface. The depth guide covers the reasoning for each.

Worked example. A 12 by 16 ft patio is 192 square feet. At 3 inches that is 48 cubic feet of gravel, 52.8 once you add 10 percent for waste, which is 106 half cubic foot bags. Stacked on a pallet that is roughly two cubic yards of material and about 5,300 pounds.

At $6 a bag that patio costs about $636 in bags. The same 1.96 cubic yards delivered loose at $50 per ton is about $132 of gravel plus a delivery charge, so roughly $207 all in. The cost calculator runs both sides for your own numbers.

Outside the US, pea gravel and pea shingle are sold by weight in kilogram bags or by volume in litres, with bulk bags at 800 kg to 1 tonne. At 1,602 kg per cubic metre, which is the same density as 100 pounds per cubic foot, the conversions come out like this.

Two conversions worth keeping. A one tonne bulk bag holds about 0.62 cubic metres, which is 0.82 cubic yards, so it does not fill a cubic yard despite weighing more than a short ton. And a tonne works out at about 42 of the 15 litre bags, which is the answer to the question people actually ask when comparing a builders merchant against a garden centre.

The calculator above takes metric bag sizes directly, and the unit dropdowns accept metres, centimetres and square metres. The weight converter handles tonnes and kilograms per cubic metre.

Bags cost roughly $4 to $8 each, which is $216 to $432 per cubic yard once you count the 54 it takes. Bulk runs about $40 to $75 per cubic yard plus delivery. Per yard, bulk wins by a wide margin every time.

What keeps bags competitive is the delivery charge. With a $75 delivery, bags come out cheaper below roughly 0.2 to 0.4 cubic yards, which is about 30 to 60 square feet at 2 inches deep. Above that, order loose.

There is a second reason to stop at a yard. Fifty four bags is 2,700 pounds lifted twice, once into the car and once out. The cost guide has the full comparison including delivery and the base layer.

Bags are heavy before they look heavy. Ten of them is 500 pounds, which is most of a family car's payload once two people are aboard. Payload is printed on the sticker inside the driver's door jamb and includes passengers, fuel and anything already in the boot.

Past about 20 bags you are close to the point where a delivery is both cheaper and easier. The payload table on the weight page covers trailers and loose loads.

• Pallet counts vary from 32 to 64 bags depending on the brand, which is roughly 0.6 to 1.2 cubic yards. A pallet price means nothing until you know the count.
• Most stores will deliver a pallet for a flat fee, which beats carrying 50 bags home in ten car trips.
• Buy one extra bag, not ten. Bags are individually cheap and most stores take back unopened ones, though policies differ, so keep the receipt.
• Store leftovers off the ground and covered. Bags left in the rain gain weight, split at the seams and turn a tidy stack into a mess.
• Check the stone size on the label. Pea gravel is 3/8 inch. Bags labelled pea pebbles or decorative stone can run larger, which changes both coverage and how it feels underfoot.

• Trusting a coverage claim with no depth. A bag covering 6 square feet at 1 inch is the same bag that covers 2 square feet at 3 inches.
• Assuming every bag weighs 50 pounds. The range in stores is 36 to 50 pounds for the same labelled volume.
• Forgetting the waste allowance. Ten percent is normal, and gravel settles a further 5 to 10 percent in the first month.
• Buying by weight for a different material. Lava rock is about half the weight of pea gravel for the same volume, so a 50 pound bag of it fills roughly twice the space.
• Spreading bags thin to make them stretch. Under 2 inches, weeds come through and the ground shows. Fewer square feet at the right depth beats a thin layer everywhere.