Drywall Calculator
Sheets, joint compound, tape, and screws for a room.
Your estimate
Estimates only. Renovate Cafe's calculators are a planning aid, not professional advice — double-check your inputs, confirm coverage on the product you buy, and verify quantities and local code for structural, electrical, or permitted work. Disclaimer.
Enter the room dimensions and whether you're hanging the ceiling. Renovate Cafe returns the sheets for your chosen size, plus the joint compound, tape, and screws to finish them.
Sheets first
Drywall is sold by the sheet, so the job is an area problem. Take the room's perimeter × wall height for the walls, subtract the openings (a door is about 21 square feet, a window about 15), and add the ceiling (length × width) if you're hanging it. That's your total surface.
Divide by the area of one sheet — 32 square feet for a 4×8, 40 for a 4×10, 48 for a 4×12 — and add about 10% for waste from cutouts and offcuts. The calculator rounds up to whole sheets. Bigger sheets mean fewer seams to tape, which is why pros reach for 4×12s on long walls when they can carry them.
Finishing materials
Hanging is half the job; finishing is the other half. As a rule of thumb:
- Joint compound: one box covers roughly 475 square feet of board.
- Joint tape: a 500-foot roll handles about the same.
- Screws: about 32 screws per sheet — every 12 inches in the field and 8
on the edges.
The calculator estimates all three from your sheet count. Buy ready-mixed "all-purpose" compound for the first coats if you're new to taping; it sands easier and is more forgiving than setting-type mud while you find your rhythm.
Frequently asked questions
How many drywall sheets do I need?
How much joint compound per sheet of drywall?
How many screws per drywall sheet?
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