How Much Sod for 50 Square Feet?
Pallets to buy
1 pallet
50 square feet of new lawn, nothing deducted, 10 sq ft pieces, five percent waste.
When the figures look right, the sod material list downloads as a real PDF with your business details on it, built inside your own browser. Nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
How that number is worked out
These are the figures this page was built with and every line the calculator produces from them. Change anything above and all of it moves.
- Lawn length5 ft
- Lawn width10 ft
- Beds and hardscape to deduct0 sq ft
- Piece sizeRoll, 2 by 5 ft
- Pallet coverage450 sq ft
- Topsoil to spread2 in
- Waste allowance5 %
Pallets to buy1 pallet
| Gross area | 50 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Beds and hardscape | 0 sq ft |
| Net area | 50 sq ft |
| With waste | 52.5 sq ft5 percent |
| Pieces needed | 610 sq ft each |
| Pallets to buy | 145 pieces on a 450 sq ft pallet |
| Left over on the last pallet | 397.5 sq fta pallet does not divide |
| Sod weight | 0.14 tons289 lb at 5.5 lb a sq ft |
| Topsoil to spread | 0.31 cu yd2 in over the net area, order 1 because bulk soil sells by the whole yard |
| Water, one inch | 32 gal0.623 gallons a sq ft |
The material list this produces
| Sod pallets | 1 |
|---|---|
| Or sod pieces | 6 |
| Starter fertilizer, bags | 1 |
| Topsoil, cu yd | 1 |
Lawn area compared
Every small lawn size on this list, at the same piece and pallet coverage. Watch the last column rather than the first: the pallet count steps, and the square feet you pay for and do not use swings from almost nothing to most of a pallet between one size and the next.
| Lawn area | Pallets to buy | Pieces needed | Left over on the last pallet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 sq ft | 1 pallet | 6 | 397.5 sq ft |
| 100 sq ft | 1 pallet | 11 | 345 sq ft |
| 200 sq ft | 1 pallet | 21 | 240 sq ft |
| 250 sq ft | 1 pallet | 27 | 187.5 sq ft |
| 300 sq ft | 1 pallet | 32 | 135 sq ft |
| 400 sq ft | 1 pallet | 42 | 30 sq ft |
| 500 sq ft | 2 pallets | 53 | 375 sq ft |
| 600 sq ft | 2 pallets | 63 | 270 sq ft |
| 700 sq ft | 2 pallets | 74 | 165 sq ft |
| 800 sq ft | 2 pallets | 84 | 60 sq ft |
| 1,000 sq ft | 3 pallets | 105 | 300 sq ft |
What else matters here
Fifty square feet is six pieces of sod, and the important part of that answer is the unit. A pallet covers 450 square feet, so buying one for this job leaves 397.5 sq ft sitting on the driveway.
Most sod farms and garden centers will sell single pieces, and that is what a patch this size wants. It is worth ringing ahead rather than turning up, because the ones that sell by the piece often cut it fresh on the morning you collect, and the ones that only move pallets will say so on the phone in ten seconds.
The other reason to buy small and buy fresh is that a patch is almost always a repair, which means it is going next to grass that is already established. A piece cut this morning knits into that edge. A piece that has been stacked in the sun since Tuesday goes in yellow and stays a different color for the rest of the season, which on a small repair is the whole point of doing it.
What this calculator assumes
- Sod is bought by the pallet and a pallet does not divide, so the order is rounded up to a whole pallet and the leftover is printed rather than hidden. Pallet coverage is a yard by yard number, from 400 to 600 square feet, which is why it is a field here instead of a constant.
- Waste sits at five percent rather than the ten a sheet material gets. Sod cuts around a curve with a knife and the offcut usually goes somewhere, so the loss is real but smaller.
- Weight is figured at 5.5 pounds a square foot, which is a pallet around two and a half thousand pounds. Freshly cut or wet sod runs heavier, and that is the number that matters when you decide whether it goes in a pickup or on a delivery truck.
- Topsoil is the amount to spread and grade before the sod goes down, not the amount already there. Two inches is the common starting point on a bare or stripped yard and none at all is right on ground that is already good.
- A pallet line and a piece line are both printed because yards sell sod both ways, by the pallet on a big lawn and by the piece on a patch. Only one of those two lines gets bought.
- Starter fertilizer is figured at a bag per five thousand square feet, which is where most starter products land. Read your bag rather than this line, because the spread rate is printed on it.
- The water line is one inch over the whole lawn, which is 0.623 gallons a square foot. New sod wants roughly that much every day for the first week, which is the part of a sod job people underestimate.
Questions people ask
How many pieces of sod for 50 square feet?
6 pieces at 10 square feet each, which includes a five percent waste allowance for trimming.
Can I buy sod by the piece?
Usually yes, at a sod farm or a garden center, though some suppliers only sell full pallets. Ring first. For 50 square feet a pallet would leave nearly 400 square feet unused.
How big is a piece of sod?
The common slab is about 10 square feet, often 16 by 24 inches or 2 by 5 feet depending on the grower. Big roll sod is a different product and is sold by the roll.
The sod calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.