CalculatorMulchAbout
CalculatorMulch is a small independent site that answers one question about every landscape material sold by the yard: how much of it do you need, and what will that cost? Mulch, topsoil, compost, gravel, sand and stone each get their own calculator, because the volume maths is shared and everything after it — weight, bag sizes, how it is sold — is not.
Why it exists
The mulch calculator question is asked by people standing at the edge of a bed with a tape measure, usually once a year, with no way to tell whether the number they have been given is right. What already exists falls into two camps. Local garden centres and supply yards have a one-page form that exists to book a delivery in their own town. General calculator sites have the arithmetic but stop at a raw figure — 4.63 cubic yards — without telling you that suppliers sell in half-yard steps, that the same volume is 63 bags at one size and 42 at another, or where bulk starts beating bagged.
This site does the last step. Every tool ends on something you can actually order, and shows the raw volume beside it.
Where the numbers come from
Nothing here is invented. Volume follows the same rule every supply yard uses — area × depth ÷ 27, because a cubic yard is a three-foot cube. Weights use loose dry densities from published university extension figures and USDA NRCS soil bulk density guidance, quoted as a working number inside a published range rather than a single confident value. Playground depths follow the CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook. Bag counts always round up, because half a bag is not something anybody will sell you.
Each tool lists its own sources under How we calculate, and the shared formulas and the full density table are on the methodology page.
What this is not
It is not a quote. Prices are never estimated on this site — you type your own, because bulk rates, bag prices and delivery fees vary by more between two neighbouring yards than they do between states. And it is not a substitute for measuring: an area that is wrong by twenty percent moves every answer here by the same amount.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Every calculation happens in your own browser, no account is needed to use any tool, and the site keeps no record of what you worked out.
Found a density that looks wrong, or a material we are missing? Tell us — corrections get made and requests get read.