Stud calculator for wall framing
Enter one wall's length, its corners and its openings, and get every stud it takes: field studs at your on-centre spacing, corner studs, king and jack studs at each opening, and the plates. A true-size layout tape below transfers the on-centre pitch to a story pole.
From your span table
Advanced settings2 corners · three-stud corners
16" on centre
20studs
Field studs
8
King + jack
4
Top plate
24.0 ft
The count
- Field studs10 on-centre marks along the wall, less the ones an opening swallows
- 8
- Corner studs2 corners at 3 studs each
- 6
- King studsFull height, one each side of every opening
- 2
- Jack studsUnder the header — you set how many a side
- 2
- CripplesAbove the header only
- 2
- Bottom plateSingle
- 12.0 ft
- Top plateDoubled
- 24.0 ft
Before you cut
- Openings fit inside the wall — passes36.0" of openings in a 144.0" wall, leaving room for king studs on every side.
Layout tape, at true size
One 16" pitch, not the whole wall — a chalk line and a tape already cover the long run. This is for transferring the exact spacing onto a story pole: print it, check the ruler, then mark a straight scrap at these two ticks and step it down the wall.
Put a tape on the printed ruler. If it does not read exactly 6 inches, the print was scaled — set the print dialog to 100% or “Actual size” and print it again. Do not cut wood from a template that failed this.
Mark a story pole at these two ticks, then step it down the wall for every field stud. Trim on the orange line and butt this piece to the next one — the marks either side of the join have to line up before you drill anything.
Mark a story pole at these two ticks, then step it down the wall for every field stud. Trim on the orange line and butt this piece to the next one — the marks either side of the join have to line up before you drill anything.
Mark a story pole at these two ticks, then step it down the wall for every field stud. Trim on the orange line and butt this piece to the next one — the marks either side of the join have to line up before you drill anything.
This does not size the header
How many jack studs a header needs depends on its span and the load stacked above it — species, grade, snow load and how much of the building bears on that wall all matter, and getting it wrong is a structural mistake rather than a cosmetic one. This calculator counts the studs a jack-stud decision requires; check a span table or an engineer for the decision itself, then come back and set the count above.
Where to buy this
- 20 studsHome DepotLowe's
- 36 ft of plate stockHome DepotLowe's
Stud and plate size is yours to pick — 2x4 or 2x6, and the grade your inspector expects. These search the material, not a size we worked out for you.
Plain search links, nothing sponsored. Prices and stock are the shop's, and a local lumberyard will usually beat both on solid stock.
Worked example: a 12 ft wall
A 12 ft wall at 16" on centre, with two corners and one 36" opening, takes 20 studs: 8 field studs, 6 at the corners, 2 king and 2 jack, and 2 cripples.
The plates are 12.0 ft of bottom plate and 24.0 ft of doubled top plate. The header is not sized here — that depends on the load, and the building department decides it.
- Studs
- 20
- Field studs
- 8
- King + jack
- 4
- Top plate
- 24.0 ft
These are the figures the calculator above opens on. Change any field and it works the same problem for your numbers.
Embed this calculator on your site
Free to use. Paste this HTML into your page; the calculator runs in a frame, with no ads and nothing to sign up for.
About framing a wall
- Why isn't stud count just wall length divided by spacing?
- Because that count includes studs that would land inside a door or window opening, and it leaves out the studs an opening actually needs — a king stud full height on each side and jack studs under the header. This calculator lays the on-centre marks out first, the same way a framer snaps a layout line, then removes whatever an opening swallows and adds back what the opening requires.
- How many jack studs does a header need?
- It depends on the header's span and the load above it — species, grade, roof and floor loads, and snow load all enter into it, and getting that number wrong is a structural mistake, not a cosmetic one. This calculator asks for the count rather than guessing it, the same way it does not size the header itself: one jack stud per side covers most residential openings under about 6 feet, and wider spans commonly want two.
- What is a California corner?
- A two-stud corner instead of the traditional three: two full-height studs meet at the corner and drywall clips or a backer block do the job the third stud would have done, backing the inside corner without filling the cavity solid. It saves a stud per corner and, more importantly, leaves room for insulation to actually reach the corner, which a solid three-stud corner blocks.
- Why is the top plate doubled but the bottom plate isn't?
- The doubled top plate laps the plates of intersecting walls at the corners and partitions, which is what ties the whole top of the framing into one structure and lets point loads from above spread across more than one stud. The bottom plate has no such job — it is nailed to the floor and every stud already lands on it — so one is standard.
- Does this calculator size the header itself?
- No. A header's size is a structural calculation — species, grade, span and the load stacked above it all matter, and the same 36" opening can want a doubled 2x6 in one house and a built-up LVL in another. This calculator counts the studs a header decision requires; the decision itself belongs to a span table or an engineer.
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