Measuring · updated August 2026
How to measure square footage on Google Maps
It takes three clicks and it is free, but one of the three is almost never mentioned — and without it Google Maps shows you a distance and no area at all. Here is the whole method, the Google Earth version, how far you can trust the number, and the point at which contractors stop using it.
Two minutes. Desktop browser required — the phone app cannot do this.
The three clicks
Right-click where the surface starts
Open Google Maps in a desktop browser and find the property. Switch to satellite view so you can see the actual surface rather than a road outline. Right-click the first corner of what you want to measure and choose “Measure distance” from the menu that appears. A white dot drops on that corner.
Click your way around the shape
Left-click each corner in turn, following the edge of the surface. Every click adds a point and Maps shows a running total distance along the bottom of the screen. Curves get traced with several short clicks rather than one long one — the more points you place along a curve, the closer the outline sits to the real edge. Misclicked? Drag the point, or click it again to remove it.
Close the shape on the very first dot
This is the step almost every set of instructions leaves out, and without it you never see an area at all. Click back on the first point you placed. The outline closes, fills in, and the readout switches from distance alone to “Total area” in square feet and square metres. If you only ever see a distance, the shape is still open.
The Google Earth method
Same imagery, a better tool for it — worth the switch the moment you are measuring more than one thing.
Google Earth has a dedicated measure tool rather than a right-click menu item. Open the property, click Measure in the left toolbar, then click each corner of the surface. To close the shape you double-click the first point instead of single-clicking it, and the area and perimeter both appear in the inspector panel on the right.
Three things make it the better tool if you do this often. It gives you perimeter as well as area, which matters the moment you are pricing anything linear. It has a unit selector — square feet, square metres, acres, square miles — so commercial lots can be read in acres without converting. And Google Earth Pro on desktop will save a polygon and export it as a KML file, which is the only way either product lets a measurement outlive the session.
What it does not fix is the phone problem. Neither product gives you a working area measurement in the field, and neither attaches the number to a customer, an address or a price. For a fuller side-by-side, the SurfaceMeasure vs. Google Earth comparison goes feature by feature.
How accurate is it, really?
Accurate enough to quote from. The error that bites is almost always yours, not Google's.
Satellite and aerial imagery is georeferenced, which means every pixel has a real-world coordinate behind it. Trace a flat surface carefully and the result typically lands within a few percent of what a tape would tell you — well inside the tolerance that quoting and material estimating need.
Three things cost you accuracy, in order of how often they actually do:
- Cutting corners on curvesThe tool draws straight lines between your clicks. A curved driveway apron traced with three points can under-report by more than the margin you were worried about in the first place. Place points until the outline looks like the edge.
- Guessing at hidden edgesTree canopy, deep shade and cars parked on the surface hide the boundary. Where you cannot see the edge, you are estimating it — and it is worth saying so in the quote rather than discovering it on the day.
- Measuring something that isn't flatAn overhead view has no height in it. It gives you a roof's footprint rather than its sloped area, and a building's footprint rather than its walls. Both need a multiplier or a different method — that is what the roof and house-wash calculators exist for.
Imagery date is the quiet one. What you are measuring is the property as photographed, which might be two years ago. New patios, extended driveways and removed decks all show up as surprises on the day, so on anything expensive it is worth asking the customer whether anything has changed.
Where it stops working
The method is fine. It is doing it twenty times a week that isn't.
Nothing above is a criticism of Google Maps. For a one-off — a homeowner sizing a lawn, a contractor sanity-checking a number over the phone — it is genuinely the right tool and it costs nothing. Use it.
The trouble starts when measuring is the job rather than a favour. A lead comes in at 4pm while you are on site; the app on your phone will not close a shape, so the quote waits until you are back at a desk, by which time somebody else has answered. The pool deck needs the pool taken out of it, so you measure twice and subtract by hand. The property has a driveway, a walkway and a patio, so that is three separate measurements and three numbers copied into a spreadsheet. In March the customer calls back about the quote and there is nothing to look at, because the shape disappeared the moment you clicked away.
None of those are accuracy problems. They are bookkeeping problems, and they are the reason the free method quietly stops scaling somewhere around the fifth quote a week.
Google Maps vs. a measuring tool built for quoting
Where the free method genuinely wins, it is marked as such.
| Feature | Google Maps | SurfaceMeasure |
|---|---|---|
| Measures area on a phone | Distance only — no area on mobile | Yes, built for the driveway |
| Cost | Free | 1 free measurement, then $9.99/mo |
| Subtract a shape (pool inside a deck) | Manual — measure twice, subtract yourself | Automatic net area |
| Multiple surfaces totalled per property | One shape at a time | All surfaces in one job |
| Saved and searchable by address | Gone when you click away | Saved with the job |
| Produces a customer-ready quote | No | Priced PDF with the measurement |
You have a number. Now price it.
Square footage on its own doesn't win the job — the figure underneath it does.
Area
Your pricing
Common ranges by surface: concrete driveway $0.08–$0.20, pool deck $0.10–$0.25, concrete patio $0.10–$0.25, pavers $0.12–$0.30, commercial flatwork $0.06–$0.15.
Estimated price
$175
An estimate, not a quote — your costs, market, and the surface condition move the real number. Don't know the square footage? Measure it from satellite imagery and the area fills itself in.
A price is only half of what the customer is deciding on — the other half is how long you will be there. The job time calculator turns the same square footage into hours on site.
Common questions
In a desktop browser, right-click the first corner of the surface and choose “Measure distance”. Left-click each remaining corner to trace the outline, then click back on the very first dot to close the shape. The moment the shape closes, Google Maps replaces the distance readout with a total area in square feet and square metres. Leave the shape open and you will only ever see a distance.
No. The mobile app will measure distance between points, but it does not close a shape or return an area — that feature only exists in the desktop web version. This is the single most common reason contractors give up on the method: the moment you actually need the number, you are standing in a driveway holding a phone. Your options are to wait until you are back at a computer, or to use a tool that measures area on mobile.
For flat ground the underlying imagery is georeferenced well enough that a carefully traced shape typically lands within a few percent of a tape measurement — accurate enough for quoting and material estimates. Most of the error is yours, not Google's: rushed clicks, corners cut across a curve, and shadows or tree canopy hiding the real edge. Height is the other limit. Satellite imagery is an overhead view, so it measures the footprint of a building rather than its walls or its sloped roof.
Google Maps reports the area in both square feet and square metres at the same time, so there is nothing to switch. Google Earth is different — it has a unit selector in the measurement panel with square feet, square metres, acres and square miles, which makes it the better choice if you work in acres on commercial lots.
Place more points. The tool draws straight lines between clicks, so a curve traced with four points cuts corners and under-reports the area, while the same curve with fifteen points sits almost exactly on the edge. For a shape with a hole in it — a pool inside a deck, an island in a parking lot — Google Maps has no subtract function, so you measure the outer shape, measure the hole separately, and subtract the second number from the first yourself.
Google Maps is faster for a single quick measurement because there is nothing to install and no mode to enter. Google Earth is better when you are doing it repeatedly: the measure tool is a dedicated panel rather than a right-click menu, it reports perimeter alongside area, it lets you choose your units, and Google Earth Pro can save and export shapes. Both share the same underlying limitation — the measurement is a scratch calculation, not a record attached to a job.
Not in Google Maps. The shape lives until you click away and then it is gone, with no name, no address, no date and no way to attach it to a customer. Google Earth Pro will save a polygon into a KML file, which is a genuine step up but is still a file on your computer rather than a quotable line item. If the measurements need to survive into an estimate, the copy-the-number-into-a-spreadsheet step is where the method breaks down.
For one job, yes — the number itself is sound. What is not sound is the workflow around it at volume. Twenty quotes a week means twenty desktop sessions, twenty numbers hand-copied into a spreadsheet, no history when a customer calls back in March, and nothing to show the customer. The accuracy is fine. It is the bookkeeping that costs you.
Measure a specific surface
Measure it from the driveway instead
Same satellite imagery, same accuracy — on a phone, with the pool subtracted, every surface on the property totalled, saved against the address, and priced into a quote you can send before you pull away. First measurement free, no card.