Bed capacity by truck size
These are level loads — filled to the top of the bed rails, not heaped. Heaping adds volume but it also blows out on the highway, so most yards will not load above the rails without a tarp.
| Bed | Level capacity | Dry mulch | Wet mulch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-size (5–6 ft bed) | 1.25 yd³ | 625 lb | 1000 lb |
| Full-size short (5.5–5.8 ft) | 1.5 yd³ | 750 lb | 1200 lb |
| Full-size standard (6.5 ft) | 2 yd³ | 1000 lb | 1600 lb |
| Full-size long (8 ft) | 2.5 yd³ | 1250 lb | 2000 lb |
For dry mulch, every one of those loads sits comfortably inside the payload rating of the truck it belongs to. That is the whole reason mulch is the one material you can genuinely fill a bed with.
Why the answer changes completely for soil and gravel
Mulch is mostly air and bark. A cubic yard of it weighs about 500 lb dry. The same cubic yard of screened topsoil weighs around 2,000 lb, and crushed stone about 2,700 lb.
| Material | Weight per yd³ | Fits in 1,500 lb payload |
|---|---|---|
| Dry bark mulch | ~500 lb | 3.00 yd³ |
| Wet bark mulch | ~800 lb | 1.88 yd³ |
| Screened topsoil | 2000 lb | 0.75 yd³ |
| Crushed stone | 2700 lb | 0.56 yd³ |
Read the right-hand column again. A half-ton pickup rated at 1,500 lb payload can carry three cubic yards of dry mulch by weight — more than the bed physically holds. The same truck maxes out at about half a yard of gravel, which is a pile you could shovel into one corner of the bed.
That is the trap. The bed looks nearly empty, so it feels wrong to stop, and the yard loader operator will happily put in whatever you ask for. The suspension is what tells you afterwards.
Find your actual payload figure
Payload varies enormously between trucks that look identical. Cab configuration, drivetrain, engine and options all change it, and the range across half-ton pickups runs from roughly 1,200 to well over 2,000 lb.
The real number for your truck is on the yellow sticker inside the driver's door jamb, printed as "The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed X lb". That figure includes you, your passengers and anything already in the bed — not just the material.
Practical loading
Put the weight over the rear axle rather than against the tailgate. A load piled at the back lightens the front wheels, which is where your steering and most of your braking is.
Lay a tarp down first. It costs nothing, keeps bark out of the bed seams, and turns unloading from an hour of shovelling into dragging the tarp out.
If rain is forecast, collect the mulch before it rather than after. A load that weighed 1,000 lb dry can be closer to 1,600 lb soaked, and that difference alone can push a mid-size truck past its rating.
When to stop hauling and pay for delivery
Two cubic yards is one trip in a full-size truck. Four yards is two trips plus two loading queues, and by six yards you have spent more in fuel and a whole morning to save a delivery fee that was probably in the region of a single tank of petrol.
The crossover is usually around three yards of mulch, and much lower for anything heavy. With topsoil or stone, delivery is almost always the right call — not to save time, but because the alternative is four or five trips at three quarters of a yard each.
Work out your own load
The mulch calculator gives you the volume for your beds and tells you how many pickup loads that is. For soil and stone, the yards to tons converter turns the volume into a weight you can check against your door sticker before you drive to the yard.
Where these numbers come from
| Figure | Value used |
|---|---|
| Dry bark mulch | 500 lb/yd³ |
| Wet bark mulch | 800 lb/yd³ |
| Screened topsoil | 2000 lb/yd³ |
| Crushed stone | 2700 lb/yd³ |
| Cubic feet per cubic yard | 27 |
Mulch weight in particular is a range rather than a constant — it depends on the wood, how finely it is shredded and how long it sat in the rain. Treat these as planning figures and your door sticker as the limit that actually matters.