When you need to buy mulch (especially more than a few bags), you’ll want to shop when there’s a sale. Usually, that means shopping during the spring months when mulch sales happen at the biggest home improvement retailers.
Sales like Lowe’s SpringFest and Home Depot Spring Black Friday help you save an easy 50% on mulch. And with Menards' 11% rebate, it's possible to score low prices most times of year.
If your whole front yard needs fresh mulch, these discounts aren't just helpful — they're necessary. I'll walk you through the top sales to shop for mulch and how to easily compare prices so you can save the most money on home and garden deals.
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Always calculate the cost per cubic foot to find the best price on mulch.
Mulch comes in all different sizes, packages, and varieties, which is why it’s so hard to compare prices across brands. To most accurately compare prices across different mulches, we always calculate the cost per cubic foot. Doing this will tell you where to get the best deal every time.
Calculate the Cost per Cubic Foot:
First look at the price tag to see how much the item costs.
Then check the mulch package for its total cubic feet. Most packages have this listed front and center, but some brands place the total cubic feet in the bottom left or right corners of their packaging.
Then divide the item’s total price by its total cubic feet (Price / Cubic Feet) to get the price per cubic foot.
Aim to pay no more than $1.50 per cubic foot.
While rubber mulch prices tend to be high, most wood-based mulch comes out to about $1.25 - $2 per cubic foot.
But you can easily find mulch below the $1.50 price point during seasonal sales at top home improvement stores like Lowe's and Home Depot. And during these sales, Menards drops their mulch prices and tacks on their famous 11% rebate.
Moral of the story: Buy mulch at Menards if you’re lucky enough to have one in your area. If not, wait for spring sales at Lowe’s and Home Depot, if possible.
When does mulch go on sale?
Mulch sales usually happen during the spring and summer months. You can usually find mulch for the cheapest prices in late March and early April. But sometimes, Memorial Day sales bring in hard-to-miss savings in May too.
Home Depot 5 for $10 Mulch Sales
You'll find Home Depot's 5 for $10 mulch sale twice a year: once during Spring Black Friday and again during the Home Depot Memorial Day Sale.
We predict that the Home Depot Spring Black Friday sale will happen April 3 - 27, 2025. If the deals are like last year, you should be able to get five bags of Scotts EarthGro Mulch for $10, or $2 per bag, which is 50% off the regular price. Each bag includes 1.5 cubic feet of mulch, which gives you a cost of $1.33 per cubic foot.
Home Depot's Memorial Day event will pop up the following month, likely from May 15 - 26, 2025. This is when we see five bags of Scotts EarthGro mulch for $10 — aka the same exact deal as in the spring. Keep in mind that during either event, you can claim the $2-per-bag sale price no matter how many bags of mulch you buy (you're not required to buy five).
Lowe's 5 for $10 Mulch Sales
Lowe's also has twice-a-year 5 for $10 mulch sales, so you'll always want to compare prices with Home Depot to see if one beats the other. At Lowe's, the first time this deal pops up is during the Lowe's SpringFest Sale, which we expect to run from March 20 - April 16, 2025.
From tracking past Lowe's sales, we actually tend to see Lowe's spring deal on mulch beat Home Depot's. They always drop Lowe's Premium Wood Mulch to $2 a bag during the 5 for $10 sale (50% off). Each bag has two cubic feet of mulch, giving you a low cost of $1 per cubic foot.
Lowe's Memorial Day Sale happens the following month (predicted May 15 - 28, 2025), with another 5 for $10 mulch deal, but this time it's for Scotts Nature Scapes Mulch with a slightly higher cost per cubic foot ($1.33).
Even More Ways to Save on Mulch
1. Get to know the best regular prices for top mulch brands.
The cheapest variety of wood mulch will typically be red mulch, as its made from recycled products like wooden pallets or construction debris and dyed red to create a uniform look. You'll pay as low as $1.25 per cubic foot of red mulch at various retailers, but the color might not last as long as other varieties of mulch.
Premium hardwood mulch generally starts at $1.67 per cubic foot at regular price. But we recommend shopping during spring sales to pay less than $1.50 per cubic foot.
Brand/Product | Regular Cost per Cubic Foot | Retailer |
|---|---|---|
Timberline Wood Red Mulch | $1.25 | Home Depot or Lowe's |
Wood Ecology's Best Quality Red Mulch | $1.48 | |
Vigoro Premium Mulch | $1.67 | |
Premium Wood Mulch | $1.99 |
2. Use a mulch calculator to avoid overpaying.
Figuring out how much mulch I need to cover my garden is math I'd rather not solve by hand. Instead, I use this mulch calculator to do the work for me. You'll have to measure your square footage and the depth of your garden or flower bed, but the calculator will tell you exactly how much mulch you need.
It gives you calculations for 2- and 3-cubic-foot bags of mulch. So if you're buying a 1.5-cubic-foot bag, just double the amount they give you for 3-cubic-foot bags.
3. Skip delivery and rent a truck to transport mulch yourself.
Delivery fees on bulk mulch orders can cost you hundreds of dollars, depending on where you live. For example, Home Depot will deliver 10 - 20 bags of mulch to my address for $35. But if I need 21 bags or more, that delivery fee jumps to $79.
Lowe's delivery costs even more for mulch. For example, Lowe's will deliver 10 - 20 bags of mulch to my address for anywhere from $39 - $129, depending on the size of the bags.
If you're buying at least 15 bags of mulch, you could save some money by renting a truck and picking up the mulch yourself. Both Lowe's and Home Depot offer $19 truck rentals for 75 minutes (Home Depot) or 90 minutes (Lowe's).
Related: Here's how truck rentals and more prices compare at Lowe’s vs. Home Depot.
4. Check for bulk pricing deals to save up to 10% on mulch.
In the past, we’ve seen offers at Home Depot and Lowe’s for 10% off bulk mulch orders, but they’re not consistent. When you see one of these offers, be sure to run the numbers. Sometimes the bulk pricing discount will save you money per cubic square foot — but sometimes it won’t.
5. Keep your landscaping costs even lower with mulch alternatives.
Mulch isn't the only cost-effective way to nurture your garden. You can use composted kitchen scraps as an alternative to mulch. You'll have to routinely collect compost and layer it onto your soil. But even though it's more work, it's a free way to keep landscaping fresh.
Services like Chip Drop can get you free wood chips for your garden too. However, wood chips don't insulate your plants or retain water as well as mulch does.
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