← Kitchen tile backsplash bid calculator
Tile setters and kitchen remodelers get shopped on a published $35 a square foot installed Facebook special. Those numbers cannot see the pattern or the pull. Thirty square feet of subway running-bond on painted drywall is a different job from 48 SF of herringbone mosaic with eight outlets, a cooktop cutout, Schluter edge, and demo of existing 4x4.
Open the free kitchen tile backsplash bid calculatorA kitchen backsplash is a wall, then a pattern, then how ready that wall is. Subway running-bond is a stack. Herringbone is cuts and waste. Mosaic is grout. Large-format is leveling. Tile-only sets on a wall that is already ready. New prep is cement board or membrane, then tile. Demo-and-replace is a pull plus the same prep.
Homeowners usually start from the subway special, then ask whether herringbone, mosaic, or large-format is “a little more.” On the same wall and the same scope it is not a little more. Herringbone buys more tile (cuts and waste) and takes a longer set. Mosaic is grout time. Large-format is leveling. The calculator prices all four patterns on the wall you already measured so you can quote the upgrade instead of matching the subway number on a herringbone job.
The cheap special is almost always subway on painted drywall, two outlets, no cooktop, no Schluter. A herringbone demo is a different crew day. Matching a per-SF number on a demo job is how a sold splash becomes a loss when the cuts and the pull eat the margin.
A walk-in shower is a wet area, a slope, and glass. Floor tile is floor waste and tear-out. A quartz or granite countertop is slabs and a sink cutout. Interior painting is a coat. Cabinet refinishing is doors. Drywall is hang and finish gypsum. This prices a kitchen tile backsplash: wall SF, pattern, scope, and extras.
Tile is sold by the box. A 30 SF subway splash with 10% waste is a 33 SF buy. At 10 SF per box that is four boxes, not 3.3, and you leave the kitchen with 7 SF leftover. An 8 SF laundry return with the same waste is 8.8 SF — leftover misses it and you still buy a box. Leftover already on the van is already-paid stock unless you decide to credit it; it does not change the headline bid by itself.
Owners also shop a second special: “I already bought it — just set it for $35 / SF.” Zeroing the tile invoice drops the bid. The trip, the outlet cuts, and the cooktop stay. A short or wrong-lot buy is a second trip. See should I install customer-supplied backsplash tile for the three-way comparison on the same wall.
A third special is “can you do Saturday so I can cook?” After-hours is time-and-a-half plus a second evening trip. Working around a cook on a weekday is the same wage on a slower set. See should I tile a backsplash after hours for the three-way comparison on the same wall.
Load the wage with payroll burden. Add overhead as a share of direct cost. Then take margin as a share of the customer’s price, not a markup on cost. The walk-away number is total cost. A proposed price under that number loses money before you take anything out of it.
This page is a walkthrough of the arithmetic in the kitchen tile backsplash bid calculator. It is not a tile specification, a waterproofing design, a building-code determination, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
Charge from wall square feet, pattern, scope, and extras — not a published $35 / SF special. Thirty square feet of subway running-bond on painted drywall is a different job from 48 SF of herringbone mosaic with eight outlets, a cooktop cutout, Schluter edge, and demo of existing 4x4.
No. Tile-only sets on a wall that is already ready. New prep is cement board or membrane, then tile. Demo-and-replace is a pull plus the same prep. Matching a per-SF special on a herringbone demo job is how a sold splash becomes a loss when the cuts and the pull eat the margin.
Subway running-bond is a stack. Herringbone is cuts and waste. Mosaic is grout. Large-format is leveling. Price all four on the same wall to see the upgrade — matching the subway special on a herringbone job is the losing bid. Outlet cuts, a cooktop cutout, Schluter edge, and an accent band do not live in a published per-SF dump.
Tile is sold by the box. A 33 SF kitchen buy at 10 SF per box is four boxes, not 3.3, and leftover after the splash may still miss an 8 SF laundry return once waste is applied. Leftover already on the van is already-paid stock unless you decide to credit it.
No. A walk-in shower is a wet area, a slope, and glass. Floor tile is floor waste and tear-out. A countertop is slabs and a sink cutout. This prices a kitchen tile backsplash: wall SF, pattern, scope, and extras.