One US cup of powdered sugar weighs about 120 grams. That single number is what makes this conversion possible, and it is why baking by weight is more reliable than baking by volume.
Sifted. Unsifted it can be 10-15% heavier. Volume measures depend on how the ingredient is packed into the cup, while a gram is a gram no matter how you scoop it.
Enter your amount above to convert it. The table below covers the fractions recipes actually call for, including thirds and eighths of a cup.
Below the calculator sits the powdered Sugar cup to gram table: 11 rows — 0.125 cups at one end, 4 cups at the other — which is usually faster than entering a value you have seen before. Nothing has to be entered to see it work: the default for cups of powdered sugar is 1 cups, and the output recomputes the moment that changes. The formula is written out above with all 3 of its quantities named (cups, 120, grams), so the arithmetic can be followed by hand. Most visitors arrive here from, or leave for, Powdered Sugar: Grams to Cups Converter and Packed Brown Sugar: Grams to Cups Converter.
The formula
cups- Volume of powdered sugar in US cups
120- Grams in one US cup of powdered sugar
grams- Weight of the ingredient
How it works, step by step
- Enter your quantity of powdered sugar.
- The tool applies the density of 120 g per US cup.
- The converted figure appears immediately, along with an ounce equivalent.
- Use the table for common recipe fractions without typing anything.
Worked examples
A standard single batch
A recipe calling for 2 cups of powdered sugar needs 240 g. Weighing it removes the guesswork of how firmly to pack the cup.
Scaling a recipe by half
Half a cup of powdered sugar is 60 g — easier to hit accurately on a scale than to eyeball in a measuring cup.
Checking the 0.75 cups row
The reference table lists Cups = 0.75 cups, giving Grams: 90 g, Ounces: 3.2 oz. Entering that above should reproduce the same figures — if it does not, the input is being read differently to the way the table assumes.
Frequently asked questions
How many grams are in a cup of powdered sugar?
About 120 grams for a US cup. Sifted. Unsifted it can be 10-15% heavier.
How many grams are in a tablespoon of powdered sugar?
A US tablespoon is one sixteenth of a cup, so about 7.5 grams.
Why do different sources give different gram values?
Because volume measuring is genuinely imprecise. How you fill the cup changes the weight, sometimes by 20% or more for flours and powders. Published values assume a specific method — usually spooned and levelled — and this page uses that convention.
Should I bake by weight or volume?
By weight whenever a scale is available. It is more repeatable, faster with fewer dishes, and it is the reason professional recipes are written in grams.
How precise is the weight in grams?
Internally the maths runs at full double precision and the display keeps the significant figures that carry information, dropping the digits that are only rounding noise. Rounding happens at the display step alone, so nothing accumulates error as you change the input. The figure is reported in g.
What formula does the Powdered Sugar: Cups to Grams Converter use?
It computes grams = cups × 120, where cups is volume of powdered sugar in US cups; 120 is grams in one US cup of powdered sugar; grams is weight of the ingredient. The same expression is printed on the page above the inputs, so the result can be reproduced by hand or in a spreadsheet.
Powdered Sugar conversion table
| Cups | Grams | Ounces |
|---|---|---|
| 0.125 cups | 15 g | 0.5 oz |
| 0.25 cups | 30 g | 1.1 oz |
| 0.333 cups | 40 g | 1.4 oz |
| 0.5 cups | 60 g | 2.1 oz |
| 0.667 cups | 80 g | 2.8 oz |
| 0.75 cups | 90 g | 3.2 oz |
| 1 cup | 120 g | 4.2 oz |
| 1.5 cups | 180 g | 6.3 oz |
| 2 cups | 240 g | 8.5 oz |
| 3 cups | 360 g | 12.7 oz |
| 4 cups | 480 g | 16.9 oz |
Based on 1 US cup of powdered sugar = 120 g. Sifted. Unsifted it can be 10-15% heavier.