Sakrete Mix Types: Which Bag to Use
Sakrete does not sell a bag called "Concrete Mix" in the US any more. That surprises people, because it is what everyone searches for. High-Strength Concrete Mix is the general-purpose bag now, and the rest of the line splits by what you are doing: setting a post, resurfacing a slab, laying block, or carrying as few bags as possible. This guide covers every current mix, what it yields, how strong it gets and how fast it sets, so you can pick the right bag before you drive to the store.
Cross-shopping the other shelf? Every matched pair of Sakrete and Quikrete products publishes the same 28-day strength, so the choice comes down to yield, bag sizes and local price. Sakrete vs Quikrete puts both sets of data sheets side by side.
The Sakrete concrete mixes compared
Every figure here is from the product's own technical data sheet on sakrete.com.
| Mix | Bags | Yield per bag | 28-day strength | Foot traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High-Strength Concrete Mix | 40, 60, 80, 90 lb | 0.30 / 0.45 / 0.60 / 0.66 ft³ | 4,000 psi | 24 hours |
| Maximizer Concrete Mix | 40, 80 lb | 0.46 / 0.92 ft³ | 5,500 psi | 24 hours |
| 5000 Plus | 50, 60, 80 lb | 0.38 / 0.47 / 0.60 ft³ | 5,000 psi | 12 hours |
| Fast-Setting Concrete Mix | 50 lb | 0.38 ft³ | 4,000 psi | 6 hours |
| Crack-Resistant Concrete Mix | 50, 60, 80 lb | 0.38 / 0.45 / 0.60 ft³ | 4,000 psi | 24 hours |
| Sand Mix | 40, 60, 80 lb | 0.30 / 0.45 / 0.60 ft³ | 5,000 psi | 24 hours |
Put your project dimensions into the Sakrete calculator and pick your mix from the dropdown to get the bag count using the correct yield.
High-Strength Concrete Mix: the default bag
This is the one to reach for unless something else on this page fits better. Sakrete rates High-Strength Concrete Mix at 2,500 psi in 7 days and 4,000 psi at 28 days, and specifies it for projects over 2 inches thick, which covers slabs, footings, steps and post setting.
Yields are the industry-standard 0.30, 0.45 and 0.60 cubic feet for the 40, 60 and 80 lb bags, plus a 90 lb bag at 0.66 cubic feet that most retailers do not stock. Water per bag runs from 1.75 quarts for the 40 lb up to 4.25 quarts for the 90 lb, and you should only mix what you can place in about 15 minutes.
Because its yields match the generic figures, this is the mix every bag chart and rule of thumb is implicitly written about. Forty-five 80 lb bags fill a cubic yard.
Maximizer: more concrete per bag
This is the most useful thing to know about the whole Sakrete line. Maximizer yields 0.92 cubic feet from an 80 lb bag where High-Strength yields 0.60, because it uses a lightweight aggregate instead of stone. It is also the strongest mix in the range at 5,500 psi.
What that means in practice:
- 30 bags per cubic yard instead of 45.
- 2.75 square feet at 4 inches deep per 80 lb bag, against 1.8 for High-Strength.
- For a 10 by 10 slab at 4 inches, 40 bags instead of 62.
If you are carrying bags down a side passage, up steps, or into a back yard a wheelbarrow cannot reach, that is 22 fewer trips. The catch is the one everybody hits: estimate Maximizer with standard yields and you will over-buy by about a third. Most online calculators, including the one on this site until recently, assume 0.60 cubic feet for every 80 lb bag.
Minimum thickness is 2 inches, same as the rest. Note that Sakrete's product page rounds the coverage to 3 square feet at 4 inches while the data sheet says 2.75, and gives vehicle traffic as 72 hours against the data sheet's 48. Where they disagree, the data sheet is the more careful number.
Fast-Setting: the fence post mix
Fast-Setting Concrete Mix comes in one size, a 50 lb bag yielding 0.38 cubic feet, and it sets in about 30 minutes. It reaches 4,000 psi at 28 days, the same as High-Strength, so you are buying speed rather than strength. Note that this no-mix approval covers posts only, not slabs. Our dry pour concrete guide sets out what the data sheets actually permit.
The reason it exists is posts. Sakrete's instruction is that no mixing is required when setting posts: you pour the dry mix into the hole around the plumbed post and add water on top. That is why a fence line goes in far faster with this than with standard mix.
Sakrete's own post-hole table, for a 10 inch diameter hole, is 1.25 bags at 12 inches deep, 2 bags at 18 inches, 2.5 bags at 24 inches and 3 bags at 30 inches. Its setting posts and poles guide puts a standard 6 foot fence at about two bags per hole, with the hole about three times the post width, the depth about a third of the post height above ground, and 4 to 6 inches of gravel in the bottom.
Work out your own holes with the fence post concrete calculator, which subtracts the post from the hole volume.
5000 Plus, Crack-Resistant and Sand Mix
5000 Plus is the high-early-strength option: 2,500 psi in 3 days, 3,500 at 7 and 5,000 at 28, with foot traffic in 12 hours rather than 24. Buy it when the thing you are repairing needs to be back in service quickly, or for countertops, which it can do as thin as 1.5 inches.
Crack-Resistant Concrete Mix carries polypropylene fibers for driveways, sidewalks and slab floors. Worth noting a conflict in Sakrete's own literature: the product page says use it for projects over 2 inches thick, while the data sheet recommends a minimum of 4 inches for slabs. For a driveway, follow the 4 inch figure.
Sand Mix is not a structural concrete despite its 5,000 psi rating. It has no coarse aggregate, so it is for thin work only, from half an inch to 2 inches: resurfacing, overlays, mortar beds for tile, shower pans and setting stone. Pour a slab out of it and it will crack.
For resurfacing specifically, Flo-Coat is the dedicated product, in 20 and 40 lb bags, applied from half an inch down to a featheredge and open to light foot traffic in 4 hours. Our concrete resurfacing guide covers how that job actually goes.
Mortar Mix Type N and Type S
These are for laying block and brick, not for pouring, and they are quoted differently: in units laid rather than cubic feet. Sakrete publishes no cubic foot yield for either.
An 80 lb bag of either type lays 12 standard 8 inch block, 35 standard brick, or covers 10 square feet of cultured stone. The 60 lb bag does 9 block or 26 brick, and the 40 lb does 6 block or 18 brick.
The difference between them is strength: Type S is rated above 1,800 psi and Type N above 750 psi, both to ASTM C270. Type N is the general above-grade choice; Type S is for below-grade work and higher wind and seismic loads. Both also serve as stucco base coats. For how those strengths map to what your project actually needs, see what psi concrete you need.
Work out bag counts with the mortar calculator, and count the units themselves with the concrete block calculator.
Portland cement and mixing your own
Sakrete sells Portland Cement Type I/II in 47 and 94 lb bags. It is an ingredient, not a mix, so there is no yield figure: what you get depends on the sand and aggregate you add.
Sakrete's stated proportions are 1 part Portland to 2 parts coarse sand to 3 parts aggregate for concrete, and 1 part Portland to 1/4 part lime to 3 parts mason sand for mortar. For a topping under 2 inches, 1 part Portland to 3 or 4 parts sand.
Mixing from scratch makes sense when you need a lot of a specific mix or you already have aggregate on site. For anything smaller, bagged mix costs more per cubic foot and saves a great deal of measuring. The concrete mix calculator splits a target volume into cement, sand and aggregate for any ratio.
The fast repair mixes: Fast Traffic and the Pro-Mix range
Past Fast-Setting there is a tier of Sakrete products built for repairs that have to carry traffic the same day. They are more expensive per bag and worth it only when the clock is the constraint.
| Product | Yield | Strength | Set and traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Setting Concrete Mix | 0.38 cu ft | 4,000 psi at 28 days | Sets in about 30 min, foot traffic 6 hr, vehicles 48 hr |
| Fast Traffic Concrete Mix | 0.38 cu ft | 6,500 psi at 28 days, 3,000 psi at 1 day | Initial set 2 to 3 hr, foot traffic 8 hr, vehicles 24 hr |
| Pro-Mix Accelerated | 0.38 cu ft | 7,000 psi final | Initial set 15 min, vehicles 1 hr |
| Pro-Mix Advanced | 0.38 cu ft | 8,000 psi final | Extended set 1 hr, vehicles 3 hr |
Fast Traffic is the interesting one. It publishes 500 psi at 8 hours and 3,000 psi at one day, reaching 6,500 psi at 28 days, which makes it stronger than anything else in the consumer line. Sakrete's own data sheet and product page disagree on its yield, saying 0.45 and 0.38 cubic feet for the same 50 lb bag. The 0.38 figure is the plausible one, because 0.45 would imply a density of about 111 lb per cubic foot, which is lightweight territory and not what this product is.
Pro-Mix Accelerated goes further: initial set in 15 minutes, vehicle traffic in one hour. That is a product for utility cuts and warehouse floors, not for a patio.
Resurfacing and patching: Flo-Coat and Top 'n Bond
These are the two Sakrete bags people reach for when a slab is ugly rather than broken, and they work at thicknesses no concrete mix can.
Flo-Coat Concrete Resurfacer is a polymer modified resurfacer that goes on from half an inch down to a featheredge. A 40 lb bag yields 0.4 cubic feet, which covers 18 square feet at a quarter inch or 72 square feet at a sixteenth, and takes 3.5 quarts of water. A 20 lb bag is half of each. It reaches 1,000 psi at one day, 3,000 at 7 days and 4,500 at 28, and takes light foot traffic in 4 hours.
Top 'n Bond Concrete Patcher is a polymer modified sand cement repair mortar for patches from a featheredge to 2 inches. A 40 lb bag yields 0.37 cubic feet and covers 18 square feet at a quarter inch. It reaches 4,000 psi at 7 days and 5,000 at 28, and publishes a bond strength of 1,200 psi at 28 days to ASTM C882, which is the number that actually matters for a patch.
A measurement trap worth knowing. The resurfacers and patchers publish strength to ASTM C109, which tests 2 inch mortar cubes. The concrete mixes publish to ASTM C39, which tests cylinders. Those two numbers are not interchangeable, and cube strengths read higher than cylinder strengths for the same material. So Top 'n Bond's 5,000 psi and High-Strength Concrete Mix's 4,000 psi are not a like-for-like comparison, and the patcher is not "stronger than concrete".
For the wider question of when to patch, resurface or replace, see concrete resurfacing.
Countertop mix, and its status
Sakrete Concrete Counter Top Mix exists, despite a fair amount of internet confidence that it does not. An 80 lb bag yields 0.6 cubic feet, takes 4 quarts of water, and reaches 2,000 psi at 24 hours and 6,000 psi at 28 days, with a 5 to 7 inch slump and a 30 minute working window. Minimum application is 2 inches full depth.
Two things to know before you plan around it. It appears to be on the way out of the US line: it is absent from Sakrete's current product categories and from its 2021 product guide, while retailers still list it. And its data sheet carries an arithmetic error, printing the 28-day strength as "6,000 psi (14.4 MPa)" when 6,000 psi is 41.4 MPa. The psi figure is the one to trust.
Quikrete's countertop product is the direct equivalent at the same 80 lb, 0.6 cubic feet and 6,000 psi, and is more reliably stocked. The two are compared alongside everything else in Sakrete vs Quikrete.
Masonry cement, and the bag weight problem
Separate from the preblended mortar bags, Sakrete sells masonry cement in Type N and Type S to mix with your own sand at 1 part cement to 2-1/4 to 3 parts sand. That is the cheaper route for any quantity of block work.
The bag weight is genuinely inconsistent across Sakrete's own documents: the product page shows 75 and 78 lb, the 2021 product guide adds 70 lb, and the Type N data sheet is written for a 70 lb bag. Masonry cement bag weight varies by regional plant, so check the bag rather than the website.
Coverage claims move with it. The Type N data sheet says a 70 lb bag makes 3 cubic feet of mortar and lays about 150 standard bricks or 40 blocks at 3/8 inch joints. The product page assigns that same 150 and 40 to a 78 lb bag and gives 144 bricks and 38 blocks to the 75 lb bag. The same coverage claim is attached to two different bag weights, which tells you how much precision to expect.
Note also that Sakrete publishes no compressive strength and no yield figure at all for its Type S masonry cement: the data sheet has a "Yield" heading with nothing under it. Do not borrow the Type N number for it. Work the quantities with the mortar calculator, which also explains why a Type S recipe is not the same claim as 1,800 psi mortar.
The cement bags: Type I/II and Type IL
Sakrete's US cement category has exactly three products, and only one of them is what most people mean by cement.
Portland Cement Type I/II comes in 47 and 94 lb bags. Sakrete's published recipes are 1 part portland to 2 parts coarse sand to 3 parts aggregate for concrete, 1 to 1/4 lime to 3 mason sand for mortar, and 1 to 3 or 4 parts sand for thin applications under 2 inches. Worth flagging: the data sheet cites no ASTM standard at all, publishes no yield, no coverage and no strength, even though Type I/II is itself an ASTM C150 designation. That is a paperwork gap rather than a quality signal, but it means there is nothing to verify against.
Portland-Limestone Cement Type IL is a different product, not a lime blend, despite the name looking like one. It is cement with interground limestone, sold in the same 47 and 94 lb bags, with its own recipes for mortar and sand topping.
There is no Sakrete portland lime product. If you want a portland and lime mortar you buy the Type I/II and add hydrated lime yourself to the recipe above, or buy the preblended Type N or Type S mortar bag, which Sakrete describes as "a preblended mixture of sand and masonry cement or sand, lime and portland cement".
Mixing your own from cement and aggregate is covered in how to mix concrete, and the ratio arithmetic is in the mix calculator.
Setting posts: there is no dedicated post mix any more
Sakrete's own post setting guidance recommends three products, and none of them is a post-specific bag: Fast-Setting Concrete Mix first, then Maximizer, then High-Strength as the alternate.
So Fast-Setting is the post mix, and what makes it one is the method rather than the chemistry. Its product page is explicit that there is "no mixing required when used for setting posts": you brace the post, pour the dry mix into the hole around it, and add water on top. Its data sheet is the only Sakrete concrete sheet that carries a post hole table, giving 1.25 bags for a 12 inch deep 10 inch hole, 2 bags at 18 inches, 2.5 at 24 and 3 at 30.
There was a separate Sakrete Fence Post Mix in the US and its data sheet is still findable, but there is no product page, it is absent from the product guide, and retail listings disagree on whether it is a 50, 67 or 80 lb bag. Treat it as discontinued or regional. Two more names to avoid confusing with it: Sakrete Rapid Post and the Basalite-distributed Sakrete Fence Post Concrete are both Canadian or regional products, not the US line.
Work out the bags with the fence post calculator, and see setting posts with bagged concrete for the method and the arguments about dry pouring.
Estimating Sakrete, and the 45-bag rule
Sakrete publishes no official coverage chart. The yields live on individual product pages and data sheets, which is why the table at the top of this page is worth bookmarking.
The closest thing to official guidance is Sakrete's post on estimating bagged concrete jobs, which gives three useful numbers: 45 bags of 80 lb mix to a cubic yard, one pallet of bags is roughly a cubic yard, and a cubic yard at 4 inches deep covers 81 square feet. It also says to add 10 percent to every estimate, which matches our default.
Those figures only hold for the 0.60 cubic foot bags. For Maximizer, the number is 30 bags per yard.
Run your own numbers with the Sakrete calculator, compare with the other brand in the Quikrete guide, or if you are past the point where bags make sense, price a truck with the concrete cost calculator and read bags of concrete per yard.
Sources
- Maximizer Concrete Mix Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- High-Strength Concrete Mix Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- Fast-Setting Concrete Mix Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- 5000 Plus Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- Crack-Resistant Concrete Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- Sand Mix Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- Mortar Mix Type S Technical Data Sheet, Sakrete
- Estimating Bagged Concrete Jobs, Sakrete
- Setting Posts and Poles, Sakrete
Frequently asked questions
Does Sakrete still make a plain Concrete Mix?
Not in the current US line. High-Strength Concrete Mix is the general-purpose bag, rated 4,000 psi at 28 days. A product called Sakrete Concrete Mix does exist in Canada, which is why searches sometimes turn one up.
How much does an 80 lb bag of Sakrete yield?
0.60 cubic feet for High-Strength, 5000 Plus, Crack-Resistant and Sand Mix, so 45 bags to a cubic yard. Maximizer is the exception at 0.92 cubic feet per 80 lb bag, which is 30 bags to a cubic yard.
What is Sakrete Maximizer and is it worth it?
A lightweight-aggregate mix that yields about 53 percent more concrete per bag than standard mix and reaches 5,500 psi, the highest in the range. It is worth it whenever carrying bags is the hard part of the job.
Which Sakrete mix should I use for fence posts?
Fast-Setting Concrete Mix, in 50 lb bags. It goes into the hole dry and takes water on top, setting in about 30 minutes. Sakrete puts a standard 6 foot fence at roughly two bags per hole.
Can I use Sakrete Sand Mix for a slab?
No. Sand Mix has no coarse aggregate and is made for thin applications from half an inch to 2 inches, such as overlays, mortar beds and setting stone. Use High-Strength or Maximizer for a slab.
Is Sakrete or Quikrete better?
For standard mixes they are interchangeable, with identical 0.30, 0.45 and 0.60 cubic foot yields for 40, 60 and 80 lb bags. Sakrete has the higher-yield Maximizer, and Quikrete has broader retail distribution. Buy whichever your store stocks and check the bag.