What Is a Yard of Concrete?

Why concrete is measured this way

Concrete is heavy and it fills a three-dimensional space, so it is measured by volume rather than by area or weight. Ready-mix suppliers load their trucks by the yard, price by the yard, and talk in yards. Once you can turn your slab into a yard number, you can order concrete, compare quotes, and check a contractor's estimate without guesswork.

What one yard looks like in practice

A single cubic yard is a useful reference point because it ties together everything you need to plan a pour.

• It covers about 81 square feet at a standard 4-inch thickness, and less as the slab gets thicker. See the full coverage chart.
• It costs around $155 delivered in 2026, before delivery and small-load fees. See current prices by mix.
• It weighs about 4,000 pounds, or 2 tons. See the weight breakdown.
• It equals 45 bags of 80-pound concrete if you mix it yourself. See bag counts by size.
• It is a partial truckload. A full mixer holds about 10 yards. See truck capacities.

Ordering by the yard versus by the bag

The choice comes down to size. Small jobs like a fence post or a tiny pad are easiest with bagged concrete from a hardware store. Anything over about a yard is cheaper and far less work as a ready-mix delivery, since a yard is 45 bags of hand mixing. The break-even sits around half a yard to a yard, where it is worth pricing both.

Figuring out how many yards you need

Every project comes back to one calculation. Measure the length, width, and depth of your pour in feet, multiply them together, and divide by 27. That gives the cubic yards to order. Add 5 to 10 percent for waste and round up. Our step-by-step guide to figuring yards walks through a full example.

The fastest way to get there is the concrete calculator. Enter your dimensions and it returns the exact yards, the bag count, and handles odd shapes like footings, columns, and steps that are awkward to work out by hand.