Brick Calculator
Enter your wall length and height and get a brick count, the mortar bags to go with it, and a cost total. Joint thickness and brick size are adjustable, and a wastage percentage covers cuts and breakage — the two things that most often leave a wall three courses short of material.
Bricks to order (incl. waste)
| Bricks before waste | |
| Mortar bags (80 lb, rounded up) | |
| Brick cost | — |
Rounding: brick and bag counts round up; mortar coverage assumes ≈40 modular bricks per 80 lb bag at standard joints.
Walls are tiled by modules, not bricks
The most useful mental shift in brick estimating is realising the brick itself never appears in the arithmetic — the module does. Every brick on the wall claims its face plus half a joint on each side, so the repeating unit is brick-plus-joint, and the wall area divided by that module is the count. This is why two orders for "a 20-foot wall of bricks" can differ by hundreds of units once joint width or brick format changes, with nobody having made an error.
The second discipline is subtracting what is not wall. Openings routinely make up 15–25% of a house elevation, and estimating gross area buys a pallet of bricks that will sit on the drive for years. Measure the wall, total the doors and windows, deduct once — then let waste percentage handle the legitimate extras of cutting and breakage, which is a different quantity with a different job.
How to use the brick calculator
- Set units and wall size. Wall length and height in feet or metres. For gables, use length × mean height, or split the triangle off and halve it.
- Deduct openings. Total the areas of doors and windows and enter them once — deducting openings is the difference between an estimate and a guess on any wall with fenestration.
- Choose the brick size. Modular, standard and king presets carry their true face dimensions; pick custom to type your local brick's face length and height directly.
- Confirm the joint thickness. The 3/8 in (10 mm) default is near-universal, but a wider joint measurably reduces the brick count — the module, not the brick, is what tiles the wall.
- Single or double wythe. A veneer face is one wythe; a solid structural wall of two brick skins doubles the count.
- Add waste and price. 5% covers cuts and breakage on straightforward walls; add the per-brick price for an instant material budget, and read mortar bags alongside.
Key formulas
- Module area: (brick length + joint) × (brick height + joint)
- Brick count: ⌈ net wall area ÷ module area × wythes × (1 + waste%) ⌉
- Mortar bags: ⌈ bricks ÷ 40 ⌉ (80 lb pre-mix, modular joints)
- Cost: bricks × unit price, computed in whole cents
Worked example
A 20 ft × 8 ft garden wall, single wythe, modular brick, 3/8 in joints, 5% waste: module = 8 × 2.625 in = 0.1458 ft² → 6.86 bricks/ft². Base = 160 × 6.857 = 1,097.1; with waste = 1,152 bricks. Mortar = 1,152 ÷ 40 → 29 bags. At $0.65 apiece the bricks cost $748.80. Enter the same wall above to reproduce every line.
Brick formats at a glance
| Format | Face (in) | Per ft² (3/8 in joint) |
|---|---|---|
| Modular | 7-5/8 × 2-1/4 | 6.86 |
| Standard | 8 × 2-1/4 | 6.55 |
| King | 9-5/8 × 2-5/8 | 4.80 |
| CMU block (custom entry) | 15-5/8 × 7-5/8 | 1.125 |
Face dimensions per BIA (Brick Industry Association) size conventions; regional formats vary — the custom option accepts any face.
Things to keep in mind
- Order one colour batch. Fired clay varies run to run; a top-up order months later can read as a visible patch on the elevation.
- Corners and piers eat extra. Returns, piers and bond patterns beyond running bond consume cut bricks — raise the waste line, not hopes.
- Cavity walls need ties, not just bricks. A veneer wythe hangs on wall ties at coded spacing; budget them with the brick order.
- Weather matters to mortar. Laying in near-freezing or baking heat changes mortar behaviour and joint quality; quantities survive, schedules should flex.
- Keep a repair stash. A few dozen spares from the original batch are the cheapest façade-matching insurance you will ever buy.
Frequently asked questions
How many bricks are needed per square foot of wall?
A modular brick with a standard 3/8 in joint occupies an 8 in × 2.625 in module — about 6.86 bricks per square foot of single-wythe wall. Larger formats drop the count: king-size bricks cover the same wall with roughly 4.6 per square foot, which is exactly why they exist. The number is a property of the brick-plus-joint module, so always confirm the actual brick before ordering thousands of them.
How much mortar do I need per brick?
Working from manufacturer coverage data, an 80 lb bag of pre-mixed mortar lays roughly 40 modular bricks at standard joints — the constant this tool uses. Site-batched mortar follows the cement calculator's ratio method instead. Either way, mortar demand rises with joint width and with clumsy furrowing, so a fresh crew on their first wall will land closer to 35 bricks per bag than 40.
Why does the calculator ask about joint thickness?
Because the wall is tiled by brick-plus-joint modules, not bricks. Widening the joint from 3/8 in to 1/2 in grows each module by about 5% in area, and the brick count falls correspondingly — on a ten-thousand-brick job, that is hundreds of bricks. Joint width also drives mortar demand in the opposite direction, so the two lines of your order move against each other.
What waste percentage is right for brickwork?
Five percent handles cutting at ends, around openings and normal breakage on a rectangular veneer wall. Complex bonds (Flemish, herringbone), many corners, arches or soldier courses push cutting waste toward 10%. Buy the waste in the original order: bricks vary batch to batch in firing colour, and a later top-up run can arrive visibly different on the finished face.
How many bricks fit on a standard pallet?
Most plants band modular bricks in cubes of around 500 — commonly 525 — though counts vary by size and manufacturer. It is worth rounding your order to whole pallets: part-cubes often price poorly per brick, and a spare part-pallet left over becomes the repair stock that matches your wall exactly, colour batch and all.
Does this work for concrete blocks too?
The geometry does — enter the block face (15.625 × 7.625 in for a standard CMU) as a custom size with a 3/8 in joint and the count comes out correctly at about 1.125 blocks per square foot. The mortar line, however, is calibrated to brick-sized joints; block walls consume more mortar per unit laid, so treat that figure as a floor and size block mortar separately.
Last updated: 24 July 2026