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Tile Calculator

How to use it

1. Measure the room's length and width in feet. For L-shaped rooms, split into two rectangles and add the areas.
2. Pick the tile size — bigger tiles mean fewer tiles but more waste on cuts in small rooms.
3. Choose waste: 10% for straight layouts in simple rooms, 15% for diagonals and 20% for patterns like herringbone.
4. The result gives tiles, boxes, thinset bags and grout bags. Keep one spare box for future repairs.

How the tile math works

Each tile covers its length × width: a 12×24 covers exactly 2 sq ft, a 12×12 covers 1 sq ft, a 3×6 subway covers an eighth of a square foot — which is why small tiles explode the count. The calculator divides your area (grown by the waste percentage) by the tile's area and rounds up, then converts to boxes using the manufacturer's typical pack count for that size.

Setting materials scale with area, not tile count — mostly. One 50 lb bag of thinset covers about 70 sq ft at the standard 3/16 in notch for large-format tile. Grout is the opposite: smaller tiles and wider joints eat far more grout, so the calculator uses a per-size coverage for a 25 lb bag (about 130 sq ft for 24×24 tile, only ~45 sq ft for 3×6 subway at standard joints).

What each number means at the store

Tile mistakes that cost money

• Ordering the exact tile count. One dropped tile or one bad cut and the job stops — or finishes with a mismatched dye lot.
• 10% waste on a herringbone floor. Pattern cuts waste far more; 20% is the honest figure.
• Thinset guessed by tile count. It is sold for area coverage and trowel size; big tiles drink more than small ones per square foot.
• Returning the spare tiles. A cracked tile in five years is a five-minute repair with spares on the shelf, and a remodel without them.

Tile Calculator — common questions

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