Concrete delivery cost: the fees nobody prints
The mix price per yard is the part everyone quotes. The delivery side is where a small pour quietly doubles: a per-load delivery fee, a short-load surcharge, a minimum charge, standby once the truck waits, and a weekend premium. Below is an itemised walk through each one, taken from a supplier that publishes its actual schedule, with the source and our retrieval date attached.
Delivery is priced by zone, not by a national number
Most suppliers will not post their fees at all, which is exactly why a national average for delivery is not worth printing. Here is a complete zone schedule from one that does. Each row is the per-load delivery fee, the short-load threshold that applies in that zone, and the minimum concrete charge that applies on top.
Figures below: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026.
- Home zone (Vacaville, Dixon, Winters)$120short load under 3 yards, min 1 yard / $162
- Davis, Fairfield, Suisun City, Esparto$140short load under 5 yards, min 2 yards / $324
- Cordelia, Green Valley, Woodland, West Sacramento$160short load under 5 yards, min 3 yards / $486
- Rio Vista, Natomas, Dunnigan, Knights Landing$180short load under 5 yards, min 4 yards / $648
- Napa, Benicia, Vallejo, Elk Grove, South Sacramento$200short load under 5 yards, min 4 yards / $648
- Antioch, Martinez, Hercules, St. Helena, Roseville$300short load under 6 yards, min 5 yards / $810
- Lake Berryessa, Calistoga$350short load under 6 yards, min 5 yards / $810
Source: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026. Reported figures, not our own measurement and not a price we quote. Delivery fee per load. Fees listed are for delivery within city limits, and the supplier states prices are subject to change.
Read the shape, not the amounts. The home zone costs a third of the far zone, the short-load threshold climbs as the truck drives further, and the minimum charge climbs with it. Your own supplier will have a different table with the same logic. Ask for it by zone, using your job address, before you book.
The short-load fee, and why small pours cost so much per yard
A mixer truck, its driver and its round trip cost the supplier the same whether it carries 3 yards or 10. The short-load fee is how that gets recovered. On the schedule above (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026) the fee is $100, or the cost of the shortfall between the threshold and what you took, whichever is less, and it stacks with both the delivery fee and the minimum charge, all three on the same small ticket.
The practical consequence: on a one or two yard pour, fees can be the larger half of the bill, and the effective cost per yard has very little to do with any published per-yard mix price. Two ways out are worth asking about. Combine pours so one delivery covers more of the job, or ask whether the supplier runs a volumetric mixer, which batches on site and bills what you use.
Source: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026. Reported figures, not our own measurement and not a price we quote. Short-load terms as published by that supplier.
Standby time is billed in minutes
5 minutes of unloading per cubic yard is included, and loads of 4 yards or less get 20 minutes. Past that, $10 per additional 5 minutes.
Two details worth checking on any supplier's terms, because they decide when the meter starts. First, whether the clock begins at truck arrival or at your scheduled time, whichever is later. Second, how much unloading time each yard buys you. A crew that is still setting forms when the truck lands is paying for the privilege.
Source: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026. Reported figures, not our own measurement and not a price we quote. Unloading and standby terms as published by that supplier.
Weekends, hours and admixtures
Figures below: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026.
- Standard delivery hours6:00 am to 2:00 pm
- Saturday deliveryadd $50
- Sunday deliveryadd $100
- Non-chloride accelerator$13 per 1% per yard
- Hydration-stabilising retarderfrom $10 per yard
Source: Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). Retrieved 31 July 2026. Reported figures, not our own measurement and not a price we quote.
Admixtures are easy to forget at quote time and hard to avoid in practice. Cold weather slows the set and usually calls for an accelerator, hot weather does the reverse and calls for a retarder, and both are billed per yard on top of the mix. Integral colour and fibre are priced separately again, and the supplier we cite quotes colour case by case rather than publishing a rate.
What we will not put a number on
Concrete pumping, when the truck cannot reach the pour by chute. It is a common question and we found no source for it we would stand behind, so there is no figure here. Pumping is usually a separate contractor with a day rate, a minimum, and a per-yard charge, quoted on access, boom height and volume. Get it as its own line item before you book the concrete.
Same rule for site washout charges, fuel surcharges and per-mile rates beyond the outer zone. All three are real, all three appear on real tickets, and none of them has a national figure we can cite, so we tell you to ask rather than print a guess.
Producer price trend behind these fees
Ready-mix producer prices are tracked every month by the federal government, for the United States. The figures below are that index, which measures the direction and size of price movement at the plant. It is not a dollar price per yard, and we do not convert it into one.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index series PCU327320327320 (Producer Price Index by Industry: Ready-Mix Concrete Manufacturing), not seasonally adjusted. Retrieved 31 July 2026 via the public BLS API.
See certified plants serving your ZIP
Delivery fees, thresholds and minimums are set per plant and per zone, so the only way to know yours is to ask the plants that serve your address. See NRMCA-certified plants serving your ZIP, with direct numbers to call for a quote. Give us the job ZIP, phone, strength, rough size and pour date, and the matching plants appear on this page straight away. We keep your request on file, we do not pass it to any plant, there is no signup, and we never charge you.
Related
Common questions
How much does concrete delivery cost?
Delivery is charged per load and priced by distance zone, so there is no single national figure worth printing. On the one supplier that publishes its full schedule, the delivery fee runs from $120 in its home zone to $350 at the edge of its service area (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026). That is one company in one California market, so treat the amounts as an illustration and the structure as the thing that generalises: the further the truck drives, the higher the per-load fee.
What is a short load fee on concrete?
A surcharge for taking less than the supplier's threshold, because a mixer truck costs the same to send whether it is full or not. On the published schedule we cite (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026), the threshold ranges from 3 yards in the home zone to 6 yards in the furthest zone, and the fee is $100, or the cost of the shortfall between the threshold and what you took, whichever is less. Thresholds and amounts vary widely by supplier, so ask for the number before you order, not after.
Is there a minimum order for a concrete truck?
Often a minimum charge rather than a minimum quantity, which is a different thing. The one supplier we cite states there is no minimum delivery amount, but a minimum concrete charge applies by zone, from 1 yard / $162 up to 5 yards / $810 (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026). So a 1-yard pour in a far zone can be billed as though you took several yards, on top of the delivery fee. This is why very small pours often cost more per yard than large ones by a wide margin. Thresholds and amounts are set by each supplier.
Do concrete suppliers charge for waiting time?
Yes, and it is billed in minutes. On the published schedule we cite, 5 minutes of unloading per cubic yard is included, loads of 4 yards or less get 20 minutes, and past that it is $10 per additional 5 minutes (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026). Other suppliers set their own windows and rates. Your crew, forms and site access being ready before the truck arrives is a real cost item, not just good practice.
Does Saturday concrete delivery cost more?
Usually. The supplier we cite publishes standard delivery hours of 6:00 am to 2:00 pm and adds $50 for Saturday and $100 for Sunday (Townsend Concrete, price list updated 12 April 2026, retrieved 31 July 2026). Weekend and out-of-hours premiums are common across the industry, but the amounts are set by each supplier.
How much does it cost to pump concrete instead of using the chute?
We do not publish a figure for pumping, because we could not source one we would stand behind. Pumping is normally a separate contractor with its own day rate, minimum, and per-yard charge, and it is quoted job by job on access, height and volume. If the truck cannot reach your pour by chute, ask for the pump quote as a separate line before you book the concrete.
How far will a concrete truck deliver?
Ready-mix is mixed wet and starts hydrating on the way, which caps a practical haul at roughly 90 minutes from the batch plant. Suppliers express that as service zones with rising delivery fees, and past the outer zone they generally decline the job rather than price it. This is why the nearest certified plant matters more to your total than anything you can read on a national page.
Where these numbers come from
We hold no price data of our own. We run a directory of NRMCA-certified plants, and certification is not pricing. So every figure on this page is somebody else's published number, named and dated below. Anything we could not source, we left off the page.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index series PCU327320327320, Producer Price Index by Industry: Ready-Mix Concrete Manufacturing, not seasonally adjusted, monthly, covering the United States. Latest observation June 2026. Retrieved 31 July 2026. An index of producer price movement, not a dollar price. We never convert it into dollars per yard.
- Concrete Prices guide, ConcreteNetwork.com (updated 14 July 2026). https://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete-prices.html. Retrieved 31 July 2026. third-party reported range, compiled from supplier and contractor reports. A national aggregation of what suppliers and contractors reported, not a measured census of transactions. Treat it as a sanity check on the order of magnitude, not as the price you will be quoted.
- Published ready-mix price list, Townsend Concrete, Vacaville, California (updated 12 April 2026). https://www.townsendconcrete.com/prices. Retrieved 31 July 2026. one supplier's own published price list. One supplier, one service area (Solano and Yolo counties, California), and a volumetric mixed-on-site operation rather than a drum-truck batch plant. We cite it because it publishes its actual fee schedule, which most suppliers do not. The fee STRUCTURE is what generalises. The dollar amounts are that company's, in that market, on that date.
Readers do send us their job details through this site, and we keep those on file. We are deliberately not publishing any aggregate of that data yet, because we do not have enough of it for the average to mean anything. When we do, it will be labelled as ours and dated like everything else.