Free Cut List Generator — Plan Your Cuts, Minimize Waste

Free Cut List Generator — Plan Your Cuts, Minimize Waste

A cut list generator takes the most tedious part of project planning — figuring out how many sheets of plywood to buy, how to arrange parts to reduce waste, whether grain direction is correct — and handles it automatically. What used to take an hour of grid-paper sketching and arithmetic now takes minutes. The result is a complete cutting plan you can take directly to your shop.

Cutly is a free cut list generator built specifically for woodworkers. It handles sheet goods, dimensional lumber, and live-edge slabs in a single project, exports to PDF and CSV, and accounts for kerf and grain direction automatically.

What Is a Cut List Generator?

A cut list generator is software that takes a list of parts — each with a length, width, thickness, material, and grain direction — and produces two outputs: a formatted cut list document and an optimized layout showing how to cut those parts from your available stock.

The formatting side is straightforward. Every part gets a row: name, quantity, and dimensions. The optimization side is where generators earn their value. Arranging irregular parts across sheets or boards to minimize waste is an NP-hard packing problem. A good generator solves it in seconds; doing it by hand with graph paper takes much longer and rarely produces an optimal result.

Good cut list software also handles the details that manual methods miss: kerf deductions between every part, grain direction constraints that lock part orientation, and mixed material types in a single project.

Who Uses a Cut List Generator?

Hobbyists and Home Woodworkers

If you build a few projects per year — a workbench, some shelving, a set of boxes — a cut list generator helps you buy the right amount of material without overbuying. Walking into a lumber yard with a printed cut list and a sheet count is a different experience than walking in and guessing. You spend less, waste less, and start cutting with confidence.

For hobbyists, the generator also serves as a project planning tool. Entering your parts forces you to think through the design before a single board is cut. Dimensions that seemed fine on a sketch often reveal problems — a shelf that is 1/4" too wide to fit, a drawer bottom that does not account for the drawer's interior clearance — when they are entered as concrete numbers.

Furniture Makers and Custom Woodworkers

Professional furniture makers deal with expensive material. A figured walnut slab can cost several hundred dollars. Cutting it wrong, or buying an extra slab because the layout was not properly planned, is a costly mistake. A cut list generator removes most of the risk: you see exactly how parts nest into your stock before you touch a blade.

Grain direction matters especially at this level. A face frame stile cut with horizontal grain on a vertical frame piece is a professional error. A generator with grain enforcement catches this at the planning stage, not after the cut.

Cabinet Shops

Production cabinet shops run dozens of sheets of plywood through the saw every week. At that volume, layout efficiency is a measurable business variable. A 5% improvement in sheet yield across a hundred sheets per month saves real money. Cut list generators with optimizer engines — especially those using guillotine or nested bin-packing algorithms — deliver that improvement consistently.

Cabinet shops also benefit from the documentation a generator produces. Cut lists can be shared with apprentices or CNC operators as a clear, unambiguous cutting specification.

How It Works: Three Steps to a Cutting Plan

Step 1: Enter Your Parts

Create a new project and add each part: name, quantity, length, width, and the material it comes from. If grain direction matters — it almost always does for solid wood and veneered panels — specify which axis the grain runs along.

Most projects involve a mix of materials. Cutly handles sheet goods (plywood, MDF, melamine), dimensional lumber (common boards, hardwood stock), and slabs in a single project. You do not need separate tools for different material types.

Step 2: Set Your Stock

Tell the generator what stock you have available or what you plan to buy. For sheet goods, that is the sheet size — 4×8, 5×5, or a custom size. For lumber, it is the board dimensions. You can set a standard kerf width (default 1/8" for a table saw) that the optimizer will deduct between every part.

If you are using suggested stock — letting the optimizer determine the most efficient board width to buy — Cutly can calculate that too.

Step 3: Optimize and Export

The optimizer arranges parts across your stock, respecting grain direction and accounting for kerf. The result is a layout diagram showing exactly where each part sits on each sheet or board, plus a cut list document showing the complete parts breakdown.

Export to PDF for a printable shop reference, or CSV to pull the data into a spreadsheet.

Key Features

Kerf accounting: Every saw cut removes material. Cutly deducts your saw's kerf between every part in the layout, so the cut count shown is always achievable — you will never run short because accumulated kerf consumed a part's worth of stock. See what kerf is and why it matters.

Grain direction enforcement: Parts that require a specific grain orientation are locked during optimization. The layout engine will not rotate a face frame piece to improve packing if doing so violates the grain requirement.

Multi-material projects: Sheet goods, boards, and slabs coexist in a single project. The optimizer handles each material type correctly — guillotine cuts for sheet goods, board-length packing for lumber.

Imperial and metric: Dimensions work in inches and fractions, decimal inches, or millimeters. The unit system is set per project and consistent throughout.

Export and sharing: Download a professional PDF cut list or CSV. Share a link with a client or collaborator.

Free to start: Cutly is free for personal use. No credit card required to generate and export a cut list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the generator account for saw kerf?

Yes. Cutly deducts your saw's kerf width between every part in the layout. The default is 1/8", which matches a standard table saw blade, but you can set the kerf to any value — 3/32" for a thin-kerf blade, 1/4" for a CNC router bit. Kerf is applied to both rip and crosscut directions, so the part count the optimizer reports is always what is actually achievable on your saw.

Can I use it for both plywood and solid lumber in the same project?

Yes. A single Cutly project can include sheet goods (plywood, MDF, melamine), dimensional lumber boards, and live-edge slabs. Each material type is handled according to its geometry — sheets use 2D packing, boards use 1D length packing with kerf between crosscuts. The cut list export shows all material types in one document.

What happens if a part is too large to fit on a single sheet?

Parts that exceed the dimensions of the available stock are flagged as unplaceable and appear highlighted in the cut list. The optimizer will not silently split a part or produce a layout that cannot be executed. You would need to either resize the part, use a larger sheet size, or plan the join manually.

Is the cut list generator really free?

Yes, Cutly is free for personal woodworking projects. You can create projects, generate optimized layouts, and export cut lists without a subscription. A paid tier is available for shops that need additional features like team sharing, higher project limits, and commercial use.

Ready to stop guessing at the lumber yard and start cutting with a plan? Try Cutly free — enter your parts, set your stock, and get a complete cutting plan in minutes. No account required to start.