How Much Tile Do I Need for My Shower?

The tile quantity your shower needs by size, floor versus wall split, waste allowance and box maths — with a quick-reference table and worked example.

Updated September 27, 2026

There are three numbers to get right, and most people only work out the first one:

Total area to cover — floor plus walls, plus the ceiling if it tiles.
Area to buy — the total with a waste allowance on top.
Boxes to order — tiles rounded up to whole boxes, plus a spare.

Here is each one for the common shower sizes.

Quick answer by shower size

Shower	Area to cover	With 15% waste	Boxes of 8 subway tiles*
30×30 in alcove	61 sq ft	70 sq ft	31
3×3 ft alcove	69 sq ft	79 sq ft	35
4×3 ft alcove	76 sq ft	87 sq ft	39
Neo-angle corner	71 sq ft	82 sq ft	36
Walk-in with bench	93 sq ft	107 sq ft	47
Walk-in, tiled ceiling	115 sq ft	132 sq ft	59

* Assumes 4×12 in subway at 0.333 sq ft each, 8 pieces per box. Different tile, different box count — always check the piece count on your actual product.

Floor and wall are not the same order

The pan and the walls almost never use the same tile, so do not order them as one line.

Pan — 9 sq ft on a standard alcove. Usually 2×2 in or mosaic, sold by the sheet, and it wants 20–25% waste because the slope means every tile is a wedge.
Walls — 60 sq ft on a standard alcove. Subway, large format or slab, at 10–15% waste depending on pattern.

Splitting them means each surface gets the waste rule it actually needs. Bundling them into one 15% figure over-orders the straight wall and under-orders the pan.

The waste allowance is not optional

Layout	Waste
Straight stacked	10–12%
Offset / subway	15%
Diagonal or herringbone	20%
Mosaic or hexagon pan	20–25%
Bench, niche, multiple corners	20%+ on those lines

A shower has more cuts per square foot than any other surface in the house: every wall ends at a dam, a niche or a mitred corner. Rounding the buffer down to save one box is the single most common reason a shower job stops halfway up a wall.

Turning area into boxes

tiles needed  = area to buy ÷ area of one tile
boxes needed  = tiles needed ÷ pieces per box   (round up)

Worked example — 3×3 ft alcove, subway walls in offset, mosaic pan:

Walls: 60 sq ft × 1.15 = 69 sq ft ÷ 0.333 = 207 tiles
Pan: 9 sq ft × 1.25 = 11.25 → 12 sheets
Boxes: 207 ÷ 8 = 25.9 → 26 boxes of subway, plus 12 sheets of mosaic
Spare: one extra box of the wall tile if it is not a large-stock item

Grout and adhesive follow the tile size and joint width rather than the area, so check those from the same calculator run rather than estimating separately.

Before you order

One dye lot. Buy all the tile for the job at once. Batches shift in colour and calibre.
Keep a spare box. Sealed, labelled, stored flat. Repairs two years later depend on it.
Confirm the piece count. Boxes vary from 4 to 18 pieces for the same nominal size.
Re-measure, do not trust the plan. Renovation drawings rarely match what was built.

Next step

Put the pan, each wall and the niche in as separate sections and the calculator returns tiles, boxes, grout, adhesive and cost with the correct waste on each — in sq ft or m².

Use the shower tile calculator, or start with how to find your shower’s square footage if you have not measured yet.

FAQ

Run your own numbers in Shower Tile Calculator

Enter each room or surface as its own section and get tiles, boxes, grout and cost back — with the right waste allowance applied per section instead of one blended percentage.

Shower Tile Calculator · or read about the shower tile calculator itself.