Planner

60/30/10 color palette planner

This is for anyone who has chosen a few colors for a room but is not sure how much of each to use. Pick your three colors, say roughly how many visible things in the room carry color, and the planner shows how many should belong to each color. It runs in your browser and nothing is saved or sent.

How the planner works

The 60/30/10 rule is a long-standing interior design rule of thumb: about 60 percent of a room in one dominant color, 30 percent in a secondary color and 10 percent in an accent. It keeps a room from looking either flat or busy. It is a guideline and not a standard, so rooms that break it can look great.

Real rooms are hard to measure by surface area, so the planner counts things instead. Count walls as one, then each large piece of furniture, rug, pair of curtains, bedding set, pillow, throw, vase and piece of art that carries a noticeable color. Enter that count. The planner splits it 60, 30 and 10 using the largest remainder method, which means the three parts always add up to your total. When you enter three or more things, the secondary and accent colors each get at least one, so a small room still gets its accent.

Worked example

A living room has 20 color-carrying things. Sixty percent is 12, thirty percent is 6 and ten percent is 2. In practice, that could be warm cream on the walls, sofa, big rug and curtains (the dominant 12), rust-brown on the armchair, a throw and a lamp base (the secondary), and a deep red in two pillows (the accent). With 10 things the split is 6, 3 and 1. With 3 things it is 1, 1 and 1.

Using the numbers well

• Make the dominant color a calm one, often a warm neutral. The warm colors guide covers tones that feel warm without making a room dark.
• Choose the secondary color to sit next to the dominant color on a color wheel or as a deeper version of it.
• Keep the accent small and easy to change, such as pillow covers or a vase. That also makes seasonal swaps cheap, as described in the seasonal styling guide.
• Add texture, such as wool, linen or wood, before adding another color. Texture warms a room without crowding the palette.

Limits

The preview bar shows the proportions of your three colors on your screen. Screens vary, so it will not match paint or fabric exactly. Wood, metal and plants also add color that the rule does not count, and you can treat them as neutral. This is general decorating guidance and a matter of taste, not a rule you must follow.

Where this comes from

The 60/30/10 split is a widely repeated rule of thumb in interior design guides. We found no standard or research body that sets it, so we treat it as a heuristic. The counting method, the largest remainder rounding and the minimum of one for the secondary and accent are this tool's own design. Advice about texture and warm colors comes from the site's own texture guide and color guide.