Why is my small concrete order so expensive per cubic metre?

Because the charges around the concrete do not scale down with the order. A delivery fee is the same whether the truck is full or nearly empty, and most suppliers add a short-load surcharge on top for small orders, since sending a barely used truck ties up the same vehicle and driver as a full one. On a one cubic metre order those fixed costs can easily double or triple the effective rate. The concrete itself is not more expensive; the delivery of it is being spread very thinly.

Is it cheaper to mix concrete from bags or order ready-mix?

Below roughly half a cubic metre, bags win comfortably. Above about one and a half cubic metres, ready-mix wins and the gap widens fast. The crossover sits somewhere near one cubic metre for typical prices, though it moves with your bag price and your delivery and short-load charges. The calculator plots both and marks the exact point for your figures. Worth remembering that the comparison ignores your own labour: one cubic metre is around sixty 80 lb bags, which is most of a day of mixing.

What is a short-load fee?

A surcharge suppliers apply when you order less than their minimum economic load, compensating for sending a truck that is mostly empty. Some charge a flat fee, others a rate per cubic metre below the minimum, and a few charge both. The minimum is typically three to four cubic metres, or four to five cubic yards. It is worth asking about explicitly when you get a quote, because it is the charge most often omitted from a headline price and it can be a substantial fraction of a small order.

How much concrete does a truck hold?

A standard mixer truck holds around six to eight cubic metres in most of the world, and eight to eleven cubic yards in the United States, with ten being the common figure. Trucks are rarely loaded to absolute capacity, partly because of axle weight limits on the road, which bite before the drum is full for denser mixes. What matters for cost is that crossing into a second load adds an entire delivery fee rather than a proportional one, so an order of eight and a half cubic metres against an eight cubic metre truck can cost noticeably more than eight.

What is waiting time or demurrage?

Suppliers allow a set period to unload each truck, usually around thirty minutes, and bill by the hour beyond it. It exists because a truck sitting on your site is a truck not making its next delivery, and because concrete in a drum has a limited working life before it starts to go off. The practical implication is that being ready when the truck arrives is worth real money: forms complete, reinforcement tied and inspected, access clear, enough people to place and finish, and the route from truck to pour thought through in advance.

Do I need a concrete pump?

Only if the truck cannot discharge directly where the concrete needs to go. A mixer chute reaches a few metres at best, so anything beyond that means barrowing, which is slow and labour intensive, or pumping. Pumps come as line pumps, which are cheaper and suit smaller domestic work, and boom pumps, which reach over buildings and are priced accordingly. Pump hire is usually a day rate plus sometimes a charge per cubic metre, and it is worth pricing against the cost of the extra labour and time that barrowing would take.

How much wastage should I allow when ordering?

Five percent for a straightforward pour on a well-prepared level base, and ten percent where the sub-base is uneven or the ground is soft enough that the excavation may over-dig. The asymmetry matters here more than on most materials: surplus concrete is a modest waste, but running short mid-pour is a genuine problem, because a cold joint forms where fresh concrete meets concrete that has already begun to set, and that joint is a permanent weakness rather than an inconvenience.

What makes one concrete grade more expensive than another?

Cement content, mostly. A higher strength grade needs more cement per cubic metre, and cement is the expensive ingredient — sand and aggregate are comparatively cheap. Additives add cost on top: accelerators for cold weather, retarders for hot, plasticisers for workability at a low water content, fibres for crack control, and air entrainment for freeze-thaw resistance. Specifying a stronger mix than the job needs is a common and quiet way to overspend, since the difference compounds across every cubic metre.

Can I order concrete for a Saturday?

Usually yes, but expect an out-of-hours uplift, and check availability well in advance because weekend slots fill quickly and batching plants often run reduced hours. The uplift is normally a percentage on the whole order rather than a flat fee, so it scales with the size of the pour. If the schedule allows any flexibility at all, a weekday delivery is meaningfully cheaper, and you are more likely to get a delivery window that suits you rather than the plant.

Ready-Mix Concrete Cost Calculator

The price a ready-mix supplier quotes you per cubic metre is almost never what you end up paying per cubic metre. Concrete is one of the few materials where the delivery mechanism costs a substantial fraction of the material itself, and where the charges that surround it barely move regardless of ho...

THE ORDER

VOLUME NEEDED (m³)

PRICE PER M³

WASTAGE %

DELIVERY PER LOAD

PUMP HIRE

DELIVERED COST

$1,004

6.30 m³ in 1 load · $159 per m³ all in

CONCRETE

$914

FEES

$90

VS HEADLINE

1.10×

Volume before waste

6.000 m³

With 5% waste

6.300 m³

Truck loads

Concrete

$914

Delivery

$90

Short-load surcharge

None

Waiting time

None

Pump hire

None

Effective per unit

$159 / m³

Fees as share of total

9.0%

Compare against mixing bags by hand

BAG SIZE

PRICE PER BAG

371 bags by hand$2,226

Ready-mix delivered$1,004

Ready-mix is cheaper by $1,223, and that is before counting a day of mixing 371 bags by hand.

THE BILL

The quoted price is not the price. Concrete itself is 91% of this bill; the rest is delivery. Those charges are largely fixed, so the smaller the pour the more they dominate — which is why the effective rate here is $159 against a headline of $145.

The two lines cross at about 0.99 m³. Below that the fixed charges outweigh the cheaper concrete and bags win; above it, ready-mix pulls away quickly.

Live calculation · updates as you type

Created with❤️byeaglecalculator.com

HOW TO USE

1
Enter the volume you need, or switch to slab dimensions and let the calculator work it out from length, width and thickness. Add a wastage allowance — five percent is normal for a straightforward pour on a level base.
2
Put in the price your supplier quoted, per cubic metre or cubic yard, and the delivery fee they charge per load. If you are hiring a pump, add that too.
3
Open supplier charges to set the truck capacity, the minimum load below which a short-load surcharge applies, the surcharge itself, and the waiting time terms. Take all of these from your quote rather than trusting the defaults.
4
Read the breakdown. The effective rate per unit and the multiple against the headline price are the two figures worth looking at, because they tell you whether ordering slightly more would cost meaningfully more.

THE FORMULAS

Billable volumevolume × (1 + waste)

Truck loadsceil(volume / capacity)

Concrete costvolume × unit price

Deliveryfee × loads

Short-load chargeflat + (minimum − volume) × rate

Waiting time(expected − free) × loads / 60 × rate

Effective ratetotal / volume

Bags break-evenfixed costs / (bag rate − mix rate)

WHAT SUPPLIERS TYPICALLY CHARGE

Charge	Typical basis	When it applies
Concrete	Per m³ or yd³, by strength grade	Always — higher grades cost more
Delivery	Flat fee per load	Always, and it multiplies with extra loads
Short load	Flat fee, or per unit below the minimum	Orders under about 3–4 m³ or 4–5 yd³
Waiting time	Per hour after free unloading time	Beyond roughly 30 minutes per load
Pump hire	Day rate plus sometimes per m³	When the truck cannot reach the pour
Out of hours	Percentage uplift	Weekends, evenings, public holidays
Additives	Per m³	Accelerators, retarders, fibres, air entrainment

Prices vary enormously by region, grade and supplier, so this calculator deliberately ships no price data — put your own quote in. The defaults are placeholders to show the shape of a bill, not a guide to what concrete should cost where you are.

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Last updated: July 29, 2026 · Formula verified · Eagle-eyed accuracy for every calculation.