Tile Calculator

The tile calculator is the answer to all handy people taking on a tiling project. Anyone who has undertaken any construction project knows the importance of planning ahead, be it for bricks, mulch, or tiles.

So, you might be wondering, "How many tiles do I need? How many tile boxes should I buy? How much cheaper is living a grout gap between my tiles?" The answers are waiting for you, so read on and calculate away!

Similar to this tiles calculator, our brick calculator and mulch calculator will help you with your other interesting construction project.

Let's cut to the chase, "I'm tiling my floor/wall/shower, etc., and I want to know exactly how many tiles I should buy to complete the project?". Just follow these steps using the tile calculator:

1. Enter the length and width of the tiles. Alternatively, you can input their individual square footage if you know it. Our square footage calculator can help you.

2. Select your gap: Positive means there's a gap, zero means no gap, and a negative gap indicates overlapping tiles.

3. Enter the dimensions of the space you want to tile (length and width or total area)

4. Add your wastage to account for broken or problematic tiles.

5. Boom! Thanks to this tile estimator, you now know how many tiles you need.

Now, into the logistics and economics of the project:

1. Make sure you know how many tiles you need.
2. Input the number of tiles in each box that you intend to buy.
3. Input the cost of each box of tiles.
4. Enjoy effortless calculations to help you efficiently plan your project.

A quick tip: If you want to check out the biggest possible length and width of a single tile for your surface, you'd better try the GCF calculator to get an immediate answer. Simply enter the dimensions of the surface you want to cover with tiles, and the GCF result will be the largest tile size you can use.

For those of you who are looking for more than just a number, let's keep going. Let's start with the very basics: tiling. Tiling is the action (or art, as we will see later) of covering a surface using simple shapes that repeat over the whole area to completely cover the underlying (usually ugly but functional) structure.

There are many types of tiles and many styles to choose from. You could go for a very regular tiling pattern, which leaves you just 3 possible options: triangles, squares, or hexagons since they are the only regular shapes that can cover a plane without any gaps.

But we're not here to tell you how to tile your shower - maybe you like to leave some gaps? In that case, you will need fewer tiles but much more care when applying and grouting them.

Stylistic and economic reasons are both valid when selecting your tiles, which is why this calculator also calculates the tile flooring costs (at least the raw materials part).

Back on to the math side of tiling, we will see now how the calculator works internally. To know how many tiles you need for your project, you simply need the area of the space to fill. Just divide one by the other, and you're golden. Just remember to round up, as they don't sell fractional tiles.

number of tiles = area to tile / area of one tile

Even if you know how to tile a floor, it is always recommended to include some margin of error, as tiles often break when cutting them. That's also a feature we have put into the calculator, and we take those extra tiles into account when calculating the number of boxes needed and the cost to tile the shower or whatever you are planning to tile.

To simplify the calculations, we assume you will be using rectangular tiles. But, don't worry, if you are using other shapes, as long as you fill the area neatly (within the gap you selected), the only difference is in the edges. Even then, it would almost always be smaller than the waste margin you select.

Oh, I see I got your interest when I mention different shapes of tiles... Can I interest you in some funky patterns and very cool tessellation ideas? 😏

Tessellation is definitely a big word, but it means something as simple as dividing a flat surface into smaller repeating shapes, leaving no space between them. The very basic ones use regular polygons such as hexagons, squares and triangles; but the crazy cool ones (like Penrose tiling) use other shapes to create truly amazing patterns.

Personally, if we were deciding how to tile a floor, we would look no further than the Penrose tiling. This pretty tessellation idea is one that uses just rhombuses to create a symmetrical but non-periodical pattern. Check it out below:

Though one of our favorites, this is certainly not the only tessellating option. Just be careful when selecting your pattern, as a complex one can increase your tile flooring cost very quickly, not only due to the tile costs, but also due to the difficulty of the pattern itself.

When deciding how to tile a shower (or how to tile a floor, for that matter), tile cost is one of the most important factors to consider. In broad terms, the cost to tile the shower can be divided into labor (plus tip) and materials cost.

The first one depends heavily on the complexity of your pattern (crazy tessellation ideas tend to cost much more) and who you choose to do the job. We cannot really help you with this part of your expenses, but we can help you calculate the tile cost, A.K.A. the materials cost.

For that, we assume you'll only be using one type of tile (if you need more, please let us know, and we will do our best to add the feature). All you need to do is calculate how many tiles you need using the tile calculator and then input the price per tile.

It is a known fact that, when cutting tiles, some of them will break. Some say 1 in every 3 will break, but your ability can decrease (or increase) that number slightly. We help you take that into account by setting a wastage percentage. You can convert percent to fraction or vice versa using our fraction to percent calculator if you need to. Just remember that it is better to be safe than sorry.

There is an intermediate step since tiles are almost always sold in packs of fixed numbers. That means that even if you need 13 tiles, including wastage, you might need to end up buying slightly more of them. But fear not, for we take that into account and do all the math for you.