Dog crate size calculator
Measure your dog’s length and standing height, and this works out the interior the dog needs and which of the 6 published crate charts clear it — interior versus exterior handled per maker, not glossed over.
Your dog’s measurements
Enter what you have measured. Every answer below is the maker’s own published range against your number — a starting point, not a fitting.
Where to put the tape. Leave a box empty and the answers that need it say so, rather than guessing.
Enter a measurement above to see what each maker's chart says.
Sizes come from each maker’s own published chart. Check the maker’s current chart before you buy: charts change, and nothing here is a guarantee of fit.
What to measure
A crate has one job: the dog can stand without ducking, turn around, and lie flat on its side. That is a question about length and height, so those are the two measurements, taken with the dog standing square.
- Length: the tip of the nose to the base of the tail, in a straight line. The base, not the tip — a tail needs no crate space, and including it buys a size too big.
- Height: the floor to the top of the head, standing. If the ears stand up, measure to the ear tips. This is not the figure breed standards give: those are withers heights, measured at the shoulder, which is lower than the head.
The +4 in rule, and where it comes from
Add 4 inches to each measurement. A dog measuring 24 in long and 18 in tall needs an interior of at least 28 by 22 in. The allowance is what turns a box the size of a dog into a box a dog can use.
The American Kennel Club states the allowance as“add 3 to 4 inches”. This site uses 4, the top of that range, for one reason: a crate slightly too large costs you a little floor space, and a crate slightly too small is one the dog cannot stand up in.
Source: AKC, "How to Choose the Best Dog Crate", checked Nov 4, 2026.
Interior versus exterior: the trap
Compare your result against the crate’s inside. That sounds obvious, and it is the single most common way a crate purchase goes wrong, because makers do not agree on what the number they print means. The calculator handles each maker on its own terms:
- Petmate and Diggs publish interior dimensions, so their figures are compared directly and nothing is adjusted.
- Impact Dog Crates publishes exterior dimensions but also states how much smaller the inside is. The calculator subtracts that and labels the result an estimated interior, about ½ in smaller than Impact’s exterior size (Impact’s own note). Subtracting makes the answer more cautious, never less: a dog needing 24.5 in of interior does not get offered a crate measuring 24.5 in on the outside.
- MidWest Homes for Pets, MidWest Homes for Pets, Frisco (Chewy) publish the crate’s overall outside size and no allowance. Nothing is subtracted, because there is no published figure to subtract, and the row warns you that the usable inside is smaller instead. Inventing a number would be worse than naming the gap.
Worth checking: MidWest Homes for Pets lists “item dimensions as listed by the maker (overall/exterior)” for both the iCrate Single Door Folding Dog Crate and the LifeStages Single Door Dog Crate. Those are the item’s overall size, not the space the dog gets, so a size that only just clears your figures on paper may not clear them in practice.
Weight, and its limits
5 of the 6 crate makers publish dog weight guidance, and the calculator shows it when you give a weight and no measurements, labelledby weight. Crates are the one place weight is genuinely useful, because a crate is a box rather than a garment. It still does not answer the question that matters: whether the dog can stand up.
Impact Dog Crates Collapsible Dog Crate publishes no dog weight at all, so it can only be sized by measurement. That is why it shows “Sizes by measurement only” on every breed page.
Weight charts also have holes. Petmate jumps straight from one weight row to the next on the Sky Kennel, leaving no size at all for a dog of 16 to 24 lb. Where your weight lands in a gap like that, the page says so and shows no size, rather than rounding you into the nearest one.
Three worked examples
All three are computed by the same code the calculator runs, against the charts as published on Nov 4, 2026.
A 24 in long, 18 in tall dog: needs 28 × 22 in inside
A dog measuring 24 in long and 18 in tall61 cm long and 45.7 cm tall needs an interior of at least 28 × 22 in71.1 × 55.9 cm — the measurements plus 4 in each. Here is the smallest size of each crate that clears both.
| Crate | Size | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate Single Door Folding Dog Crate | 36-inch | MidWest Homes for Pets lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
| MidWest Homes for Pets LifeStages Single Door Dog Crate | 30-inch | MidWest Homes for Pets lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
| Petmate Sky Kennel | 32" | Petmate publishes interior dimensions, so this is the real inside size. |
| Diggs Revol Collapsible Dog Crate | Intermediate | Diggs publishes interior dimensions, so this is the real inside size. |
| Impact Dog Crates Collapsible Dog Crate | 30" (Medium) | estimated interior, about ½ in smaller than Impact’s exterior size (Impact’s own note) |
| Frisco (Chewy) Fold & Carry Single Door Collapsible Wire Dog Crate | Med/Large | Frisco (Chewy) lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
Note how far apart the answers are. The same dog takes a 36-inch MidWest Homes for Pets crate but a 32-inch Petmate, because one figure is the outside of the box and the other is the inside. Comparing the printed numbers without reading what they mean would have you buy the wrong one.
A 14 in long, 10 in tall dog: the small end of every chart
A dog measuring 14 in long and 10 in tall35.6 cm long and 25.4 cm tall needs an interior of at least 18 × 14 in45.7 × 35.6 cm — the measurements plus 4 in each. Here is the smallest size of each crate that clears both.
| Crate | Size | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate Single Door Folding Dog Crate | 22-inch | MidWest Homes for Pets lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
| MidWest Homes for Pets LifeStages Single Door Dog Crate | 22-inch | MidWest Homes for Pets lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
| Petmate Sky Kennel | 21" | Petmate publishes interior dimensions, so this is the real inside size. |
| Diggs Revol Collapsible Dog Crate | Small | Diggs publishes interior dimensions, so this is the real inside size. |
| Impact Dog Crates Collapsible Dog Crate | 24" (Small) | estimated interior, about ½ in smaller than Impact’s exterior size (Impact’s own note) |
| Frisco (Chewy) Fold & Carry Single Door Collapsible Wire Dog Crate | XX-Small | Frisco (Chewy) lists the outside of the box; the inside is smaller than the figure compared against. |
A 40 in long, 30 in tall dog: past the end of some charts
A dog measuring 40 in long and 30 in tall101.6 cm long and 76.2 cm tall needs an interior of at least 44 × 34 in111.8 × 86.4 cm — the measurements plus 4 in each. Here is the smallest size of each crate that clears both.
| Crate | Size | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate Single Door Folding Dog Crate | No size | Bigger than every size MidWest Homes for Pets prints. |
| MidWest Homes for Pets LifeStages Single Door Dog Crate | No size | Bigger than every size MidWest Homes for Pets prints. |
| Petmate Sky Kennel | No size | Bigger than every size Petmate prints. |
| Diggs Revol Collapsible Dog Crate | No size | Bigger than every size Diggs prints. |
| Impact Dog Crates Collapsible Dog Crate | 3XL | estimated interior, about ½ in smaller than Impact’s exterior size (Impact’s own note) |
| Frisco (Chewy) Fold & Carry Single Door Collapsible Wire Dog Crate | No size | Bigger than every size Frisco (Chewy) prints. |
A dog that large runs off the end of several charts entirely, and the rows say so rather than offering the biggest size as though it were a match. Diggs and Frisco (Chewy) both stop before it.
Puppies: buy adult, divide
The crate is the one piece of equipment you should buy too big. Work out the size your dog will need as an adult — the breed pages give published adult figures for 127 breeds — and use the divider panel to shrink the usable space, moving it back every few weeks as the dog grows.
A crate sized to a puppy is outgrown in a month. A full-size crate with no divider gives a puppy room to sleep at one end and use the other as a toilet, which is exactly what crate training is meant to prevent. Most wire crates here ship with a divider; the chart hub shows what each maker includes.
Common questions
- What size crate does my dog need?
- Measure your dog from the nose to the base of the tail, and from the floor to the top of the head while standing. Add 4 inches to each. That is the interior the crate needs, so the dog can stand without ducking, turn around and lie flat. The AKC gives the allowance as "add 3 to 4 inches"; this site uses 4, the top of that range.
- Why do you compare against the interior and not the crate size?
- Because makers do not agree on what the number on the box means. Petmate and Diggs publish interior dimensions. MidWest Homes for Pets and Frisco publish the crate's overall outside size, which is larger than the space the dog gets. Impact Dog Crates publishes exterior dimensions but also states how much smaller its inside is, so this site subtracts that and labels the result an estimated interior. For the rest, nothing is subtracted and the row warns you instead.
- Can I pick a crate from my dog’s weight?
- Partly. 5 of 6 crate makers publish weight guidance and this site shows it, labelled "by weight". But weight does not tell you whether a dog can stand up: two dogs of the same weight can be very different lengths. Where a maker's own weight rows skip over a weight, the page says so rather than rounding to the nearest size.
- What size crate for a puppy?
- Buy the size the dog will need as an adult and use the divider panel, moving it back as the dog grows. A crate bought to fit a puppy is outgrown in weeks, and a full-size crate with no divider leaves a puppy room to use one end as a toilet, which is what crate training is meant to avoid.
- Does this tell me how long my dog can be crated?
- No. This is a measurement tool and nothing more. How long a dog should spend in a crate, and whether crating suits that dog at all, are questions for your vet or a behaviourist. Nothing on this site is veterinary advice.
Start from a breed instead
A breed page gives the same crate answer from the breed’s published figures, across every chart, and tells you how each answer was reached. It is a narrower starting point than a tape measure, not a replacement for one.
- French Bulldog size chart
- Labrador Retriever size chart
- Golden Retriever size chart
- German Shepherd Dog size chart
- Dachshund size chart
- Poodle size chart
All 127 breeds are listed on the home page.
Where to go next
- How to measure your dog — where the tape goes, with a diagram.
- Every crate size chart side by side— the raw charts, filterable by measurement.
- Dog harness size calculator — the same tool for a harness.
- Dog collar size calculator — the same tool for a collar.
Measure your dog. Everything here is a published chart read against your number: a starting point, never a promise of fit. And this is not veterinary advice — sizing says nothing about whether a piece of equipment suits your dog’s health, breathing or behaviour. Full disclaimer.