Tile Calculator

What Is a Tile Calculator?

This free tile calculator tells you exactly how many tiles to buy for any floor or wall — including a waste allowance for cuts and breakages. It accounts for room area, individual tile size, layout complexity, and optionally calculates how many boxes to purchase. In short, this tile calculator eliminates the guesswork that leads to buying too few tiles and facing discontinued stock problems midway through a job.

Ordering too few tiles is one of the most common and costly home renovation mistakes. Tiles from different production batches have subtle colour and texture variations that are virtually impossible to match after the fact. This tile calculator ensures you order enough in one purchase.

How Does the Tile Calculator Work?

This tile calculator rounds up at every step to ensure you never run short. For example, a 4 m × 3 m room (12 m²) with 60 × 60 cm tiles (0.36 m²) needs 34 base tiles, plus 10% waste = 38 tiles to buy.

How to Use This Tile Calculator

1. Enter room dimensions in metres — length and width.
2. Enter tile dimensions in centimetres — check the tile box for exact sizes.
3. Select waste allowance — use 10% for most jobs. This tile calculator adds the percentage automatically.
4. Enter tiles per box (optional) — the tile calculator shows how many boxes to buy.
5. Click Calculate — tile count, waste-adjusted total, and box count appear instantly.

What Waste Percentage Should I Use in This Tile Calculator?

• 5%: Very simple rectangular room, large tiles, straight grid layout, minimal cuts. Use this setting in this tile calculator for the most straightforward jobs only.
• 10%: Standard allowance recommended for most tiling jobs. This tile calculator uses 10% as the default.
• 15%: Diagonal or herringbone layouts, L-shaped rooms, small mosaic tiles, or rooms with many obstacles like pillars and alcoves.
• 20%: Large format tiles (600 mm+), complex patterns, or areas where many precise cuts are required. Furthermore, 20% is appropriate when tiling an irregular surface.

Is This Tile Calculator Accurate?

This tile calculator is accurate for rectangular rooms and uniform tile sizes. For irregular room shapes, calculate the area in sections and enter the total into this tile calculator. Note that this tile calculator does not account for grout joint width — for tiles with very wide grout joints, add 2–3% to the waste percentage. According to Bunnings’ Tile Buying Guide, always order at least 10% extra to allow for cuts, breakages, and future repairs — exactly what this tile calculator provides by default.

Tile Calculator for Floors vs Walls

This tile calculator works identically for both floors and walls. Enter the area dimensions — length and width — regardless of whether the surface is horizontal or vertical. For walls, enter the wall height as one dimension and the wall width as the other. Furthermore, if you are tiling both floor and walls in a bathroom, run this tile calculator separately for each surface.

Tile Calculator — Frequently Asked Questions