Free tool
Carpet Calculator
Enter your room length and width — get the floor area, square yards with a waste allowance, and the carpet and pad material cost. Free, no signup for the estimate.
Carpet needed
0.0 sq yd
- Floor area0 sq ft
- With waste0 sq ft
- Carpet cost—
- Pad cost—
- Total material—
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Or download it now (PDF)How to measure for carpet
Carpet comes down to the floor area and how much extra you carry for waste — then a conversion, because the goods are sold by the square yard, not the square foot. Get the measurement and the allowance right and you order one roll that covers the job instead of coming up a strip short on install day.
1. Measure length by width to the widest points
Measure the room length and width in feet, wall to wall, out to the widest points — including doorway recesses and any bump-outs the carpet has to reach. Multiply length by width for the floor area in square feet. Break an L-shaped room into rectangles and add them together.
2. Convert square feet to square yards
Carpet is priced and ordered by the square yard, and there are 9 square feet in a square yard, so divide your square footage by 9. The calculator shows both figures so you can check the takeoff and still quote in the unit your supplier invoices against.
3. Add about 10% for seams and pattern match
Add roughly 10% for seams and trim, and more when the carpet has a pattern that must line up across seams. The waste field lets you dial this in — a plain carpet in a simple rectangle needs less, an awkward layout or a bold repeat needs more.
4. Account for the 12-ft roll width and seam placement
Broadloom comes on 12-ft-wide rolls, so a room wider than 12 ft needs a seam and rooms that are not a clean fraction of that width leave offcuts you cannot always reuse. Plan where the seams fall and add the waste that roll width forces, then measure stairs and closets separately — they use far more material per square foot than a flat room.
Measuring the job is step one. Turning it into a priced, professional quote is faster inside CrewRivet. See the flooring calculator, the tile calculator, or the job pricing calculator.
Carpet calculator FAQ
- How do I calculate carpet?
- Measure the room length and width in feet to the widest points, then multiply them for the floor area in square feet. Add a waste allowance (about 10%) for seams, trim, and pattern match. Because carpet is priced by the square yard, divide that total by 9 (there are 9 square feet in a square yard). This calculator does all of it the moment you enter your room dimensions.
- Why is carpet sold by the square yard?
- Broadloom carpet is manufactured and priced by the square yard, not the square foot — a holdover from how the goods come off the roll. One square yard is 9 square feet, so the calculator divides your total square footage by 9 to give you the square-yard figure suppliers actually quote and invoice against.
- How much extra carpet should I add for waste?
- Around 10% is a sensible default for seams and trim, but odd-shaped rooms, patterned carpet that has to match at the seams, and stairs will push it higher. Because broadloom comes on 12-ft-wide rolls, a room that is not a clean fraction of that width leaves offcuts you cannot always reuse, so bump the waste percentage up when the layout is awkward.
- Do I measure closets and stairs separately?
- Yes. Measure each closet as its own small rectangle and add it in, and take stairs off separately — each tread and riser needs its own piece and the material wraps the nosing, so stairs eat far more carpet per square foot of floor than a flat room. Lumping them into the main room measurement almost always leaves you short.
- Is the calculator free?
- Yes — the live estimate is free with no email required. Enter your email only if you want the free Job Pricing Kit (pricing worksheet, markup cheat-sheet, and invoice + quote templates) sent to your inbox.