Start from a ready-made design
Sheds under 100 sq ft, many in painted lap siding and asphalt shingles to match a house. Tap one to see it from every side, what it costs and how much it holds; add two or three to Compare; "Start from this design" opens a copy in the editor below.
How these were picked
Each was picked from 2,400 designs this tool's search built and checked: every member at 90% of its capacity or less, a peak of 13 ft or less, nothing the model warns about, and the best on the measure its card names. Prices are worked out now at the prices below. Flick through with the arrows or a swipe.
Plan: drag to design
Drag the orange handles to resize (6" steps). Drag a door (brown) or window (blue) along a wall, or onto another wall. The ridge runs left to right; front is at the bottom.
End view: wall height, pitch, overhang
3D view
This browser has no WebGL, so the 3D view is off. The plans, cut sheet and estimate below still work.
Click a board, sheet, siding course or the roof in the 3D view to see what it is and what it is bought as, or "Show in 3D" on a line of the shopping list, cut sheet or parts list to see where its pieces go.
Estimated cost
$0
Materials, sales tax and delivery only. Your own labour is not in it; see "Your time" below.
Prices are store listings seen 2026-10-29, linked line by line under Shopping list; they change, so type your yard's prices there.
What to buy, how to cut it, how to build it
| Item | Qty | Unit | Each | Total | Price source | Have it | Leave out |
|---|
Prices are store listings seen on 2026-10-29 (mostly Home Depot), most read from the search result's copy of the product page, so they can be days or weeks old and vary by store. Lengths with no listing are scaled by the foot from the nearest listed length; anything with no listing at all says "estimate". Type your own store's prices below.
Compare stores and swap parts (Home Depot and Lowe's, with item numbers and links)
Ask stores for a quote (a draft email from this list, asking for bulk pricing and delivery)
Nothing is sent from this page: the draft opens in your own email app (or copy it), and you attach the files. Find your store's Pro Desk email or phone on its store page.
Your prices (examples until you change them; saved in this browser)
What the last change did
Change anything (a size, a door, the siding, an option or a design from the list) and the cost change shows here by assembly.
From your design to the cheapest passing one
The same search as "Find a cheaper build": same footprint, every load and connection check passing, peak no more than 6" higher. It weighs your time at your labour rate, so a saving that costs more work than it is worth is not taken.
One line per board to buy, with identical boards counted together. Letters are part marks (see Parts list and the plans); the hatched end is offcut. Kerf is allowed between cuts.
| Mark | Part | Lumber (actual size) | Cut length | Qty | Where | Note |
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How it ties together
| Check | What was checked | Result |
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Strength under load
| Member | Size | What it carries | Use of capacity | Result |
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Staying put in the wind
Where the capacity goes
Every checked member, most used first. Open one to see its check written out: the inputs, each formula and the numbers. A small shed framed like a house uses little of its lumber's strength; the list below says which members could be lighter and which are held where they are by something other than strength.
Framing plans coloured by use
Written from this design: every length, mark and angle below is this shed's. Methods are common practice for a small wood-framed shed; fastener spacings are typical values, and your local code and each product's instructions win.
Taking these to a building department or an HOA? "HOA packet (PDF)" gives coloured, dimensioned elevations, the finishes and the site plan on four pages; the plan set has a cover sheet with materials and colours, a site plan (type your lot under "Site plan" above), plans, elevations with overall height, a section and details. It is not engineered or code-checked, and it is not "permit-ready": what a submission needs is set locally. Many places need no building permit for a small shed (the IRC, R105.2, exempts a one-storey detached accessory building up to 200 sq ft; the IBC sets 120 sq ft; many towns use less), but zoning setbacks and HOA rules can still apply. Check with yours.
Options made for you
Close variations of the design you are editing, each framed, priced and checked. They keep your size, doors, windows, colours and wall framing, and change one thing a builder would weigh. Pick one to add it to your designs.
Bring the price down, same size
Counts your time at the hourly rate you set (in the buying settings) as well as materials. Tries cheaper off-the-shelf parts and settings one at a time (stock doors and windows, siding, roofing, the foundation and its gravel, the subfloor, overhang, pitch and spacing), keeps your footprint, the ridge and rafter-seat choices you made and anything you fixed under "Your limits and fixed choices", and keeps a change only if the shed still passes every check and the peak rises by no more than 6". It lists each saving so you can take some and leave others.
What each foundation, floor, door and window choice costs
Every alternative for the parts under and around the shed (blocks or a gravel pad, the floor joists and subfloor, a door built on site at 36" to 72" or a stock door, the windows or none), each framed, priced and checked against the design you are editing. Shows what it saves or adds in materials and your time, whether the peak moves, and what it means on site. "Use this" changes your design; Undo takes it back.
Simplify the build
Searches small changes (roof pitch, overhang, rafter and stud spacing, connectors or notches, ridge type) for the cheapest build, the one with the fewest saw cuts, and a balance of the two. It counts every saw cut and every angled cut and notch, and keeps only designs that pass every check.
Compare your designs
Every design you make is kept here with its cost at your prices. Use "+ New design" to start another, or "Copy this design" to try a change without losing the original.
Questions
Does it use the real size of a 2x4?
Yes. Every board is framed at its dressed size: a 2x4 is 1-1/2 by 3-1/2 inches, a 2x6 is 1-1/2 by 5-1/2, a 2x8 is 1-1/2 by 7-1/4, a 2x10 is 1-1/2 by 9-1/4 and a 2x12 is 1-1/2 by 11-1/4. Stud lengths, plate stack heights, rafter plumb cuts and the parts list all use those numbers.
How does it decide which board lengths to buy?
Starting prices are Home Depot listings seen on 2026-10-29, each linked. It treats the order as a cutting-stock problem: every piece is placed into 8, 10, 12, 14 or 16 ft boards (18 and 20 ft if you tick them) to minimise cost at the prices you type, with your saw kerf between cuts. It also proves a lower bound, by solving the problem's linear relaxation, and prints it beside the result, so you can see how close the order is to the cheapest possible; often it is exactly the cheapest.
Is the design checked for strength or against building code?
Not by an engineer. The Structure tab runs allowable-stress (NDS) checks on the floor joists, rafters, ridge beam and posts, headers and wall studs under the snow and wind loads you set, the kind of check a span table encodes. It also checks the skids between blocks and the blocks' pressure on the soil, the rafter ties against wind uplift, the walls against racking, and that every piece bears on what is under it; the tests check that no piece floats or overlaps another. It works out whether the wind would tip the shed and what anchors would hold it, but does not check hold-downs, the anchors themselves, or your local code. Many places need a permit for a shed over a certain size; ask your building department.
Can I open the plans in CAD?
Yes. Each sheet downloads as DXF (full size, in inches, with layers for framing, outlines, hidden lines, openings, dimensions and text) or SVG, and the whole set prints from the browser.
Is my design uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. Your designs are saved in this browser's local storage so they are there next time (you can turn that off), and a shared link carries the design inside the link itself.
More: how much lumber an 8x12 shed takes, worked through, and the lumber list for 12 other sizes. Related free tools: Cut List Optimizer for any list of boards or sheets, Wall Framing Takeoff for a whole house, and Shed Install Bid Calculator if you install sheds for a living.