Turn a room into tiles, square metres and boxes — with the waste margin already included.
Tile is sold by the box, laid by the piece and measured in square metres, and the shop will not take back an opened box. This calculator moves between all three units at once: give it the room and the tile format and it returns the square metres to order, the number of pieces that represents, how many boxes that becomes and how much floor you will have left at the end. A 12 m² room with 60 × 60 tiles and a 10% waste margin needs 13.2 m² — 37 pieces, or 7 boxes of 2 m², which is 14 m² going home with you.
The waste percentage is the part everyone underestimates. Every cut against a wall throws away the offcut, and the bigger the format the more expensive each mistake becomes: a botched 80 × 80 piece costs four times the area of a botched 45 × 45. Ten per cent is the usual allowance for straight laying in a simple rectangle; fifteen is the number to use for diagonal patterns, herringbone, large formats or a room full of corners, niches and door frames. The tool derives the tile area from the dimensions in centimetres, divides the area to buy by it and rounds up, then does the same against the square metres per box — 2 m² by default, but check the real figure on the box, because that is the unit the shop actually sells.
Two habits save the job. Buy every box from the same batch: tone and calibre drift slightly between production runs, and once the floor is laid the difference between two batches is impossible to unsee — the batch number is printed on the side of the box. And keep the leftovers rather than returning them, because finding a matching batch to replace a cracked tile three years later is close to impossible. This calculator covers quantities only; adhesive, grout, levelling spacers and labour are separate calculations. Everything runs in JavaScript on your own device and nothing you type leaves the page.
Area to buy = room area × (1 + waste ÷ 100). Tiles = area to buy ÷ tile area, rounded up, where the tile area is width × length in centimetres divided by 10,000. Boxes = area to buy ÷ square metres per box, rounded up. Left over = boxes × m² per box − room area.
Divide the area to buy — the room area plus the waste margin — by the area of one tile, and round up. A 12 m² room at 10% waste is 13.2 m², which at 0.36 m² per 60 × 60 tile means 37 pieces.
About 10% for straight laying in a simple rectangular room, and around 15% for diagonal or herringbone patterns, very large formats and rooms with many cuts. The offcuts from cutting against walls are what the margin pays for.
It depends on the product — commonly between 1.4 m² and 2.5 m², with 2 m² as a frequent value and the default used here. The exact figure is printed on the box and is what the price refers to.
Because tone and calibre vary slightly between production runs, and mixing two batches on the same floor produces visible bands. The batch number appears on the box, so check it before leaving the shop.
Keep at least a few pieces. Replacing a cracked tile years later with a matching batch is nearly impossible, and an unopened box is cheap insurance for the whole floor.
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