Homeowners ask me how much is a yard of dirt almost every grading season, and the honest answer is: anywhere from $5 to $75 per cubic yard depending on what “dirt” means. Answering how much is a yard of dirt properly means splitting the question three ways — fill dirt, screened topsoil, and blended garden mix are different products at very different price points, and delivery often costs as much as the material itself. Here’s how the pricing actually shakes out and how to order without overpaying.
Quick Price Ranges Per Cubic Yard
These are typical 2026 prices from bulk suppliers across most US metro areas, picked up at the yard versus delivered:
- Fill dirt: $5–$15/yard picked up; $15–$30/yard delivered in bulk loads
- Unscreened topsoil: $12–$25/yard picked up; $25–$40 delivered
- Screened topsoil: $20–$40/yard picked up; $35–$60 delivered
- Garden mix / 50-50 compost blend: $35–$60/yard picked up; $50–$75 delivered
- Bagged topsoil equivalent: $70–$110 per cubic yard when bought as 40 lb bags — the worst value by far
Rural suppliers near active excavation sites run cheaper; dense urban markets with long truck hauls run 30 to 50 percent higher. Coastal California, metro New York, and Seattle sit at the top of every range.
Fill Dirt vs. Screened Topsoil vs. Garden Mix
Knowing which product you need is where most people waste money — either buying premium mix to bury in a hole or buying cheap fill for a vegetable bed that will grow nothing.
Fill dirt is subsoil: clay, sand, and rock excavated from below the organic layer. It has essentially no nutrients, which is exactly why it’s good for structural uses. It compacts predictably, doesn’t decompose and settle, and costs almost nothing. Use it for raising grades, filling holes and old pools, and building up berms. Never top a lawn with it.
Screened topsoil has been run through a 1/2-inch or 3/4-inch screen to remove rocks, roots, and clods. It’s the right call for the top 4 to 6 inches of any lawn repair or new seeding. Unscreened topsoil saves $10 to $15 a yard but arrives with fist-sized clumps and the occasional chunk of concrete; budget your Saturday for raking it out. Garden mix blends screened topsoil with 30 to 50 percent compost, sometimes with sand for drainage. At $50-plus delivered it’s expensive, but for raised beds and planting holes it outperforms straight topsoil enough to justify the spread.
What a Cubic Yard Actually Covers
One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet — a cube three feet on each side. Picture a pile roughly as tall as your kitchen counter and five feet across. In coverage terms:
- At 1 inch deep: covers about 324 sq ft
- At 2 inches: about 162 sq ft
- At 4 inches: about 81 sq ft
- At 6 inches: about 54 sq ft
The math is simple: length (ft) × width (ft) × depth (ft) ÷ 27 = cubic yards. A 20 x 15 ft lawn patch needing 3 inches of topsoil works out to 20 × 15 × 0.25 ÷ 27 = 2.8 yards. Order 3. Always round up 10 to 15 percent, because soil fluffs when screened and settles when spread and watered.
Delivery Fees: The Hidden Half of the Bill
Bulk suppliers charge delivery one of two ways. Flat-fee delivery typically runs $50 to $150 per trip within 10 to 20 miles, regardless of how many yards are on the truck. Per-yard delivered pricing bakes the trucking in, which is why delivered fill at $25/yard looks steep next to $8/yard at the pit.
The economics push you toward bigger orders. A single-axle dump truck hauls 5 to 8 yards; a tandem hauls 10 to 16. If the flat fee is $100, that’s $50 per yard on a 2-yard order but only $10 per yard on a 10-yard order. Many yards also set a 3 to 5 yard delivery minimum. If you need less than that, check whether the supplier loads pickup trucks — a half-ton pickup safely carries about half a yard of dirt (roughly 1,000 lb), and a 3/4-ton handles a full yard.
Worked Example: A Real Order Priced Out
Say you’re regrading a low back corner of the lawn and topping it for reseeding — a 30 x 20 ft area that needs 4 inches of build-up plus 2 inches of quality topsoil on top.
- Fill layer: 30 × 20 × 0.33 ÷ 27 = 7.3 yards → order 8 yards of fill at $18/yard delivered = $144
- Topsoil cap: 30 × 20 × 0.17 ÷ 27 = 3.7 yards → order 4 yards screened topsoil at $42/yard delivered = $168
- Delivery: two separate drops (different products can’t mix on one truck) at $75 each = $150 — unless your supplier delivers both and charges one combined fee, so ask
- Total materials + trucking: roughly $460, versus about $1,050 for the same volume in bagged product from a big-box store
Add spreading labor if you’re hiring it out: a landscaper with a skid steer will spread and rough-grade 12 yards in 2 to 3 hours at $75 to $120 per hour. By hand with a wheelbarrow, plan on a full weekend and a sore back.
Six Ways to Pay Less Per Yard
- Call three suppliers. Prices for identical screened topsoil vary $10 to $15 per yard within the same county.
- Ask about unscreened. If you’re filling, not planting, unscreened topsoil or “shot rock fill” can halve the material cost.
- Watch for free fill. Excavation contractors pay to dump spoils; sites like local Facebook groups and FillDirt listings often have free fill if you can take a full truckload. Inspect it first — free dirt full of construction debris isn’t free.
- Time the order. Late fall pricing dips 10 to 20 percent at many yards once landscaping season winds down.
- Split a load with a neighbor to clear the delivery minimum and spread the trucking fee.
- Take delivery smart: have the driver dump on tarps as close to the work area as the truck can safely reach. Every extra 50 feet of wheelbarrow distance adds about an hour per 3 yards moved.
Dirt Prices by Project Type
Matching product and quantity to common jobs makes budgeting concrete. Filling a removed 15 x 30 ft above-ground pool area 18 inches deep takes about 25 yards of fill — roughly $450 to $700 delivered in two tandem loads, with compaction in 6-inch lifts if anything will ever sit on it. Topdressing an average 5,000 sq ft lawn with 1/2 inch of screened topsoil before overseeding takes 8 yards, about $300 to $480 delivered. Building two 4 x 8 ft raised beds 12 inches deep needs just 2.4 yards of garden mix — under the delivery minimum at most yards, which is exactly when a pickup run to the supplier ($90 to $140 of material, no delivery fee) or even bagged product starts making sense despite the worse per-yard price.
Grading against a foundation deserves a special note: use fill dirt with clay content, not topsoil, sloped to drop 6 inches over the first 10 feet. Topsoil against a foundation stays spongy, absorbs water, and defeats the purpose. Three yards of fill handles the typical one-side regrade for about $60 to $90 in material.
Red Flags When Buying Bulk Dirt
Cheap dirt can cost you a season. Ask where topsoil was stripped from; soil from old agricultural land can carry persistent herbicide residues (aminopyralid is the notorious one) that stunt tomatoes and beans for years. Reject any load with a sour or chemical smell, visible trash, or heavy blue-gray clay marbling in what was sold as topsoil. A reputable yard will let you inspect the pile before the truck loads.
Finally, confirm the unit. A few suppliers quote by the ton, and the conversion matters: a cubic yard of dry topsoil weighs about 2,000 to 2,200 lb, while wet soil can hit 2,700 lb. A “10-ton” load of wet spring topsoil might be only 7.5 yards, not the 10 yards you sized the job for. Get the quote in cubic yards, get the product name in writing, and a $460 dirt order stays a $460 dirt order.
