How much sand you need depends on what it is for — a paver bed is one inch, a play area is a foot. Pick the job and the depth follows, then get bags, yards and tons.
The bedding layer under pavers should be screeded to one inch and left uncompacted. It is not there to level the ground — that is the compacted base course underneath. Its only job is to give each paver something to seat evenly into.
A thicker bed is the most common reason a patio ruts and dips a year later. Loose sand keeps migrating under load, and the deeper the layer the further it can move. If the surface is uneven, fix the base rather than adding sand.
Use coarse, angular concrete or masonry sand for this. Play sand and mason's sand are too fine and rounded, and they wash out from between the joints.
| Job | Depth |
|---|---|
| Paver or flagstone bedding | 1 in |
| Sandbox or play area | 12 in |
| Levelling under a shed base | 2–4 in |
| Backfill and general fill | varies |
A play area is the one case where depth genuinely matters for safety — the sand is a fall surface, and a shallow layer does not absorb much.
Sand runs about 100 lb per cubic foot, so a 50 lb bag holds roughly half a cubic foot and it takes about 54 of them to make a cubic yard. That is a lot of lifting for a small patio, and bagged sand costs several times the bulk price per yard.
Bags make sense below about a quarter of a yard — a small repair, a sandbox top-up, or bedding for a handful of slabs. Anything larger and a bulk delivery is both cheaper and far less work.
| Assumption | Value used |
|---|---|
| Masonry sand density | 2700 lb/yd³ |
| Bag weight | 50 lb |
| Pounds per short ton | 2000 |
| Cubic feet per cubic yard | 27 |
| Bulk order increment | 0.5 yd³ |
| Default waste factor | 10% |
Density varies with moisture and grade — damp sand weighs noticeably more than dry. Confirm the figure with your supplier if you are buying by weight.