Tile Layout Planner — Plan Your Tile Set-Out and Cuts
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Enter your walls and floor, add the doors, windows, bath or shower tray, and pick a tile. The planner sets the tiles out the way a professional tiler would, centred so the cuts at each edge are balanced and not thin slivers. It then draws the result with dimensions, labels every cut, gives you step-by-step setting-out lines and counts tiles from the real layout rather than from area alone.
Drag the round handles to resize the room. Drag a door, window or tray to move it, and its corner handles to resize it. Items snap to 10 mm (¼″) and to the edges; hold Alt for fine moves, or select one and use the arrow keys.
Setting out
Cut list
Shopping list — all surfaces
Note: The plans assume walls are square and plumb. Measure each wall at the top and bottom, and at both ends. If the figures differ by more than a few millimetres, enter the smaller one and expect some tapered cuts.
How this calculator works
For each surface the planner finds the centre of the area that will actually be tiled, ignoring anything that spans a whole side, such as a bath along the back of a floor. It tries two set-outs: one with a tile centred on that line, and one with a grout joint on it. It keeps whichever gives the wider cuts at the edges. For offset patterns it checks every row, because each row's cuts move. Tiles are then laid out with your joint width and a movement gap at the edges. Any tile inside an opening is removed, and tiles that overlap an opening's edge become straight cuts or notches. Identical cuts are grouped and lettered in the cut list. To count tiles, the planner re-uses offcuts where a second piece fits in what's left of a cut tile, allowing 3 mm per saw cut, then adds your spare percentage and rounds up to whole boxes. Grout uses the standard manufacturers' formula: (tile length + width) ÷ (length × width) × joint width × joint depth × 1.6 kg per square metre.
Worked example
Take the example wall: 1700 mm wide above the bath and 1800 mm up to the ceiling, with 600 × 300 mm tiles, 2 mm joints and a 3 mm silicone gap at the edges. Centred, the rows run 545 | 600 | 545 mm, a generous cut in each corner. With full tiles from the bath upward, five full rows fit, leaving a 284 mm row at the ceiling, and the batten goes 305 mm above the bath rim. That comes to 18 tiles: 5 full and 13 cut pieces. Now narrow the wall to 1400 mm. Starting with a full tile in the left corner gives 600 | 600 | 190 mm, a thin strip in the right corner that looks like a mistake. Auto centring gives 395 | 600 | 395 instead. The catch is that the neat version needs 18 tiles against 14, because three 190 mm strips come out of one tile but 395 mm pieces can't share. A simple area-plus-10% estimate says 16 for either layout. That's enough for the ugly one but two short for the good one, which is why this planner counts tiles from the actual layout.
Frequently asked questions
How do I avoid thin slivers of tile at the edges?
Don't start from a corner. Find the centre of the wall or floor and try two options: a tile centred on the line, or a grout joint on the line. Use whichever gives the bigger cut at each edge. Tilers aim for edge cuts of at least half a tile and never less than a third. The Auto set-out does this for you, including for every row of an offset pattern.
Should I start tiling from the bath or the floor?
No. Baths and floors are rarely level, and if the first row follows them, every row above goes out of level. Fix a straight, level batten one row up and tile upwards from it. When the adhesive has set, remove the batten and cut the bottom row to fit. The planner gives you the batten height for each wall.
Should the cut row be at the top or bottom of a wall?
Usually put full tiles at the most visible line, such as the bath rim or a worktop, and the cut row at the ceiling, where it's least noticed. If that leaves a strip under a third of a tile at the top, switch to balanced cuts so the top and bottom rows are equal.
What size grout joint should I use?
About 2 mm (1/16 in) for rectified tiles, which have precision-ground edges, and 3 mm for standard wall tiles. Floors usually take 3 to 5 mm. The ANSI standard minimum is 1/16 in. Tiles are never perfectly identical, so butting them together without a joint causes problems.
Can I use a half brick offset with large tiles?
It isn't recommended. Large tiles are slightly bowed, and a half offset puts the high middle of one tile next to the low end of another, so the edges don't sit flush (lippage). ANSI A108.02 and most manufacturers limit the offset to a third for tiles longer than 18 in (about 450 mm) on the offset side. Choose the 1/3 offset pattern instead.
How do I plan tiles around a window or door?
Add it as an opening, then choose it under Centre / align on. The layout is then centred on the window rather than the wall, so the cuts either side of it match. For walls you can also line a grout joint up with the window sill or the top of the opening, which avoids thin strips along it. Notched tiles around corners are listed separately in the cut list.
How do I handle a shower tray, bath or vanity on the floor?
Add it as an obstruction on the floor surface. Tiles underneath are removed and the edge tiles become cuts. If it spans a full side, such as a bath along the back wall, the planner centres the layout on the visible floor so the cuts against the bath and the opposite wall match.
How many spare tiles should I buy?
Because the planner already counts every cut, the spare allowance only has to cover breakage, miscuts and a few tiles kept for future repairs. Ten percent is a sensible default. Buy all your tiles from the same batch, because shade can vary between batches, and keep the leftovers.
Does the planner work in inches?
Yes. Switch the units to inches and every field, dimension and cut size is shown in inches, with cut sizes rounded to the nearest 1/16 in. Your plan is saved in your browser, so you can close the page and come back to it.