Methodology

Numbers are where a concrete site either earns trust or quietly loses it. Prices, frost depths, code editions and licensing rules all look like facts, and most of them are actually estimates, compilations or jurisdiction-specific rules that no national table can settle. This page documents what we do with each category.

Why published concrete prices disagree

We do not run a proprietary price survey, and we do not claim one. Published US ready-mix prices differ by nearly two to one depending on who you read, and a large share of what circulates online consists of aggregators citing each other while attributing their figures to NRMCA regional surveys that have no public dataset.

Rather than join that chain, we publish each source by name with the range it reports and let you see the disagreement.

All four are Tier 3 sources under our editorial policy — usable for market and price context, never for a technical claim. The gap between Angi’s average and Concrete Network’s is roughly 38%, on the same commodity, in the same country, in the same year. Any site presenting a single national average as settled fact is not telling you that.

The position we publish

$110–$205 per cubic yard depending on region, with most of the United States falling between $130 and $180.

That range is wider than what most sites publish, and it is wide on purpose: it spans the credible published sources rather than picking the one that produces a tidier headline. Treat every dollar figure on this site as an industry estimate, not a quote. The only number that binds anyone is the one your local ready-mix plant gives you for your yardage, on your date, at your address.

Material cost is also not project cost. Delivery surcharges, short-load fees, pump rental, forming, reinforcement, finishing and site prep frequently exceed the concrete itself on residential work. Our prices section breaks those out by state.

The objective trend line

Where published prices disagree, one federal series does not: the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index for ready-mix concrete manufacturing, series PCU3273232732, indexed to December 2003 = 100.

The latest observation is 259.281 for June 2026, and the series has been essentially flat since March 2026 — price stabilization following the post-2021 spike. Because it is an index rather than a dollar figure, it cannot tell you what a yard costs. It can tell you truthfully which direction prices are moving and how fast, which is the part the aggregator tables get wrong most often.

The series is public and you can check it yourself: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU3273232732

We re-check it quarterly and update our price pages when it moves materially.

How we treat frost depth

Frost depth figures on this site are drawn from secondary compilations, and we label them as such. There is no single freely available federal dataset that publishes a design frost depth for every US jurisdiction — the numbers that circulate are compiled from state and municipal sources of varying age.

So we give a reference range for orientation and state clearly that your local building department governs. Footing depth is a permitted, inspected dimension set by your authority having jurisdiction, and it can differ between two adjacent towns. Call the building department before you dig. General information is not engineering advice, and structural work should be designed by a licensed engineer.

How we treat code adoption

We do not publish a table claiming which edition of the IRC or IBC your state has adopted, because no authoritative, freely retrievable table of code edition by state exists that we can verify and keep current.

Adoption happens at the state level and often again at the county or municipal level, with local amendments layered on top, and effective dates that shift. A page asserting “Ohio uses the 2021 IRC” is stating something it cannot verify for the address you are actually building at.

Instead we link the ICC’s own adoption map and tell you to confirm with your building department: https://www.iccsafe.org/adoptions/code-adoption-map/IBC

How we treat contractor licensing

Same reasoning. There is no authoritative national table of concrete contractor licensing requirements, thresholds and reciprocity that we can stand behind.

Licensing is set state by state, sometimes with separate municipal registration, and the dollar thresholds that trigger a license requirement change without much notice. Rather than publish a table that will be wrong somewhere on the day it goes live, we link the state licensing boards through NASCLA: https://www.nascla.org/page/licensingboards

Where we describe licensing in general terms, we say what usually applies and send you to the board that actually decides.

How we treat everything else with a number in it

A few rules apply across the site.

• Every number gets a unit, and both systems where it helps: 4,000 psi (27.6 MPa), 40 °F (4 °C), 4 inches (10 cm).
• Conversions are exact, not rounded silently. 1 MPa = 145.04 psi.
• Volume math is stated, not asserted. Calculators show their formula and assumptions so you can check them, including the waste factor.
• Supplier-set figures are labeled as supplier-set. Truck capacity, short-load fees, delivery radius and fuel surcharges vary by plant and have no national standard.
• Manufacturer figures are cited to that manufacturer. Bag yields and coverage rates come from the product’s technical data sheet, and formulations differ between brands.
• Approximations are labeled as approximations. The “70% strength at 7 days” figure is a widely repeated industry rule of thumb that does not appear in ACI 318, ACI 308 or the NRMCA Concrete in Practice series, and we say so wherever it appears.

When we get a number wrong

Tell us. Email [email protected] with the page, the figure and — if you have one — the source. We acknowledge correction reports within 3 business days and mark substantive corrections with a dated note on the page itself. The full process is in our editorial policy.