About MaterialCalc

Why this exists

I have renovated two houses, built several decks and porches, and put up a shed or two — mostly on my own. The physical work is the hard part, and no website is going to help with that. What this helps with is knowing what you are walking into.

Renovations almost always cost more than planned, and usually not because the first estimate was careless. You plan one job, pull off an old board, and find poor insulation or water damage inside the wall. The job is now bigger than the one you priced, and you have to decide on the spot: fix it properly, do less somewhere else, or stop.

That decision needs numbers. Working them out by hand costs an evening you would rather spend on the job. Here you change what you found, and the quantities and the project total move with it — so you can plan for the worst case, see what it costs, and change the plan with your eyes open instead of finding out at the end.

It also saves you from the other common mistake, which is underestimating the whole thing before you start. Seeing the materials, the tools and the cost laid out room by room tells you the real size of what you are taking on, while it is still cheap to change your mind.

What it does

• Calculators for tiling, paint, concrete, decking, drywall and stud walls, insulation, roofing, fencing, flooring, paving and masonry — quantities and cost, with waste allowed for.
• A floor planner you can draw a room in, in 2D or 3D, and push the real dimensions straight into a calculator instead of typing them twice.
• Projects that hold the calculations for each room, so the total is the sum of decisions you actually made — and you can record what you really spent against what you estimated.

Every number is one you can check

Each calculator shows the formula it used, a worked example with real numbers, and the waste percentage it added. You should be able to follow the arithmetic yourself rather than trust a box that prints a figure.

The formulas behind them are covered by automated tests against hand-worked examples, so a change to one calculator cannot quietly break the arithmetic in another.

Metric and imperial, done properly

Switching between EU and US does more than convert the numbers. Timber sections, board thicknesses and stud spacings change to the ones actually sold in that market.

A worked example: a US 2×4 measures 3½ in, but the European section sold under the same name is 98 mm — nearly 10 mm deeper. Treat them as the same and a stud wall finishes at the wrong thickness, which matters the moment you order door linings. Set the calculator to US and you get the US section, not a converted European one.

What it costs

Every calculator gives you its full result free, with no account, and the floor planner lets you draw a couple of rooms. Nothing is hidden behind a signup to find out whether it works for you.

The Project Pass (€24.99, paid once — not a subscription) covers three months of everything: unlimited projects and calculations, the full planner, PDF export, shopping lists and cloud backup. Long enough for a renovation, and it stops on its own.

Home (€14.99/mo) is the same thing billed monthly. Pro (€24.99/mo) adds watermark-free PDFs you can hand to a client. Projects stay stored for three months after a plan ends, so nothing disappears the day you stop paying.

Where the numbers come from

Quantities use standard industry formulas, published product coverage rates and typical waste factors — usually 5–15%, added automatically and shown rather than buried. Prices start from example rates, which you should replace with quotes from your own merchant: material costs vary by region and by month, and only your prices give you your total.

What this is not

I am not a builder by trade. Two houses and a run of decks, porches and sheds is enough to know where the surprises hide, and not the same thing as a qualification. This is not professional advice: MaterialCalc produces planning estimates, good enough to budget with and to order from with some confidence, not a substitute for someone qualified looking at your actual job.

Anything structural, anything affecting fire or damp, and anything covered by building regulations needs a professional. Check quantities and product data sheets before you buy. The full disclaimer spells that out.

Tell me if something is off

I have tried hard to get this right. The formulas follow standard practice, coverage rates come from published product data, and the arithmetic behind every calculator is tested against worked examples. Where a figure genuinely varies by country, supplier or manufacturer, I have said so rather than picking one and presenting it as universal.

Even so, this covers a lot of trades, in two measurement systems, across markets that do things differently — and some of it will be wrong. If a number looks off, if a guide contradicts how it is actually done where you are, or if a calculator gives you a result that does not match what you have seen on site, I would genuinely like to know.

There is a Feedback button on every page, or you can use the contact page. Any feedback is much appreciated — corrections most of all, and I fix them.