Calculate gravel tons, cubic yards, bags and cost for paths, patios, bases and beds.
Area, depth and stone
Start from a job
3/8 in. Patios, walkways, play areas, decorative beds.
Before you call the yard
Ask the screen size, ask whether the pile is sold by weight or by volume, and ask what the minimum load is. Those three answers move the bill more than the stone choice does.
Estimates only. Not professional advice.
Gravel to order
2tons
Pea Gravel at 3/8 in, enough to finish 144 sq ft at 3 in with the 10% waste allowance already in it.
Call the yard before hauling. This is already more than many pickups should carry. Material only: delivery, fabric and edging are not in the total.
Last updated August 11, 2026. Densities and coverage checked against USGS aggregate data by our expert review team.
Stone size and course
A gravel layer is either the compacted base of a build or the course that sits on top of one, and the two want different stone. Your depth and material put you in one of them. The other is drawn so you can see where your layer sits, and it is not in your tonnage.
Both courses share one vertical scale, so a thin surface course really is a fraction of the base under it. The width is broken at the centre rather than shrunk, because a run is tens of times wider than it is deep and on one shared scale the layers would vanish.
Screen size against weight
Coverage per ton is a property of the stone, not of your ground. Every row below is your own area and depth run back through the calculator in a different material, so the 1.9 to 2.1 tons spread is what the stone choice alone is worth.
Crushed Stone #57
3/4 in
80
2
$59 to $109
Drainage, paths, concrete base, general landscaping.
Pea Gravel
your stone
3/8 in
80
2
$79 to $139
Patios, walkways, play areas, decorative beds.
Crusher Run
3/4 in to dust
77
2.1
$51 to $103
Compacted bases, driveways, shed pads, paver support.
River Rock
1 to 3 in
83
1.9
$86 to $172
Decorative beds, dry creek beds, splash zones.
Decomposed Granite
1/4 in to dust
74
2.1
$74 to $160
Walkways, informal patios, compacted garden paths.
Densities run from 1.3 tons per cubic yard to 1.45 tons per cubic yard, so the heaviest stone needs about 12% more weight than the lightest to fill the same hole. Cost moves further than tonnage does, because the price per ton varies far more than the density.
What the ticket does not say
The volume is the easy part. Every one of these is a decision made before the truck is booked, and each one shows up as a shortfall on delivery day or a repair the season after.
One depth used for every gravel job
A path refresh wants 2 in and a compacted base wants 6 in or more, and depth is the input that moves the tonnage fastest. Doubling it doubles the order.
Pick the use before the number. The depth chips in the calculator carry the four that cover almost every residential job.
Ordering by the yard when the yard sells by the ton
A cubic yard of river rock and a cubic yard of crusher run differ by about 8% in weight, so a volume figure quoted down the phone gets billed as something else.
Give the supplier the tons figure and the stone name together. The size table above shows how far apart the same volume lands in different stone.
Measuring the house footprint instead of the gravel
Gravel is priced on the surface it covers, and a footprint includes the slab, the steps and the beds it will never touch.
Measure only what gets stone. Break a curved path into rectangles, or switch the calculator to known area and enter the figure you already have.
Rounded stone specified on a slope
Pea gravel and river rock have no fractured faces, so nothing keys into anything and the whole course walks downhill after the first heavy rain.
Use angular crushed stone or crusher run wherever the ground falls away or a tyre turns. Save the rounded stone for flat, bordered ground.
No allowance for a compacted course
Fines settle into voids under a plate compactor, so a base placed at the ordered depth finishes shallower than the drawing and the last lift comes up short.
Add 5 to 15% compaction in the advanced options for a base course. Leave it at zero for loose decorative stone, which does not lock at all.
Booking a pickup for a bulk order
One cubic yard of gravel weighs well over a ton, which is more than most half-ton pickups should legally carry, and the yard will load it anyway if you ask.
Read the tons figure before you decide how it travels. Anything past about 2 tons is a delivery, not a trip.
Two and four are the same mistake in different clothes: treating gravel as one material with one number. The size table above prices that assumption for your own job.
Four orders
Four real jobs through the same chain as the calculator above, at the inputs printed beside each one. Type any of them in and the tonnage matches to the decimal.
Garden Path Refresh · #57 Stone 3/4 in
0.8 tons
0.61 yd³ · $25 to $45
90 sq ft at 2 in · 10% waste · 33 bags if bagged
A thin refresh works only when the old base is still firm. Add edging before ordering if gravel is escaping into turf.
Pea Gravel Patio · Pea Gravel 3/8 in
2 tons
1.47 yd³ · $79 to $139
144 sq ft at 3 in · 10% waste · 80 bags if bagged
Pea gravel is comfortable, but it needs a crisp border. Without edging, the order is right and the patio still spreads.
Small Driveway Top Layer · Crusher Run 3/4 in to dust
9.1 tons
6.52 yd³ · $228 to $456
480 sq ft at 4 in · 10% waste · 352 bags if bagged
This generic tool estimates the top layer. For a full multi-layer driveway, use the gravel driveway calculator.
Compact Base Pad · Crusher Run 3/4 in to dust
6 tons
4.28 yd³ · $150 to $299
200 sq ft at 6 in · 10% waste, 5% compaction · 232 bags if bagged
Order a little extra for compacted bases. Fines settle into voids when you water and plate-compact in lifts.
Each row carries the waste and compaction printed beside it, so the last one orders extra for a course that gets compacted. Costs are the material range for that stone before delivery, which yards usually quote separately by the load.
At the yard
Six habits that separate an order that arrives right from one that arrives close. None of them change the arithmetic above. All of them change what turns up on the drive.
Aggregate is sold by weight and spread by volume, and the bridge between the two is density. The five stones here run from 1.3 tons per cubic yard to 1.45 tons per cubic yard, which is close enough to look interchangeable on a quote and far enough apart to shift a large order by a load. Ask the yard for its own figure for the pile you are buying from.
Names travel badly between regions. Number 57, number 411, three-quarter clean, crusher run and road base all mean something specific to a quarry and something vaguer to everyone else. Quote the size, then the name: 3/4 in washed rather than just "gravel". The crushed stone calculator lists the graded sizes side by side.
This page sizes one layer at one depth. A driveway that needs a compacted sub-base, a binding middle course and a surface course is three tonnages in three different stones, and adding them up as one number in one material is how a build ends up short of the coarse stuff. Use the gravel driveway calculator for the layered version, or the paver base calculator when pavers sit on top.
A tandem tips a load in about a minute and needs headroom and a straight reverse to do it. Barrowing 10 tons from the kerb to the back garden is two days of work that nobody prices in, and a bagged order at the same volume costs several times the bulk price. Walk the access before you book, and say what the surface is.
Rounded gravel with a free edge migrates into turf within weeks, and once it is in the grass it comes back out one rake at a time. Steel or aluminium edging goes in while the excavation is still open. The pea gravel calculator works out the edging height for a given depth.
Most yards bill under about a ton as a flat minimum, so shaving a quarter ton off a small job saves nothing at all. If you are close to the line, spend the difference on depth: a path at the depth it wants outlasts one spread thin twice.
Screen size
One property decides most of it: whether the stone has fractured faces that key into each other, or rounded ones that do not. Everything else, drainage, comfort underfoot, price and whether it stays on a slope, follows from that.
Crushed Stone #57
$30 to $55 per ton
3/4 in
Washed angular stone drains well but does not compact like crusher run.
Drainage, paths, concrete base, general landscaping. Crushed stone calculator
Pea Gravel
$40 to $70 per ton
3/8 in
Rounded stone feels smoother underfoot but shifts without edging.
Patios, walkways, play areas, decorative beds. Pea gravel calculator
Crusher Run
$25 to $50 per ton
3/4 in to dust
Mixed fines lock together under compaction for a firm base.
Compacted bases, driveways, shed pads, paver support. Crusher run calculator
River Rock
$45 to $90 per ton
1 to 3 in
Rounded decorative stone drains but can roll on slopes and under tires.
Decorative beds, dry creek beds, splash zones. River rock calculator
Decomposed Granite
$35 to $75 per ton
1/4 in to dust
Fine particles compact into a natural-looking surface with modest drainage.
Walkways, informal patios, compacted garden paths.
Spread rate
One ton of #57 Stone finishes about 120 sq ft at 2 in. Take the same load to twice the depth and it covers half as much ground, which is why depth moves an order faster than any other input on this page.
2 in, refresh paths and thin decorative cover
120
120
116
125
3 in, patios and walkable pea gravel areas
your depth
80
80
77
83
4 in, top layer or light-duty gravel surface
60
60
58
62
6 in, compacted base under traffic or pavers
40
40
39
42
Figures are sq ft per ton, computed from each material density and assuming one load spread evenly at the listed depth before any local settlement. The 120 sq ft row at 2 in is the figure most yards mean when they say a load does a small patio.
Volume to weight
Six steps, each one run against your own numbers. Two of them are allowances rather than geometry, and they are the two that make a calculated order match a delivered one.
Area
144 sq ft
12 by 12 ft, as entered
Depth in feet
0.25 ft
3 in divided by 12
Bare volume
36 cu ft
Area multiplied by the depth in feet, before any allowance
Waste and compaction
× 1.1
10% for spill, edges and uneven grade, with compaction left at zero for loose stone
Loose volume
1.47 yd³
39.6 cubic feet divided by 27
Weight on the ticket
2 tons
Volume multiplied by 1.35 tons per cubic yard, the density this calculator uses for Pea Gravel
Waste, 10% by default
Spill off the barrow, the corner you overfill and the extra depth an uneven excavation swallows. It scales with how rough the ground is, not with what the material is, so it stays on every job.
Compaction, zero by default
A separate input because it only applies to a course that gets plate-compacted. Crusher run and decomposed granite lose 5 to 15% of their loose depth as the fines settle into voids. Loose decorative stone does not lock at all, so leaving it at zero is correct.
Density, per material
Volume becomes weight at each stone's own density, from 1.3 tons per cubic yard for river rock to 1.45 tons per cubic yard for decomposed granite. These are planning averages: moisture, gradation and the pile a yard is loading from all move the real figure, so the supplier ticket wins.
Rounding, at the end
Volumes round to two decimals, bags round up to whole bags of 0.5 cu ft, and cost rounds to the dollar. A yard will not sell a partial ton, so treat the tonnage as a floor and expect to be billed to the next increment.
Asked before ordering
Eight answers in the order they come up, from the first sketch on the back of an envelope to the phone call that books the truck.
About 120 sq ft at 2 inches deep for #57 crushed stone. At 4 inches deep, the same ton covers about 60 sq ft because the layer is twice as thick.
Most gravel is about 0.7 to 0.8 cubic yards per ton. #57 stone in this calculator uses 0.74 yd3 per ton, while crusher run is denser at 0.71 yd3 per ton.
A 10 x 10 ft area at 2 inches deep needs 0.9 tons of #57 stone with 10% waste. At 3 inches deep, it needs 1.4 tons.
Most common landscape gravel runs about $25 to $90 per ton before delivery. Crusher run is usually near the low end, while river rock and decorative stone often cost more.
Use pea gravel where comfort and appearance matter, such as patios and play areas. Use crushed stone where drainage, slope control, or a firmer walking surface matters.
Use crusher run when you need a compacted base that locks together. Use #57 stone when drainage matters more than compaction, such as behind walls or around pipe.
Use fabric under decorative beds, paths, and drainage stone where soil migration is a problem. Skip fabric under compacted crusher-run bases when the spec calls for stone to bind with the prepared subgrade.
Use the driveway calculator when you need separate base, middle, and top layers, truckloads, or driveway-specific resurfacing choices. This gravel calculator is for one material layer at one depth.
Disclaimer
These estimates are for planning purposes only. Actual costs vary by location, material availability, and project complexity. Always get at least 3 local quotes. This calculator does not replace professional advice.
Sources