About YardFigure

Helping you buy the exact amount, every time

Whether you are filling a raised bed, mulching a flower bed, pouring a concrete slab, or laying a paver patio, our calculators and guides give you a clear, honest number you can take to the store or the supplier. We turn your measurements into the exact amount to order, and we explain the reasoning in plain language so you understand the number, not just trust it.

Why we built YardFigure

Anyone who has taken on a yard project knows the two most frustrating outcomes. You buy too little, and the project stalls while you make a second trip to match a new batch. Or you buy too much, and bags of soil or mulch sit unused in the garage while your money sits in the bin.

The math that prevents both is not complicated, but it is easy to get wrong under the bright lights of a garden center. Units trip people up. Depth in inches has to become feet. Cubic feet has to become cubic yards or bags. A curved bed is not a tidy rectangle. YardFigure exists to take that friction away.

What you will find here

Everything on YardFigure falls into two buckets that work together.

Free calculators

Fast, accurate tools for the materials home projects use most:

• Raised Garden Bed Soil Calculator
• Mulch Coverage Calculator
• Gravel Coverage Calculator
• Concrete Slab Calculator
• Sand Calculator
• Paver Calculator

Practical guides

Clear, in-depth guides that explain the "why" behind the numbers, from how deep a raised bed should be to how thick a concrete slab needs to be and how much sand a paver patio takes. Each guide is written for beginners, with worked examples, simple charts, and honest advice about where projects go wrong. Used together, the guides help you make the right decision, and the calculators turn that decision into an exact shopping list.

How we keep our numbers accurate

Trust is the whole point of a calculator site. A number you cannot rely on is worse than no number at all. Since I'm not offering field experience, the sourcing has to do the work instead. Here is how that works.

• We show our math. Every calculator and guide explains the formula behind the result, so you can follow the logic and check it yourself.
• We back our guidance with reputable sources. Where a guide makes a recommendation about depth, materials, or method, we cross-check it against trusted, independent references such as university extension services and government or industry bodies, and we link them at the bottom of our guides.
• We do not invent facts or figures. No made-up statistics, no fake reviews, and no guaranteed outcomes. Material needs genuinely vary with shape, depth, settling, and product size, and we say so.
• We keep our content current. We review and update our guides and tools so the information stays accurate, and we welcome corrections from readers.

Who is behind YardFigure

Where the numbers come from

Every depth chart, density figure, and material recommendation on this site traces back to one of these:

• Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association — segmental retaining wall and interlocking paver installation standards.
• ASTM specifications — material grading, including ASTM C33 for the coarse concrete sand used under pavers.
• University extension services — Oregon State, Iowa State, and others, for installation guidance written for homeowners.
• State agriculture and transportation departments — drainage design and base preparation.

Where a figure is a typical range rather than a published standard — regional material prices, for instance — I say so on the page rather than presenting it as fact.

What I can't tell you

There are limits to what any website can know about your project, and I'd rather name them than paper over them.

• Local prices vary more than a website can capture. The cost ranges here are planning figures, not quotes. Your supplier is the authority on what materials actually cost where you live.
• Soil and site conditions differ. Base depths on this site assume typical conditions. Clay, high water tables, and slopes all change the answer.
• Building codes are local. Where a project may need a permit or engineering — taller retaining walls, for example — the guide says to check with your building department, because I can't check it for you.

Who we help

YardFigure is built for the people who do the work themselves or plan it closely:

• Homeowners taking on a weekend yard or garden project
• Beginner gardeners filling their first raised bed or flower bed
• DIY landscapers measuring a patio, path, or driveway
• Anyone who wants to budget materials before they buy

If you have a tape measure and a project, our tools are for you.

Free to use, and how we keep it that way

YardFigure is free, and we intend to keep it that way. To cover the cost of building, hosting, and maintaining the site, we display advertising. Those ads are clearly distinguishable from our content, and they never influence the advice we give or the numbers our calculators produce. Our recommendations are based on accuracy and what is genuinely useful to you, full stop.

We may also link to relevant products or resources from time to time. When we do, it is because we believe they are helpful, and any such relationship will never change the honesty of our guidance.

Our promise to you

• Accuracy firstWe give you a number you can rely on, and explain how we got there.
• Plain languageNo jargon for its own sake. If we use a technical term, we explain it.
• Honesty over hypeWe tell you when an answer depends on factors only you can see in your own yard.
• Free and openThe core tools and guides stay free to use.

Get in touch

We would love to hear from you. Whether you have found an error, have a question about a project, or want to suggest a calculator or guide we should build next, your feedback makes YardFigure better.

• Email: contact.yardfigure@gmail.com
• Contact page: yardfigure.com/contact
• Write for us: Are you a gardener, landscaper, or home improvement writer? See our Write for Us page to contribute.