Sod calculator

Q: How many square feet are in a pallet of sod?

**400 to 600** across the farms whose own pages we could read — Bethel Farms 400, The Grass Outlet and Fulton 450, Central Sod Farms 600 — which is why this is an input rather than a constant. Slab pallets are actually 399, 452 or 503 sq ft, and hand-roll pallets 400, 450 or 500. Figures up to 700 circulate in lawn-care articles, but we could not confirm one on a farm page. Ask your farm — on a big lawn the difference is several pallets.

Q: How many pieces of sod are in a pallet?

For 16 × 24 in slabs at 2.66 sq ft each, about **150, 170 or 189** pieces on the 399, 452 and 503 sq ft pallets. Northern hand rolls are 10 sq ft each, so 80, 90 or 100 rolls per pallet. The count varies by farm, so order in square feet instead.

Enter the area you are turfing. Sod is only sold by the whole pallet, and a pallet is not a fixed size — 400 to 600 square feet across the farms we could check, depending on the region and whether your farm cuts slabs or rolls. Get that number from the farm before you order.

Pallets to order 3 pallets You cannot buy part of a pallet.

Sod needed including cuts 1,050 sq ft

Slabs or rolls 394 pieces

Left over after whole pallets 300 sq ft This is the number to take back to the farm — ask whether they will break a pallet.

Delivered weight — plan for this 9,000 lb At 3,000 lb a pallet, the top of what four farms publish. Add up to 50% again if the sod was cut wet. Weight is per pallet and does not move with the pallet area you entered, because the farms do not publish it that way.

Lighter end of the published range 6,000 lb At 2,000 lb a pallet. Farms state a 2,000–3,000 lb spread and nothing finer, so this page does not invent a figure in between.

How the number is worked out

Take your area, add 5% for cuts (10% if you are working around curved beds and trees), then divide by the coverage of one pallet. A 1,000 sq ft lawn needs 1,050 sq ft of sod, which at 450 sq ft per pallet is 2.33 pallets — so you buy three and have about 300 sq ft spare.

The rounding in that last step is often 20–30% of the order, which is why the answer here is a pallet count rather than a square-foot total, and why the pallet coverage above is a field you can overwrite: a farm's order page will take square feet and leave the division to you, and the division is where the money is.

Two other things print alongside that count for the same reason. What the load weighs, because it is the number that decides whether it can be delivered where you want it — see below. And a piece size you set yourself, because the cut follows the part of the country you are in rather than any standard.

A pallet is not a fixed size

This is where orders go wrong by a whole pallet. Published coverage figures:

Slabs, the southern standard, are 16 × 24 in = 2.66 sq ft each, stacked on pallets of 399, 452 or 503 sq ft — sold as 400, 450 and 500.
Hand rolls, the northern standard, are 2 × 5 ft = 10 sq ft each, at 80, 90 or 100 rolls per pallet for 400, 450 and 500 sq ft.
Large rolls for contract work come on bigger pallets — Central Sod Farms publishes 600 sq ft (60 rolls of 10 sq ft). Larger figures circulate in lawn-care articles; we could not confirm one on a farm page of its own.

Those odd 399 / 452 / 503 figures are not typos. A pallet is stacked by piece count — roughly 150, 170 and 189 slabs — and the square footage is whatever that works out to. The round numbers on the invoice are marketing.

So the spread across the farms we could check is 400 to 600 square feet per pallet. On a quarter acre that is the difference between 20 pallets and 29. Call the farm and ask how many square feet are on their pallet before you calculate anything. Any page that tells you a pallet is 450 sq ft is guessing on your behalf.

Order in square feet, not pieces

For the same reason, place the order in square feet. Piece counts depend on the farm's cutter width, and a farm that runs 18 in rolls will not recognise your slab count.

Weight, and why you cannot stockpile it

A pallet of sod weighs 2,000–3,000 lb, and that is true whether it carries 400 square feet or 600. Here is what four farms publish:

Farm	Pallet	Published weight
The Grass Outlet (TX)	450 sq ft	2,800–3,000 lb
Houston Grass (TX)	450 sq ft	2,500–3,000 lb
Bethel Farms (FL)	400 sq ft	1,500–3,000 lb
Central Sod Farms (MD/VA)	600 sq ft	2,000–3,000 lb

Read down the weight column, not across to a per-square-foot figure. Pallet weight is set by what a forklift and a delivery truck will take, not by the area stacked on top. Work it out per square foot and those same four farms spread from 3.3 to 7.5 lb — a factor of 2.3 — purely because the areas differ.

That is why this page reports weight per pallet and does not scale it with the pallet size you entered. A 600 sq ft cool-season roll pallet is not 50% heavier than a 400 sq ft warm-season slab pallet; it is the same truckload spread over more ground. This page multiplied an area by a pounds-per-square-foot constant until the farms were checked.

Plan against the top of the range, because being wrong in the light direction is how a trailer gets overloaded, and add up to 50% again if the sod was cut wet. A ton or more per pallet means a half-ton pickup carries part of one and delivery is nearly always the answer.

Sod is a living crop with the roots cut off. Lay it the day it arrives — certainly within 24 hours in warm weather — and water it in as you go rather than waiting until the whole lawn is down. Pallets left stacked in summer heat compost themselves from the middle outwards, and you will not see the damage until a week after it is laid.

What this does not include

Soil preparation. Sod wants 4–6 in of loosened, graded soil under it.
Topdressing or amendment, which is a separate volume calculation.

What the pallet count assumes

Five conditions sit behind the number, and each one can be false for your farm:

400 to 600 square feet is what we could confirm, not a proven bound. Those are the pallet coverages published on the farm pages we were able to read. It is not a survey of every farm, and a pallet outside that band is perfectly possible — which is exactly why the field is an input you can overwrite rather than a constant we chose for you.
The weight is counted per whole pallet. If the farm agrees to break one for your leftover, the load is lighter than the figure shown by most of a pallet. The two published ends are a range the farms state and nothing finer, so treat the high one as your planning number and the low one as the floor.
The cuts allowance is a percentage, not a cutting plan. Sod arrives in fixed pieces, and an offcut narrower than a few inches is scrap you cannot lay. A lawn with many curves, a winding path, or long thin borders generates more of those than a flat 5% describes — the more perimeter per square foot, the further out the allowance is.
The piece size is a regional convention, not a promise. Farms cut to their own harvester width. Two farms in the same state can hand you different pieces, which is why the order goes in square feet.
Nothing here picks the grass. Species, sun and shade tolerance, and whether sod or seed is the right choice for your site are decisions this page does not touch. It counts the pallets once you have made them.

There is also the question of where 3,000 lb can actually be set down. Access, gradient and how far the pallets sit from the lawn are worth settling with the farm before the truck is loaded.

Questions people ask

How many square feet are in a pallet of sod?

400 to 600 across the farms whose own pages we could read — Bethel Farms 400, The Grass Outlet and Fulton 450, Central Sod Farms 600 — which is why this is an input rather than a constant. Slab pallets are actually 399, 452 or 503 sq ft, and hand-roll pallets 400, 450 or 500. Figures up to 700 circulate in lawn-care articles, but we could not confirm one on a farm page. Ask your farm — on a big lawn the difference is several pallets.

How many pieces of sod are in a pallet?

For 16 × 24 in slabs at 2.66 sq ft each, about 150, 170 or 189 pieces on the 399, 452 and 503 sq ft pallets. Northern hand rolls are 10 sq ft each, so 80, 90 or 100 rolls per pallet. The count varies by farm, so order in square feet instead.

How much extra sod should I order?

Five percent for a rectangular lawn, ten where you are cutting around curved beds, trees or a path. Because you buy whole pallets, the rounding usually swamps the waste allowance anyway — check the leftover figure and ask whether the farm will break a pallet.

How much does a pallet of sod weigh?

2,000–3,000 lb, and plan against 3,000. Four farms publish in that band — The Grass Outlet 2,800–3,000, Houston Grass 2,500–3,000, Central Sod Farms 2,000–3,000 — and the notable thing is that it barely moves with the pallet size: Central Sod stacks 600 sq ft and still lands in the same range as a 450 sq ft Texas pallet. Add up to 50% more if it was harvested wet. Individual rolls are 15–30 lb. That rules out most pickup trucks for anything beyond a partial pallet.

How long can sod sit on the pallet?

Lay it the day it is delivered, and within 24 hours at the outside in warm weather. A stacked pallet heats up from the centre and the grass dies there first, so the damage is invisible until roughly a week after you have laid it.

Last reviewed 2026-07-31