Convert cups to pounds for common cooking ingredients. Select your ingredient (or enter a custom density), input the number of cups, and get the weight in pounds back immediately. Useful when a recipe lists volume but your scale measures weight.
Weight in Pounds
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Weight in Grams
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Weight in Ounces
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Density Used
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Cups per Pound
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Cups measure volume — how much space an ingredient takes up — while pounds measure weight or mass. Because different ingredients have different densities, the same volume of flour and sugar will weigh different amounts. That's why you can't use a single universal conversion factor and must account for the specific ingredient.
The formula is: pounds = cups × density (g/mL) × cup volume (mL) ÷ 453.592. For US cups this simplifies to pounds = cups × density × 0.5216. So for all-purpose flour (density ≈ 0.53 g/mL), 1 US cup weighs approximately 0.28 lb.
It depends on the ingredient. One US cup of water weighs about 0.52 lb, one cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 0.28 lb, and one cup of granulated sugar weighs about 0.44 lb. Use this converter to get the exact figure for your ingredient.
Density is the mass of a substance per unit of volume, expressed here in g/mL. Water has a density of 1.0 g/mL, flour is around 0.53 g/mL, and sugar is around 0.85 g/mL. If your ingredient isn't listed, you can look up its density and enter it in the Custom Density field.
Most American recipes use the US cup (236.588 mL). Recipes from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa may use either the metric cup (250 mL) or the imperial cup (284.131 mL). When in doubt, check the recipe's country of origin or look for a note on the cup size used.
Professional bakers and pastry chefs generally prefer weighing ingredients in pounds or grams because it's more precise — scooping flour, for example, can vary by 20% depending on how tightly it's packed. For casual home baking, cups are convenient, but for anything that requires precision (like bread or macarons), weight measurements give more consistent results.
One pound of all-purpose flour equals approximately 3.62 US cups. Bread flour yields about 3.49 cups per pound, while cake flour, being lighter, yields around 4.0 cups per pound. These values can vary slightly based on how the flour is measured (sifted vs. scooped).
One pound of granulated white sugar is approximately 2.26 US cups. Powdered (confectioners') sugar is lighter and measures around 3.63 cups per pound, while packed brown sugar is closer to 2.20 cups per pound.