Brick Calculator

What is a brick calculator?

A brick calculator tells you how many bricks you need to build a wall of a given size. Instead of measuring a single course and multiplying by hand, you enter the wall’s length and height in feet and the calculator returns the number of standard modular bricks to buy.

It is the estimate every masonry job starts with: knowing the brick count lets you price the work, order a single delivery, and avoid both running short halfway up the wall and paying for a surplus you never lay.

What counts as a “standard” brick?

This calculator assumes a standard modular brick, the most common size in North American construction. Its nominal face measures 8 inches long by 2.625 inches high ($2\tfrac{5}{8}$ in), and that nominal size already includes the standard ⅜-inch mortar joint that wraps each brick. A bare brick is closer to 7⅝ in by 2¼ in, but the missing ⅜ in on each dimension is exactly the space the mortar fills, so the nominal figure is what you use for coverage math.

One nominal brick face therefore covers:

How does the calculator work?

Each square foot of wall is 144 square inches, so the number of bricks that fit in one square foot is the square footage divided by the area each brick covers:

The wall area in square feet is simply its length times its height:

Then the brick count is the wall area multiplied by the coverage rate, rounded up to the next whole brick (you cannot lay a fraction of a brick):

The calculator also reports the wall area in square feet so you can sanity-check the dimensions you entered.

Worked examples

A 10 ft by 8 ft wall. The area is $10 \times 8 = 80$ square feet. Multiplying by the coverage rate gives $80 \times 6.857 = 548.6$, which rounds up to 549 bricks.

A 20 ft by 8 ft wall. Doubling the length doubles the area to $160$ square feet, so you need $160 \times 6.857 = 1097.1$, rounded up to 1,098 bricks.

A 5 ft by 5 ft wall. The area is $25$ square feet. The math gives $25 \times 6.857 = 171.4$, which rounds up to 172 bricks — the partial 172nd brick covers the leftover sliver of wall.

Practical notes

• Buy extra for waste. The count above is the bare minimum for a solid single-wythe wall. Add roughly 5–10% for cuts at corners and openings, plus breakage. On the 549-brick wall, that means picking up about 580–605 bricks.
• Subtract large openings. This estimator does not deduct doors or windows. For a sizeable opening, compute its area in square feet, multiply by 6.857, and subtract that many bricks from the total.
• Single-wythe assumption. The result counts a single layer of brick. A double-wythe (two-brick-thick) wall needs roughly twice as many, so double the total for a structural cavity wall.
• Mortar is separate. The brick count does not include mortar mix. A rough rule of thumb is about three standard 80-pound bags of mortar per 100 bricks, but check your mix and joint size.

Frequently asked questions

Does the 8 × 2.625 size include mortar? Yes. The nominal modular dimensions already account for a standard ⅜-inch mortar joint, so you do not add anything extra for it.

What if my bricks are a different size? This tool is built for the standard modular brick. Queen, king, and utility bricks each cover a different face area, so divide 144 by your brick’s actual face area in square inches to get its own bricks-per-square-foot rate, then multiply by your wall area.

How many bricks per square foot? About 6.857, because a 21-square-inch face divides into a 144-square-inch foot $144 / 21 \approx 6.857$ times. Multiply your wall’s square footage by about 7 and round up for a quick mental estimate.