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May 28, 2026· The Outdoor Company Company

How to measure sod for your lawn

One sod pallet covers 450 sq ft. Measure your yard, divide by 450, round up. Here's the formula, the satellite shortcut, and what to do about beds.

Freshly-laid Bermuda sod pallets being unrolled on a north-Texas yard.

The short version

One pallet of sod covers 450 square feet. Measure the lawn area you actually want grass on (subtract beds, driveways, pools), divide by 450, and round up to the next whole pallet. We don't break pallets for delivery.

Sod pallet coverage: 1 pallet = 450 sq ft = 50 sq yards, with a 21 ft by 21 ft footprint diagram.

The math

Sod arrives stacked on a wooden pallet — usually 165-180 pieces of 16" × 24" cut sod, depending on the farm. Total coverage is 450 sq ft. Some farms cut bigger rolls; the 450 number is the standard for DFW sod yards, including ours.

Worked example. A 60 ft × 75 ft front + side yard is 4,500 sq ft. Subtract:

  • Driveway: 20 × 60 = 1,200 sq ft
  • Walkway: 100 sq ft
  • Front beds: 200 sq ft
  • House footprint already excluded

Lawn-to-be-sodded: 4,500 − 1,500 = 3,000 sq ft.

3,000 sq ft ÷ 450 = 6.67 pallets → order 7 pallets

Don't try to "stretch" pallets. A pallet doesn't get bigger when you cut it tighter; you just end up with strips that die in week two. The 450 number assumes normal seams.

Bermuda vs St. Augustine vs Zoysia (DFW reality):

  • Bermuda — full sun, drought-hardy, the default for most North Texas lawns. ~$0.40-0.55/sq ft installed.
  • St. Augustine (Raleigh, Palmetto) — shade tolerant, needs more water, common under live oaks and post oaks. ~$0.55-0.75/sq ft installed.
  • Zoysia (Empire, Palisades) — slow-growing, premium look, expensive. ~$0.75-1.10/sq ft installed.

If you have a mixed-light yard, plan to sod two species — Bermuda for the sun side, St. Aug under the trees.

Sod variety picker: Bermuda, Zoysia, and St. Augustine rated 1-5 across sun, shade, traffic, water, and texture.

The shortcut: satellite measuring

Hand-measuring a curved lawn is a hassle. We built a satellite measuring tool that pulls up your house on aerial imagery — you click the corners of the lawn, including curving around beds and the driveway, and it returns square footage. Most homeowners get within 5% of a tape measurement in under two minutes.

Common mistakes

  • Forgetting the topsoil base. New sod laid on bare DFW clay will struggle. Spread 2-3 inches of topsoil or compost-blended soil and rake smooth before the pallets arrive. Sod laid on prepped soil roots in 10-14 days; sod laid on clay can take a month and you'll lose strips.
  • Ordering sod before you have a watering plan. New sod needs water 2-3x/day for the first 10 days. If you don't have a sprinkler system or hose-end timer ready, push the install date.
  • Measuring the lot, not the lawn. Subtract every bed, walkway, AC pad, and pool deck. People routinely over-order by 20% by forgetting the back bed.
  • Pickup vs delivery math. A sod pallet weighs 2,500-3,000 lbs wet. A half-ton truck handles one; a three-quarter-ton handles two. Past two pallets, take delivery.

What to do next

The fastest path: open the satellite measure tool, trace the lawn, and the page returns pallet count and a delivery quote. To see species, pricing, and current pallet stock, hit the sod materials page or jump straight to sod stock and prices. If you'd rather punch sq footage into a formula, the sod calculator does the divide-by-450 + round-up for you.

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