Calculate board feet from thickness, width, length and piece count. Combine lumber sizes, convert to m³, add extra and estimate cost per BF or MBF.
Enter board dimensions and piece counts to see board feet, cubic volume and optional material cost.
Volume follows the entered dimensions. Extra is a volume allowance, not a cutting plan or a rounded piece count. Delivery and taxes are not included.
Board foot formula reference: Mississippi State University Extension
Use inches for thickness and width with feet for length, or millimeters with meters for length. Choose actual dimensions for measured volume or nominal / billing dimensions to match your supplier’s tally. This label does not resize the inputs. Decimals, fractions such as 3/4 and mixed fractions such as 1 1/2 are accepted.
Enter thickness, width, length and a whole piece count for each group of identical boards. Add up to 20 groups to combine different sizes. The calculator shows each group’s board feet and sums all groups before applying the optional extra percentage. Leave extra at zero when no allowance is needed.
See the total in board feet, cubic meters, cubic feet and MBF. Add your quoted price per board foot, per 1,000 board feet, per m³ or per cubic foot. Copy or download the complete estimate. One price applies to the whole list; calculate separately when different species or grades have different prices.
One board foot (BF) is 144 cubic inches: 1 inch × 12 inches × 12 inches. For each group, BF = thickness in inches × width in inches × length in feet × piece count ÷ 12. One BF equals 1/12 cubic foot or 0.002359737216 m³. With metric inputs, m³ = thickness in mm × width in mm × length in m × piece count ÷ 1,000,000; divide by 0.002359737216 for BF.
An actual-size tally uses the dimensions you measured. A nominal or billing-size tally uses the dimensions on the quote. A nominal 2 × 4 and a measured 1.5 × 3.5 do not produce the same result. This calculator makes no automatic size adjustment, minimum-thickness rule or commercial tally rounding. Confirm the dimensions and rounding conventions with your supplier.
The extra percentage increases combined volume and cost once. It does not optimize saw cuts, account for individual defects or round up to whole boards. The entered piece count stays unchanged. Cubic volumes follow the entered sizes, so nominal inputs do not represent finished physical volume. Calculations run locally in your browser; reloading clears the list. Delivery and taxes are excluded.
Using those dimensions, 1 × 6 × 8 ÷ 12 = 4 BF per board. Ten boards total 40 BF. With 10% extra, the volume allowance becomes 44 BF. At an example price of $6 per BF, material cost is $264. The extra does not automatically change the ten entered pieces into a rounded purchasing list.
Ten boards measuring 25 mm × 150 mm × 2.4 m contain 0.09 m³. Dividing by 0.002359737216 gives approximately 38.1398 BF. With 10% extra the total is 0.099 m³, approximately 41.9538 BF. At an example price of 1,000 currency units per m³, the material cost is 99 currency units.
BF measures volume. MBF means 1,000 board feet here, so 40 BF equals 0.04 MBF. A quote of $6,000 per MBF is equivalent to $6 per BF. Linear feet measure length only; converting length to board feet also requires thickness and width.
Use actual dimensions to estimate the physical volume. To compare a supplier’s board-foot price, enter the dimensions used by that supplier for billing and choose Nominal / billing dimensions. For example, one nominal 2 × 4 × 8 ft board gives 5.3333 BF, while 1.5 × 3.5 × 8 ft gives 3.5 BF. The selector labels the basis without changing your numbers.
Yes. In US mode, the thickness is in inches: 4/4 is evaluated as 1 inch and 6/4 as 1.5 inches. These entries describe the thickness you want counted. If you need the volume of a planed board, measure and enter its actual thickness instead. Bare values such as 4 would mean 4 inches.
It calculates rectangular board volume from entered dimensions and quantities. It does not estimate standing timber, log yield, species weight or optimal cuts. The optional extra is a volume allowance, and costs use the unrounded total in the selected price unit. Changing measurement systems converts the dimensions while keeping the chosen pricing basis.