Free calculator

Free sheet nesting calculator

Enter your sheet size, the gap you leave between parts and your parts list. The calculator nests the parts on the sheet and tells you how many sheets to order, what they cost, and whether the answer is provably the minimum.

Sheet nesting calculator

Pick a standard size or type your own. Prices are optional. Up to 20 part sizes and 400 parts.

How to use it

  1. Sheet size. Tap a standard size or type the width and height in millimetres.
  2. Kerf. The gap you leave between parts: a few millimetres on a laser, more on plasma. The kerf guide has typical figures for each process.
  3. Price per sheet (optional) gives the material cost of the job.
  4. Parts. Width, height and quantity for each part. Untick “Parts can turn” for brushed or grained finishes.
  5. Calculate. You get the sheet count, the material cost, how much of each sheet is used, and every sheet drawn to scale.

The answer is checked against a mathematical lower bound. When it says provably optimal, no layout from any software uses fewer sheets. The yellow line shows what the usual “total area ÷ sheet area” sum would have said.

Common sheet and plate sizes

Sizes that UK stockholders commonly carry. Always use the sizes your supplier actually sells.

Size (mm)Often calledCommon for
2500 × 1250“8 by 4” metricMild steel, galvanised, aluminium
2440 × 12208 × 4 ftStainless, aluminium, also board
3000 × 150010 × 5Steel and stainless sheet and plate
2000 × 1000 Thinner steel and aluminium sheet
4000 × 2000 Heavier plate

Need more than the calculator?

Several sheet sizes at once

The app mixes sizes and picks the cheapest combination, for example full sheets plus a smaller size for the last few parts.

Grain on individual parts (Pro)

Lock the grain on the door faces of a brushed stainless job and let the hidden parts turn to fill gaps.

Quotes and DXF (Pro)

Cut length and pierces from the actual nest, priced at your machine rate, and the layout as a DXF for your programmer.

Questions

Straight answers

Yes. No sign-up, no limit on how often you use it, and nothing is uploaded: the nesting runs in your browser. It takes up to 400 parts; the free app takes more.
No. CutNest nests each part as a rectangle, which is what you need for ordering and quoting: how many sheets, and what they cost. Your CAM or nesting software still programs the machine.
Because parts don’t tessellate perfectly and every cut takes a kerf. On jobs with large parts the area sum is often a whole sheet short. See how many sheets do I need?
CutNest works out the fewest sheets any layout could possibly use. When its own layout matches that number, nothing can do better. When it can’t prove it, it doesn’t say so.

Try it on your own job

Free, in your browser, no account. Your cut list stays on your computer.

Open CutNest free → See Pro — £12/month + VAT
Try Free → Pro £12/mo + VAT