Estimate tiles for a floor, wall or backsplash from the area and tile size, including a waste allowance for cuts and breakage.
| Input | Result |
|---|---|
| 120 ft², 12×12 in tile, 10% waste | 132 tiles · 1 per ft² |
| 120 ft², 6×6 in tile, 10% waste | 528 tiles · 4 per ft² |
| 80 ft², 18×18 in tile, 15% waste | 41 tiles · 0.44 per ft² |
Tile is the one flooring material where the offcut is usually scrap. A cut tile only gets reused if the remaining piece is big enough for the next gap, and in a diagonal layout or a small room with lots of obstacles, most of them are not. That is why the allowance here is 10% by default and 15–20% for diagonal work, large-format tile, or rooms with many corners.
Grout joints are deliberately left out of the arithmetic: the calculation uses the tile face size, so the real count is slightly lower over a large area. Rounding up and the waste allowance cover that.
Order from one production run and keep spares. Tile shade and calibre vary between batches, so a reorder months later to fix one cracked tile rarely matches. A few spare tiles from the original lot are worth more than the money saved by ordering tight.
Ten percent is the usual figure for a straightforward straight-lay job in a simple room. Go to 15–20% for diagonal layouts, small rooms with many cuts, large-format tile, or intricate patterns where offcuts are harder to reuse.
Because tile is cut to fit and the offcuts are often unusable, whereas leftover paint keeps. Every outside corner, doorway and obstacle generates cuts, and a damaged or miscut tile is scrap.
Yes, keep a few whole tiles from the same production run. Tile colour and calibre vary between batches, so a later reorder rarely matches exactly.
Not directly, the calculation uses the tile's face size. Grout lines reduce the number of tiles slightly in practice, which is one reason the result is rounded up and why the waste allowance matters.
144 divided by the tile's area in square inches. A 12×12 in tile is one per square foot, a 6×6 in tile is four, an 18×18 in tile is 0.44. Change the tile size and the count per square foot moves with it, which is why tile is ordered by calculated count rather than by area.
It turns on three things no calculator can know for your job: the tile price per square foot, the local labour rate, and how much preparation the substrate needs, levelling, backer board and waterproofing all add cost. Get two or three written quotes that separate labour from materials, then divide by your square footage to get a per-foot rate you can actually compare.
Removal is normally quoted as its own line and depends on how the old tile was set, what it is bonded to, and how the debris is hauled away. Ask for it itemised rather than folded into the installation price, so you can see what the demolition is costing you.