Concrete Delivery Price Calculator
Concrete delivery price has no single answer, and that is the point. A yard costs about $819 in a one-yard order and $216 in a ten-yard one in Atlanta. The truck, its driver and its round trip cost the plant the same either way, so below about 5 yards they charge for the yards that are missing. This calculator works out that surcharge for your own order and shows it as its own line, instead of folding it into an average nobody actually pays.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the concrete, delivered
$1,194
typical · range $883 to $1,505 · 5 cu yd · $239 a yard all in
There is no labour in this figure: it is a delivered price, and the driver is already inside it. 100% of this figure comes from modelled plant prices and surcharges — each line shows its own uncertainty.
No sourced price feeds this figure: every line is a modelled estimate.how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
Your ZIP moves this figure less than any other calculator here, and honestly so: a delivered yard is material and haulage, not somebody’s hourly rate.
The residential baseline: patios, walkways, shed bases. It is what most plants quote when you do not specify.
The price includes about 7 minutes a yard. Past that the truck bills by the minute, because it is a truck that cannot be somewhere else. It is the most avoidable charge here and the one people are angriest about.
5 minutes over the included window.
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The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
A yard of concrete has no single price
The truck, its driver and its round trip cost the plant the same whether it carries two yards or ten. Below about 5 yards they charge for the yards that are missing, so the same product costs very different money.
| Order | Total | Per yard |
|---|---|---|
| $819 | $819 | |
| $913 | $456 | |
| $1,006 | $335 | |
| $1,100 | $275 | |
| $1,194 | $239 | |
| $1,768 | $221 | |
| $2,163 | $216 |
No short-load surcharge on this order. That is worth knowing in the other direction too: dropping below 5 yards costs more per yard than it saves.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready-mix concretecubic yards × strength factor | 5cubic yard equivalent | $775–$1,200 | estimated±22% |
| Delivery and fuelone per truckload, at up to 10 yards a load | 1load | $60–$175 | estimated±49% |
| Mileage beyond the free radiusmiles beyond a 10-mile free radius | 5mile | $20–$60 | estimated±50% |
| Standby time on siteunloading minutes beyond 7 per yard | 5minute | $13–$25 | estimated±33% |
| Environmental and washout feeone per truckload | 1load | $15–$45 | estimated±50% |
| Total | $883–$1,505 | ±26% |
Where these numbers come from
- Why this is the one page here with no labour line
- Every other calculator on this site prices somebody’s hours at the wage BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics publishes for your metropolitan area, May 2025. This one does not, and it would be wrong to: a delivered yard is a plant price that already includes the driver, so adding his hours on top would count them twice. That is also why your ZIP code moves this figure less than any other page here.
- What happens after it is in the forms
- Nothing on this page pays for placing, screeding or finishing the concrete, and cutting the control joints afterwards is regulated work: sawing or grinding cured concrete is respirable crystalline silica exposure under OSHA 1926.1153, Respirable crystalline silica, which requires engineering controls and a written exposure control plan — see also OSHA, Crystalline Silica. Both retrieved 2026-08-22.
- Washing out the truck
- The washout fee on every load pays for the drum being rinsed and the slurry disposed of properly. It is strongly alkaline and it cannot go on the ground or into a drain — the same reasoning as EPA, Soak Up the Rain applies to what runs off your property. Agree where the truck may wash out before it arrives. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
- What the model assumes about plant policy
- A minimum of 5 yards before the short-load surcharge applies, an unloading window of 7 minutes a yard, ten free miles from the plant and up to ten yards a load. Those are the usual shape of these charges and they are our estimate, not any particular supplier’s tariff. Two plants will quote differently, and the way to find out is to ask both for a delivered price for your exact yardage.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-22.
What this figure does not include
- What a finished slab costs
- This page prices concrete delivered to your kerb and nothing else. A poured, reinforced, finished slab costs substantially more, because the concrete is only part of it — the rest is excavation, base, forms, steel, placing, finishing and curing. Our concrete slab page prices that job, and the split between the two is deliberate: they are different purchases.
- Anybody to place it
- The driver brings the truck and runs the chute. Getting the concrete from the chute into the forms, screeding it, floating it and finishing it is not part of a delivery, and on a job of any size it is more work than most people expect against a clock that does not stop.
- Mixing it yourself
- Bagged concrete is genuinely cheaper for very small quantities — a few post holes, a small pad. It stops being cheaper somewhere around half a yard, which is roughly forty 80-pound bags, and it stops being sensible well before it stops being cheaper, because every bag is mixed separately and a slab poured in batches is a slab with cold joints through it.
- Cutting or grinding the concrete afterwards
- Saw-cutting joints, grinding a surface or breaking anything out is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 29 CFR 1926.1153, with a written exposure control plan and engineering controls such as water-fed tools. It is not a delivery cost and it is not a trivial one.
- Local plant minimums and policies
- The minimum load, the free mileage radius, the unloading window and the washout policy all vary by plant. The figures here are a model of the usual shape of those charges, not a quote from any particular supplier, and the way to get a real number is to ask two plants for a delivered price for your exact yardage.
Questions people actually ask
How much does 1 yard of concrete cost delivered?
There is no single answer, and that is the useful part. In a one-yard order it comes to about $819 a yard delivered in Atlanta; in a ten-yard order the same concrete is $216 a yard. The reason is the short-load surcharge: a mixer truck, its driver and its round trip cost the plant the same whether it carries one yard or ten, so below about 5 yards they charge for the yards that are missing. Anyone quoting a single national figure for "a yard of concrete" is quoting the full-load price and leaving out the charge that most homeowners actually pay.
Is it cheaper to mix concrete or have it delivered?
For very small quantities, yes — a few post holes or a small pad are genuinely cheaper out of bags. It stops being cheaper somewhere around half a cubic yard, which is roughly forty 80-pound bags, and it stops being sensible before that. Every bag is mixed separately, so a slab poured from bags has cold joints running through it wherever one batch went off before the next arrived, and it is physically exhausting: half a yard is about a ton of material moved twice. At one yard, delivery here is $819 all in, and even with the short-load surcharge that is usually the better buy the moment the pour has to be continuous.
How much will a 20x20 concrete slab cost?
That is a different question from this page, and worth separating clearly. The concrete for a 20 by 20 slab at four inches is 5.3 cubic yards, which delivered comes to about $1,278. The finished slab — excavated, based, formed, reinforced, poured, finished and cured — is about $4,017 in Atlanta, because the concrete is only around a quarter of a slab. If you are pricing material to pour it yourself, this page is the right one. If you are pricing a contractor, our concrete slab calculator is.
How much to pour a 30x40 concrete slab?
A 30 by 40 slab at four inches needs 16.0 cubic yards, and at that size you are well past any short-load surcharge — the material comes to about $3,495 delivered, or roughly $218 a yard, which is as good as the rate gets. It is also more than one truckload, so it arrives as two deliveries that have to be close enough together that the first pour has not set before the second starts. The finished slab, done by a contractor, is about $10,949.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 22 August 2026, not invented.
Other cost calculators
The first of these are the jobs closest to this one — the ones that turn up in the same quote, or instead of it.
- Paver patio cost
Prices a paver patio from the base up, where most of the work is, and sets it against a poured concrete slab of the same size from our own model.
- Retaining wall cost
Prices a wall by square foot of built face rather than linear foot, which is what explains why height costs so much more than length.
- Garage door installation cost
A new door rarely weighs what the old one did, so the springs have to be sized to it. This shows what a «door only» quote leaves out.
- Roof inspection cost
Prices five ways of looking at a roof, says what a free inspection is really buying you, and calculates where patching stops paying against a new roof.
- The full concrete delivery price dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.