Tile Calculator
With area length 12 ft, area width 10 ft, tile length 24 inch, tile width 12 inch and 2 more fields, tile comes to 66 tiles — tiles to order. It is reached in 5 steps, the last of which is ceil(60 * (1 + 10 / 100)), and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by Tile Council of North America, not an approximation fitted to it.
How many tiles and boxes to order for a floor or wall, with the waste factor the layout actually needs.
Formula and sources checked · How we check
Area length 12 ft, Area width 10 ft, Tile length 24 inch, Tile width 12 inch
66 tiles
Tiles to order for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.
It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.
- Area to cover
12 * 10120 sq ft- Coverage per tile
24 * 12 / 1442 sq ft- Tiles before waste
120 / 260 tiles- Tiles to order
ceil(60 * (1 + 10 / 100))66 tiles- Boxes to order
ceil(66 / 8)9 boxes
Several at once
A job is rarely one of anything. Work out the first, add it, change the figures and add the next — the list keeps what each line was, and totals them.
Worked example
120 sq ft in 12 × 24 tile is 60 tiles before waste, 66 after, which is 9 boxes. Buy the boxes in one lot: tile is made in dye batches and a replacement box bought six months later will not match.
How to work it out yourself
- 1.Measure the area in feet and multiply length by width.
- 2.Work out the coverage of one tile: multiply its two sides in inches and divide by 144.
- 3.Divide the area by the coverage per tile for the raw tile count.
- 4.Add the waste factor for the layout — 10% straight, 15% diagonal, 20% herringbone.
- 5.Divide by the tiles per box and round up, then buy every box from one dye lot.
What does it cost?
Typical price is $2–$15 per sq ft. Materials only. Porcelain and ceramic sit low in the range, natural stone and large-format porcelain at the top.
| Item | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Ceramic tile | $2–$6 per sq ft |
| Porcelain tile | $3–$10 per sq ft |
| Natural stone | $6–$20 per sq ft |
| Installation labour | $5–$15 per sq ft |
Price ranges as of 2026. Materials pricing moves — treat these as a sanity check on a quote, not as a quote.
The formula
- Area to cover
12 * 10 - Coverage per tile
24 * 12 / 144 - Tiles before waste
120 / 2 - Tiles to order
ceil(60 * (1 + 10 / 100)) - Boxes to order
ceil(66 / 8)
Source: Tile Council of North America — installation handbook, ANSI A108 tile installation standards
Questions people actually ask
- Why order extra beyond the waste factor?
- Waste covers cuts. It does not cover the tile you break in year three. Keeping one spare box out of the same batch is the difference between a ten-minute repair and re-tiling a room.
- Does tile size change how much waste I need?
- Yes. Large-format tile wastes more per cut because each offcut is bigger and less likely to be reusable elsewhere in the room. Push to 15% for anything over 18 in on a side.
- Should I calculate walls and floors together?
- No. Run them separately — wall tile is usually a different size and layout, and mixing the two into one number hides which surface you are short on.
Related
- Square Footage CalculatorSquare footage of a room, wall, border, gable end, ring or triangle from feet-and-inches measurements, with a waste factor and the cost.
- Paint CalculatorGallons of paint for a room, after subtracting doors and windows and allowing for the number of coats.
- Laminate Flooring CalculatorBoxes of laminate, vinyl plank or engineered flooring for a room, with the waste a plank floor actually needs.
- Carpet CalculatorSquare yards of carpet from a 12 ft roll, with the seam waste a room wider than the roll actually costs.
- Drywall CalculatorSheets of drywall for a room, plus the screws, tape and joint compound to finish it. Screws, tape and compound too, with the ceiling counted separately.
- Mulch CalculatorCubic yards and bags of mulch for a bed, with a waste allowance and a warning when the depth would smother the roots.
Read first
- How to Measure a Room for Flooring — Where to hold the tape, how to split an odd shape into rectangles rather than one clever polygon, and how much extra to order once the offcuts are counted.
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