The quick answer: length × width in feet, times depth in feet, gives cubic feet; divide by 27 for cubic yards. Gravel and stone sell by the ton — figure roughly 1.35 tons per cubic yard. Or skip the arithmetic: measure each area and let the calculator below do it, at the exact coverage of the product you pick.
The gravel calculator
Measure in feet, pick your material, and the calculator returns tons (or cubic yards for bulk products) with our round-up-to-the-half-unit rule already applied — the same numbers checkout uses. Odd-shaped area? Break it into rectangles and add them up.
A worked example
A 10 × 20 ft parking pad at 3 inches deep: 10 × 20 × 0.25 = 50 cubic feet ÷ 27 ≈ 1.85 cubic yards ≈ 2.5 tons. Driveways doing real work want a compacted base first — see the depth guide below.
How deep should gravel be?
Walkways and decorative beds: 2–3 inches. Driveways and parking: 4–6 inches total, built as a compacted crusher run base with a 2–3 inch top layer of #57 stone. French drains and drainage trenches: fill the trench, typically 12 inches or more — our drainage guide covers which rock to use.
Tons or cubic yards?
Bulk mulch and soil sell by the cubic yard; gravel, sand, and stone sell by the ton. The rule of thumb is about 1.35 tons per cubic yard of gravel — the calculator handles the conversion per product, so what you order is what the truck brings.
Which gravel for the job?
#57 stone is the all-rounder — driveways, drainage, and pads. Crush & run packs hard as a base layer. Pea gravel is the comfortable one underfoot for paths and play areas (it has its own calculator). M10 granite fines level pavers and walkways. Browse the whole lineup in Gravel & Sand — delivery is billed by the road mile from our Cumming yard.
