Concrete Bag Chart: Bags Per Cubic Yard
From a quarter of a yard to five yards, in quarter yard steps, with the bag count for both common bag sizes.
A bag of concrete mix is sold by weight and used by volume, and the two do not track each other in the way people expect. The number printed on the bag is what it weighs. What it yields is on the back, in small type, and it is the only number that matters when you are deciding how many to buy.
A 60 lb bag yields about 0.45 cubic feet and an 80 lb bag about 0.60. That is where every row in this table comes from.
Bags per cubic yard, in quarter yard steps
| Cubic yards | Cubic feet | 60 lb bags | 80 lb bags |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25 | 6.8 | 15 | 12 |
| 0.5 | 13.5 | 30 | 23 |
| 0.75 | 20.3 | 45 | 34 |
| 1 | 27 | 60 | 45 |
| 1.25 | 33.8 | 75 | 57 |
| 1.5 | 40.5 | 90 | 68 |
| 1.75 | 47.3 | 105 | 79 |
| 2 | 54 | 120 | 90 |
| 2.25 | 60.8 | 135 | 102 |
| 2.5 | 67.5 | 150 | 113 |
| 2.75 | 74.3 | 165 | 124 |
| 3 | 81 | 180 | 135 |
| 3.25 | 87.8 | 195 | 147 |
| 3.5 | 94.5 | 210 | 158 |
| 3.75 | 101.3 | 225 | 169 |
| 4 | 108 | 240 | 180 |
| 4.25 | 114.8 | 255 | 192 |
| 4.5 | 121.5 | 270 | 203 |
| 4.75 | 128.3 | 285 | 214 |
| 5 | 135 | 300 | 225 |
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The concrete calculator takes your own measurements and returns the number for your job, plus the material list as a printable document. Every cell in the table above came out of that same calculator, run at build time.
Sixty bags to a yard, and why nobody does that
One cubic yard is 60 sixty pound bags or 45 eighty pound bags. That is 3,600 pounds either way, about 45 minutes of mixing in a towable mixer if nothing goes wrong, and considerably longer by hand in a tub.
The practical ceiling for bagged concrete is somewhere around half a yard for one person and a yard for two. Past that, call a truck or hire a mixer, and remember that concrete does not wait for you to catch up.
Mixing water is not optional and not adjustable
Each bag states the water it takes, usually around 3 quarts for a 60 lb bag and 4 for an 80. Adding extra water because the mix is stiff is the fastest way to a slab that cracks and dusts, because it lowers the strength of the finished concrete in direct proportion.
If the mix is too stiff to place, the answer is a plasticizer or a different mix design, not a hose.
Fence posts are the exception worth knowing
Setting posts is the one job where bagged concrete genuinely beats a truck, because the volume per hole is small and the holes are spread out over an afternoon. A 10 inch hole 30 inches deep takes roughly a bag and a half of 60 lb mix once you subtract the post itself.
The fence calculator works out the hole volume and the bag count for a whole fence line at once, including the extra posts at corners and gates.
Questions people ask
How many 80 lb bags of concrete make a yard?
Forty five. An 80 lb bag yields about 0.60 cubic feet, and a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet.
How many 60 lb bags of concrete make a yard?
Sixty. A 60 lb bag yields about 0.45 cubic feet.
Is bagged concrete as strong as ready mix?
A standard bagged mix is typically rated around 4,000 psi at 28 days, which is at or above what a residential slab is usually specified at. The difference in practice is consistency: a truck mixes one uniform batch, and forty bags mixed by hand are forty batches.
Does this chart include waste?
No. It is a straight conversion from volume to bags so you can use it in both directions. Add about 10 percent on top before ordering.