Most of the world uses the metric system to calculate length, weight and volume, notably with the exception of the United States. As a result, there are many situations that might arise where a person may need to calculate the price of a square meter to square foot or vice versa. While price per square foot is most commonly used to calculate the cost of land, this calculation can also be used for manufacturing, flooring, dressmaking and many other situations where items are sold by the square foot or meter.

Defining Cost Per Square Meter

A square meter is a space that is one meter wide and one meter long. The cost per square meter is determined by dividing the total cost of a property or product by the total number of square meters in the property or product. For example, if a piece of fabric was 20 meters and it cost $200, the cost per square meter would be $10. To use a real estate example, if an available business property was 1,000 square meters and the monthly lease was $5,000, the monthly lease fee per square meter would be $5.

Converting Square Meters to Feet

If you are an American comparing prices on products, some of which are sold in the U.S. and some of which are sold by international companies, you may need to convert square meters to feet so the prices can be compared properly. Alternatively, if you are familiar with what properties cost in America and want to get an idea of how much more expensive property is to rent in another country, you may want to convert the price per square meter to square foot.

The easiest way to do this conversion is to use a cost per square meter calculator. These can be found online with a quick web search. If you prefer to do the math yourself, though, the first thing you should know is that while there are around 3.2 feet in a meter, you cannot simply divide the cost per square meter by 3.2 to get the cost per square foot. That's because once you turn a measurement from a straight line into a square area of space, you have to square the difference between meters and feet as well. In other words, there are approximately 10.76 (3.2 squared) feet in a square meter.

In order to convert the price of a square meter to a foot, then, you need to divide the cost per square meter by 10.76. So, if an apartment for rent in Europe was $50 per square meter, the total cost per square foot would be about $4.65 ($50 divided by 10.76).

Converting Square Feet to Meters

The process of calculating the price per square meter based on price per square foot is pretty much the same as it is for converting the price per square meter into square foot. The only difference is that rather than dividing the total price by 10.76, you will need to multiply it by this number.

For example, imagine you are comparing the prices of carpets, and you find three sold by the square meter that cost $19, $25 and $28, and you want to compare them to one you found that is sold by the square foot at $3. You would need to multiply the cost of the fourth carpet by 10.76 in order to discover that the total cost per square meter for this carpet would be $32.28. While the carpet sold by the square foot might sound cheap before your calculation, it actually costs more than any of the other options.