How-To Guides · For everyone
Wood Chips by the Yard: How to Measure, Price and Sell a Chip Pile
Tree crews make them by the truckload, landscape yards sell them by the scoop and gardeners take them for free. Here is how to measure a wood chip pile’s volume, what it weighs, and what it is worth.
In short
- A cubic yard of solid wood becomes roughly 2.5–3.5 cubic yards of loose chips, so a modest tree fills a chip truck faster than most people expect.
- Coarse mixed chips weigh about 500 lb per cubic yard; shredded hardwood runs closer to 800. Fresh, wet chips weigh more than aged ones.
- Bulk retail chips sell for roughly $15 to $60 per cubic yard before delivery, with $35 typical. Raw arborist chips are often free; screened, aged product earns the top of the range.
- Measure before you spread: a dumped load is a ridge or a cone, and a walk-around scan or a tape and a formula gives a number you can invoice or dispute.
Who ends up with a wood chip pile
Wood chips are the one bulk material that arrives whether or not anyone ordered them. Tree services chip every limb they cut and must empty the truck somewhere. Municipalities grind storm debris. Gardeners sign up for arborist drops and get twelve cubic yards on the driveway. Landscape yards buy raw chips, screen and age them, and sell mulch. Biomass plants and mushroom growers buy them by the ton.
All of them have the same question: how much is here, and what is it worth? The answer starts with wood chip pile volume, because that is how almost everyone prices chips, and ends with weight, because biomass buyers and trucking contracts work in tons. Our guide to measuring a stockpile covers the general methods; this one is about chips.
How many yards of chips a tree makes
Chipping expands wood. A cubic yard of solid stem and limb wood comes out of the chute as roughly 2.5 to 3.5 cubic yards of loose chips, according to the Toolgrit chipper production guide. Sharp knives producing small half-inch chips pack more densely and land near the low end; dull knives, long strands and leafy brush land near the high end. A mature shade tree with a 24-inch trunk can easily produce 10 to 15 cubic yards of chips, which is a full load for the 12- to 18-cubic-yard boxes on most chip trucks.
The expansion matters in both directions. A tree service quoting by the load finds the count depends on the chipper as much as the tree, and a gardener accepting “a truckload” should plan for 10 to 18 cubic yards, enough to mulch 1,500 to 2,500 square feet three inches deep by the usual coverage rule.
How much a yard of wood chips weighs
Chips are light compared with almost everything else that arrives in a dump truck. Coarse mixed arborist chips weigh about 500 lb per cubic yard, a quarter of a US ton; shredded hardwood mulch, ground finer and often aged, runs closer to 800 lb, in line with the bark and wood figures in Engineering ToolBox’s material density tables. Fresh chips from live wood carry water and sit at the heavy end; chips aged a season lose moisture and weight. For comparison, a cubic yard of topsoil weighs 2,000 to 2,600 lb and crushed stone 2,800 to 3,400; see how much a cubic yard weighs for the full table.
So a chip truck is almost never weight-limited: it runs out of box long before payload. That is why the trade prices chips by the cubic yard.
Measuring a dumped chip pile
A chip truck tips its load out as a ridge, often 20 to 30 feet long and 4 to 6 feet high; a loader builds a cone or a flat-topped mound. Both shapes have a formula, and both assume a tidier pile than you have.
For a ridge, multiply half the width by the height by the length, in feet, and divide by 27: a ridge 8 feet wide, 5 feet high and 24 feet long is ½ × 8 × 5 × 24 = 480 cubic feet, or about 18 cubic yards, minus a little for the rounded ends. For a cone, use 0.2618 × diameter² × height in feet and divide by 27. The stockpile volume formula guide has worked examples for each shape and for piles with flat tops.
Chips suit the formulas even less than gravel does: they settle within days, the face is ragged and the toe is fuzzy where chips have scattered. A walk-around phone scan captures the real surface instead. Stockpile Scan reports the volume with a ± range worked out from that scan and lets you pick wood chips from its material list for a weight estimate, so one walk gives yards and approximate tons. Measure before the pile is spread or the loader starts on it, and keep the report.
What wood chips sell for
Prices depend less on the wood than on what has been done to it. Raw arborist chips, mixed species with leaves and twigs, are often given away because the alternative is a tipping fee. Screened to a consistent size and aged until they darken, the same chips become landscape mulch. A 2026 US buyer’s guide puts bulk wood chips at roughly $15 per cubic yard at the low end, $35 typical and $60 at the high end before delivery, with delivery adding a flat trip charge that makes small orders expensive per yard, as with any bulk landscape delivery.
| Chip type | Weight per yd³ | Typical price band | Usually sold by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw arborist chips, mixed, unscreened | ~500 lb | Free to $15/yd³ | The load |
| Screened natural chips, aged | 500–650 lb | $25–40/yd³ | Cubic yard or scoop |
| Shredded hardwood mulch | ~800 lb | $30–45/yd³ | Cubic yard |
| Dyed or single-species bark mulch | 500–700 lb | $40–60/yd³ | Cubic yard |
| Playground-certified chips | ~500 lb | $35–60/yd³ | Cubic yard |
| Biomass fuel chips | 500–700 lb | Per ton, set by the buyer | Green or bone-dry ton |
Prices are retail bulk ranges before delivery and vary widely by region; weights change with moisture. Confirm both with the yard or buyer.
Biomass and mushroom-substrate buyers are the exception: they pay per green or bone-dry ton, with price tied to moisture. Selling to them, convert yards to tons with a density you measured, not a table value.
Worked example: valuing a 20-yard pile
Suppose a tree crew leaves a ridge on a landscape yard’s pad and the scan says 20 cubic yards. As raw chips, the pile is worth roughly 20 × $15 = $300 at most, and screening and moving it may cost more in loader time. Aged six months, screened and sold at $35 per yard, the same material becomes about 20 × $35 = $700 of mulch, less perhaps 15% volume lost to settling and fines, so call it $600. By weight it is about 20 × 500 lb = 10,000 lb, or 5 US tons, which at a typical biomass price would earn far less than the mulch route. The spread between those numbers is the whole business case for a landscape yard’s chip pile, and it starts with a volume you trust.
Storing chips: heat, settling and shrinkage
Fresh chips compost themselves. A big pile heats within days, steams on cold mornings and, if very large and wet, can get hot enough inside to be a fire risk; keep working piles under 10 to 12 feet, turn them and keep them clear of buildings. Settling and decomposition also cost volume: a pile that measured 20 cubic yards in spring can lose 10 to 20% by autumn without anyone taking a scoop. Measure chips on the same schedule as everything else so that loss shows up as shrinkage rather than a mystery.
For yards that buy raw chips and sell mulch, a monthly count of each pile, with product and density recorded, turns that seasonal loss into a known cost of goods. Our monthly stockpile count workflow for small yards describes how to do it in about an hour, and measuring a pile of firewood covers the other wood product that arrives loose and sells by a volume unit.
Frequently asked questions
How many yards of wood chips does a tree make?
A cubic yard of solid wood becomes roughly 2.5 to 3.5 cubic yards of loose chips, depending on chip size and how much leafy brush goes through. A mature shade tree with a 24-inch trunk commonly produces 10 to 15 cubic yards of chips, about one chip-truck load.
How much does a yard of wood chips weigh?
Coarse mixed arborist chips weigh about 500 lb per cubic yard, roughly a quarter of a US ton. Shredded hardwood mulch runs closer to 800 lb. Fresh chips from live wood are heavier because of their water content, and chips that have aged in a pile for a season are lighter.
What are wood chips worth?
Raw, unscreened arborist chips are often free or sell for up to about $15 per cubic yard. Screened and aged chips sold as mulch bring roughly $25 to $45 per cubic yard, and specialty products such as dyed or playground-certified chips reach $60. Delivery is extra. Biomass buyers pay by the ton and adjust for moisture.
How many yards are in a chip truck load?
Most tree-service chip trucks carry 12 to 18 cubic yards when full, and crews often dump partial loads. If someone offers a truckload of free chips, plan for 10 to 18 cubic yards, which covers roughly 1,500 to 2,500 square feet three inches deep.
Measure your next pile with your iPhone
Stockpile Scan is free, with no ads, subscriptions or account. Walk around a chip pile and get its volume, a ± range, a weight estimate for wood chips and a PDF report, all on the phone.
Any iPhone with iOS 18 or later. LiDAR optional. Learn more about the app.