Measure the lawn, pick how your farm cuts its sod and how big its pallets are, and you get the pallets and pieces to order — with the extra two extension services tell you to add, because they do not agree on how much.
1,500 sq ft in slabs (16 × 24 in)
4 palletsPallets of 450 sq ft, ordering 1,575 to 1,650 sq ft — 5% extra (Mississippi State University Extension) or 10% extra (Purdue Extension). In slabs: 591–619 pieces.
- Lawn
- 1,500 sq ft
- Order, +5% (Mississippi State University Extension)
- 1,575 sq ft → 4 pallets
- Order, +10% (Purdue Extension)
- 1,650 sq ft → 4 pallets
- Pieces of 2.67 sq ft
- 591–619
- Weight on the truck
- 6,000–12,000 lb
Pallets are heavy — a 450 sq ft pallet can weigh a ton — so check your trailer’s rating before you haul one. Have the ground ready before the sod arrives: it deteriorates on the pallet.
Pallet sizes and sources checked 2026-09-25.
Quick answer: measure the lawn in square feet, add the extra the extension services recommend — Mississippi State says about 5 percent, Purdue about 10 — and divide by the square feet on one of your farm’s pallets. Pallets run from 400 to 700 square feet depending on how the farm cuts the sod; Purdue calls 450 (50 square yards) typical. A 1,500 sq ft lawn on 450 sq ft pallets is 4 pallets either way.
How to use it
Measure the area — a rectangle, a circle, a ring round a tree, or an area you already know. For an odd-shaped lawn, use the lawn size calculator first: it adds shapes and takes away the beds, and its answer goes in here as “I know the area”. Then pick how your farm cuts its sod and the size of its pallets. You get the pallets and the pieces for both published extras, what it weighs on the truck, and — if you type the farm’s price — what it costs.
Why a pallet is not a standard size
Sod Solutions, which licenses grasses to farms across the country, lists three ways sod comes off the field. Slabs — 16 by 24 inches, 2.66 square feet each — are the usual cut in the South for bermuda, zoysia, St. Augustine and centipede, stacked on pallets of 400, 450 or 500 square feet. Mini rolls — 40 by 18 inches, 5 square feet — are spreading in the North, on the same pallet sizes. Large rolls — 60 by 24 or 80 by 18 inches, 10 square feet — go on pallets of 500, 600 or 700 square feet, mostly for tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. So “a pallet” can mean 400 square feet or 700, and a price per pallet means nothing until you know which. Compare prices per square foot when the pallets differ.
How much extra: two answers
Every source says to order more than you measured; they differ on how much. Mississippi State University Extension: “buy approximately 5 percent more sod than you think you’ll need.” Purdue Extension: “about 10 percent more … to account for calculation errors and waste that occurs when cutting sod around corners and edges.” Both are shown in the answer. For a plain rectangle the smaller figure is enough; a lawn that curves round beds, trees and a patio will use the larger one in offcuts.
Getting it home and down
Mississippi State says a 450-square-foot pallet “may weigh as much as a ton”; Sod Solutions puts pallets at 1,500 to 3,000 pounds, and half as much again when wet. That is more than most pickup beds and small trailers are rated for, which is why most people pay for delivery. And sod does not keep: Purdue notes the longer it sits on the pallet the more it deteriorates, and Mississippi State that some grasses will not tolerate sitting on a pallet for long. Have the ground graded and ready before the truck comes, lay the pieces with the ends staggered like bricks, and water the same day. If the ground needs soil first, the topsoil calculator gives the depth a new lawn wants.
What it does not do
It holds no prices — sod is priced by the farm, the grass and the season — so the cost line uses the price you type. And it does not choose the grass for you: that depends on your region, your sun and your use, and your extension service or the farm will know the varieties that do well near you.