Square Footage Calculator

This square footage calculator works out the floor area of a room or plot in square feet and square metres. It handles four shapes — rectangle or square, circle, triangle, and L-shape — and lets you add several rooms together to get a whole-home total. Whether you are buying tiles for a hall, ordering wooden flooring for a bedroom, estimating paint for a wall, or just trying to make sense of a builder's area figure, this tool turns your length-and-width measurements into the one number every contractor, shopkeeper, and home-loan form actually wants.

It is useful for homeowners renovating a flat, tenants checking whether a listed size is realistic, and anyone comparing properties where prices are quoted per square foot. You can enter dimensions in feet, metres, inches, or yards; the calculator converts everything to feet internally and reports both ft² and m² so you are never caught out by a quotation in the "other" unit.

How it works — the formulas

Area is simply how much surface a shape covers, and each shape has its own formula:

Rectangle / Square: Area = Length × Width  ·  Circle: Area = π × r²  ·  Triangle: Area = ½ × base × height

L-shape: Area = (A × B) − (C × D) — take the area of the big enclosing rectangle and subtract the rectangular corner that is cut out. To convert the answer to square metres the tool multiplies square feet by 0.0929 (since 1 ft² = 0.0929 m²).

India context — sq ft, gaj, and which "area" you are quoted

In Indian real estate, area is most often quoted in square feet (sq ft) for flats and per-sq-ft pricing, while land and plots are frequently quoted in gaj. One gaj equals one square yard, which is 9 sq ft (a square yard is 3 ft × 3 ft) — so a 100-gaj plot is 100 × 9 = 900 sq ft. Architect drawings, RERA filings, and municipal approvals (for example DDA) usually use square metres. Just as important is which area is being quoted: carpet area (the usable floor inside the walls, the figure RERA mandates), built-up area (carpet plus wall thickness and balconies), and super built-up area (built-up plus a share of common spaces like lobbies and stairs). The same flat can look 25–30% bigger on a super built-up basis, so always confirm the basis before comparing prices.

Worked example

Suppose a hall measures 20 ft by 15 ft. Its area is 20 × 15 = 300 sq ft, which is 300 × 0.0929 ≈ 27.87 m². If you are laying tiles costing ₹50 per sq ft, the bare material is 300 × ₹50 = ₹15,000 before adding wastage. For an L-shaped living-dining space that is 20 ft × 15 ft overall with a 6 ft × 5 ft corner taken out for the kitchen, the area is (20 × 15) − (6 × 5) = 300 − 30 = 270 sq ft. Add each room with the accumulator below to get a single home total.

Tips

Measure twice and record in a single unit to avoid mixing feet and inches. For tiles, flooring, or carpet, add about 10% for wastage (15% for diagonal or herringbone layouts, up to 20% for natural stone), then round up to whole boxes. For irregular rooms, split the space into rectangles, calculate each, and total them rather than guessing. When budgeting in ₹, multiply the final area by your per-sq-ft material rate and remember to include labour separately.

Common mistakes

The most frequent error is comparing a carpet-area figure against a super built-up one — they are not the same size, and the gap is large. Another is forgetting unit conversion: a measurement taken in metres but entered as feet will be wildly wrong, so pick the correct unit toggle first. People also forget wastage and end up a box short mid-job, or order based on super built-up area when they only need to tile the usable carpet area. Finally, do not confuse area (sq ft) with perimeter or running feet — skirting and beading are priced per running foot, not per square foot.