MatCount is a small set of free calculators that answer one question: how much material do you actually need to buy?
Every home project runs into the same wall. You know the patio is going to be 12 by 16 feet. What you do not know is whether that is two cubic yards of ready-mix or four, or how many 80 lb bags that works out to, or how much extra to order so you are not driving back to the store halfway through the pour. The arithmetic is not hard, but it is fiddly, the units change halfway through, and getting it wrong costs either money or a wasted Saturday.
So we built the tools we wanted: type in the dimensions, get the number, take it to the counter.
How the numbers are worked out
Nothing here is a black box. Each calculator uses the standard trade formula, and the assumptions are printed underneath every result so you can check them against what your supplier actually sells.
For concrete, volume is length × width × thickness, with the thickness converted from inches to feet, then divided by 27 to reach the cubic yards a ready-mix truck is ordered in. Bag counts assume the standard pre-mix yields: an 80 lb bag fills roughly 0.60 cubic feet and a 60 lb bag roughly 0.45. For tile, the tile area comes from its nominal dimensions in inches divided by 144, and the result is rounded up to whole boxes, because that is how tile is sold. Gravel converts volume to tons at 1.4 short tons per cubic yard, the usual figure for crushed stone, and that density is adjustable because it varies by material.
Every engine ships with worked test cases that were checked by hand. A 10 × 10 ft slab at 4 inches with 5% waste should come out at 1.30 cubic yards and 59 eighty-pound bags. A 120 square foot floor in 12 × 12 inch tile at 10% waste should come out at 132 tiles and 14 boxes. If a change ever broke those, we would know.
Waste is part of the answer
Most calculators give you the exact volume and leave you to guess the rest. That is the number that gets people stranded. Uneven subgrade, spillage, offcuts at every wall and doorway, the occasional cracked tile — all of it is normal, and all of it means the amount you buy is not the amount you measured. Every MatCount calculator has a waste allowance built in, set to a sensible default and adjustable when you know your own conditions.
What we do not do
The calculators run entirely in your browser. The dimensions you type never leave your device and are never sent to a server, because there is no server to send them to. There is no account, no sign-up, no email wall in front of the answer, and no saved history — reload the page and it is gone.
These are estimates
MatCount gives you a well-founded starting number, not a guarantee. Bag yields vary between manufacturers, aggregate density varies by quarry, and a slab poured over soft ground will take more concrete than the geometry says it should. Treat the result as the figure you walk into the supplier with, then confirm it against their product before you order. For anything structural, that confirmation should come from whoever is engineering the job.
Where to go next
If you would rather understand the math than just get the number, the guides walk through it step by step: how to calculate concrete for a slab, how much tile waste to buy, and how to estimate paint for a room. If something looks wrong or you need a calculator we have not built, tell us.