The internet treats QUIKRETE and Sakrete as a personality test. For the mix this site actually calculates — standard 80 lb concrete in a bag — they are the same product in the only number that changes your order: yield.
Both the QUIKRETE Concrete Mix #1101 data sheet and the Sakrete High-Strength Concrete Mix technical data list 0.60 cubic feet from an 80 lb bag. That is why how much concrete do I need? and every slab size page can be brand-agnostic. Swap the bag on the pallet and the bag count does not move.
The brands stop matching the moment you leave that standard mix. That is the useful comparison.
The number that actually matches
| Bag (standard mix) | Yield | Bags per cubic yard |
|---|---|---|
| 40 lb | 0.30 ft³ | 90 |
| 50 lb | 0.375 ft³ | 72 |
| 60 lb | 0.45 ft³ | 60 |
| 80 lb | 0.60 ft³ | 45 |
| 90 lb | 0.675 ft³ | 40 |
Those yields are the QUIKRETE #1101 table. Sakrete’s high-strength 80 lb bag hits the same 0.60 ft³. This site’s calculator uses that table for every standard-mix estimate. It does not use it for fast-setting, crack-resistant, or mortar mixes, because those bags are a different recipe and a different cubic-foot number.
If a review tells you one brand “covers more,” they are usually mixing up product lines, not 80 lb standard mix. Read the YIELD line on the bag you are holding. If it is not 0.60 ft³ at 80 lb, do not use this site’s bag count.
Where they live on the shelf
In a lot of US markets the practical difference is which store you are already in. Home Depot has historically been a QUIKRETE house; Lowe’s a Sakrete house. Independent lumberyards stock whichever distributor they have. That is a logistics fact, not a quality ranking, and it is the reason most DIY pads are “the brand that was in stock on Saturday.”
Bag price on this site is a single US-average estimate per weight (~$6.50 for 80 lb as of June 2026), because the two brands trade in the same band at retail. Your store’s sale price will move the bill more than the logo will. Confirm the shelf price; do not use our figure as a quote.
Bigger bags are cheaper per cubic foot on either brand. 40 lb mix at ~$4.00 is about $13.33/ft³. 80 lb mix at ~$6.50 is about $10.83/ft³. You pay roughly a quarter extra for the lighter lift. If you can handle 80 lb, buy 80s. That arithmetic is in the bags vs ready-mix guide and it does not care whose name is on the kraft.
Standard mix vs the rest of the aisle
Both companies sell a family, and the family is where people buy the wrong bag.
Standard / high-strength concrete mix (QUIKRETE #1101, Sakrete High-Strength and their equivalents) is what you want for a slab, a sidewalk, a shed pad. Typical design strength in the 3,500–4,000 PSI neighborhood after 28 days when you mix it as directed. This is the bag the calculator is talking about.
Fast-setting concrete mix (QUIKRETE Fast-Setting #1004 is the one this site calls out) is for setting posts. You pour it dry or damp into the hole around the post and it firms up in minutes. The working time is the feature. It is also why it is a miserable, expensive, and structurally pointless way to place a pad: you cannot screed, float, and broom 50 bags of something that is going off in a quarter of an hour, and the yield is not 0.60 ft³. If the calculator said 50 bags, that was 50 bags of standard mix.
Crack-resistant / fiber-reinforced mixes put synthetic fibers in the blend. Fibers help with plastic shrinkage cracking — the hairline network that shows up in the first few hours on a hot, windy day. They are not a substitute for control joints and they are not structural rebar. Useful on a slab; not magic. Check the yield on that bag before you reuse a standard-mix bag count.
Mortar mix and sand mix are not concrete. Mortar is for brick and block. Sand mix (no stone) is a topping and patch material. Using mortar as a “smoother concrete” for a pad is how you get a weak, expensive slab. The bag will not have a 0.60 ft³ concrete yield because it is not that product.
QUIKRETE 5000 and other high-early-strength blends reach a higher PSI faster. You pay more per bag. You still have to place it like concrete. Reach for them when a spec or a short cure window asks; not as a default upgrade on a shed pad.
If the job is a slab, buy standard concrete mix in 80 lb bags, or skip the aisle and order ready-mix. The brand argument is a side quest.
Strength, on paper and in the yard
Published PSI is a lab number at a stated water-cement ratio, age, and curing regime. Adding extra water in a wheelbarrow to make the mix “soup” so it is easy to rake will do more to the finished strength than swapping QUIKRETE for Sakrete ever will. Curing — keeping the slab damp for days, not letting it bake — is the other half. A well-cured standard bag beats a neglected “5000 PSI” bag. That is not brand loyalty. That is how Portland cement works.
Both brands, on standard mix, are in the same residential PSI class. Neither is an engineered mix for a structural footing. If a drawing specifies a mix design, you are not shopping this aisle.
When the brands do differ
They differ in product names, specialty SKUs, and which additive package is in a given bag. A fiber mix from one brand is not chemically identical to a fiber mix from the other. Fast-set chemistry is proprietary. Color, workability, and how a bag behaves in a mixer on a 40 °F morning will not be identical.
They also differ in availability that day. A 10% waste factor does not help you if the store has 18 bags of the brand you wanted and you need 50. Buy the matching product type in whatever brand fills the cart, or split across two stores before you add water. Do not switch product types mid-pour (standard into a fast-set edge, mortar into a slab) to finish the last corner.
They do not differ, for our purposes, in the 80 lb standard-mix yield. That is the claim this page is here to make, because it is the claim the calculator depends on.
Bag economics, once yield is equal
Because yield matches, the remaining bag math is the same as any other standard mix:
- Waste 10%, then round up. A ½-inch low subgrade on a small pad is already most of that 10%.
- 80 lb bags unless you cannot lift them. 60s cost more per cubic foot and mean more bags to split, lift, and empty.
- A mixer, not a wheelbarrow-and-hoe, once you are past a handful of bags. Forming and pouring a small slab is the sequence; this page is only the SKU.
- Ready-mix once you are near a cubic yard, after the short-load fee. Brand-of-bag is a small-pad question. A 12×12 is already arguing with a truck.
Worked example, brand-agnostic: a 10×10×4″ slab is 33.3 ft³, or 1.23 yd³. At 0.60 ft³ per 80 lb bag that is 56 bags before waste and 62 with 10%. QUIKRETE or Sakrete, that is 62 bags. At ~$6.50 that is about $400 in mix before tax, before a mixer rental, before you count a Saturday. Delivered ready-mix for 1.5 yd³ at ~$165/yd³ plus a short-load fee can undercut that on money and crush it on labour. The logo on the bag is not the decision.
Mixing water, yield, and the “extra bag” myth
A wetter mix is easier to rake and it does not yield more slab. The cement paste has a volume; extra water dilutes it and then leaves as bleed and evaporation. What you gain in workability you lose in strength and in a surface that dusts. You do not gain cubic feet. If the calculator said 62 bags, 62 soupy bags is still 62 bags of solids and a weaker pad.
Both brands print a water range on the bag. The low end of that range is the mix you can still place with a hoe and a mixer. If you cannot, the usual causes are adding a bag before the last one has wet out, a mixer drum packed with yesterday’s crust, or trying to mix four bags in a tub meant for two. None of those is a reason to pick the other logo.
People also add an “extra bag for luck” on top of the 10% waste this site already applies. On an 8×8 that is harmless leftover. On a 12×12 it is another 80 lb you now have to place before the first batch goes off, or another trip to return it. Trust the waste factor; spend the luck on a flat base.
What to read on the bag in the aisle
- The product name: concrete mix, not mortar, not sand mix, not blacktop repair.
- The YIELD line. You want 0.60 ft³ at 80 lb for any estimate you took from this site.
- The water range. Stay toward the low end.
- The working time. If it says minutes, it is a post bag. Put it back.
If those four match, buy the cheaper (or closer) pallet. Save the brand debate for paint, where sheen and resin actually change the job — see which paint sheen — or for the ready-mix vs bags call, which changes the job more than any logo on kraft paper.
Sources: QUIKRETE #1101 data sheet (yield table); Sakrete High-Strength TDS
(80 lb = 0.60 ft³); this site’s data/concrete.ts constants, which treat
the two as interchangeable for standard mix only. Fast-setting and
specialty yields are deliberately not in the calculator. Prices are US
national-average estimates as of June 2026.