How Many Beads? Beads per Gram and Beads per Inch

When buying beads and making jewelry with beads, there is one important question you'll need to figure out: How many beads do I need? We're giving you the information of how many beads are used per inch, which comes in handy when designing jewelry and how many beads are in a gram, which comes in handy when purchasing beads.

Beads per Inch

To do the calculations yourself you'll need three numbers to figure this out: the length of the strand, the size of the beads, and the metric conversion. The metric conversion is 25.4mm to one inch. So to figure out how many beads, first multiply the length of the strand by 25.4. Then divide that number by the size of the beads, and you have the approximate number of beads.

Formula:
Length of Strand × 25.4 (Millimeters Per Inch) ÷ Bead Size

For example:
If you have an 8 inch strand with 6mm beads your calculation would be: 8 inches (the length of the strand) x 25.4 (millimeters per inch) = 203.2 ÷ 6mm (the bead size) = 33.86 beads per strand.

This means that there are approximately (33) 6mm beads per 8 inch strand.

This formula is also helpful when you would like to know how many beads you need to make a bracelet or necklace. Say you would like to make an 18 inch necklace using only 8mm beads, you would calculate like this: 

18 x 25.4 = 457.20 → 457.20 ÷ 8mm = 57.15 

To be on the safe side we recommend (58) 8mm beads for the 18 inch necklace just to make sure you have enough to complete the project.

Beads per Gram