Short answer: penny round is a shape, not a material or a size. It names a mosaic of small circles on a backing sheet, and the round is often dropped, so penny tiles and penny round tiles are the same thing. One product here is that shape: Carrara Round Mosaic Tile, which records a 285 × 305 mm sheet, a 20 mm piece, a honed finish and Marble in the Material row. It records an 8 mm thickness, but no count of pieces on a sheet and no gap between them. This guide sets out what those rows do tell you and what they leave for the sample, the grout and the order.
1. What the name means, and what it does not
A penny round is a circle small enough to be handled by the sheet rather than the piece. The name is a size word by origin — a penny-sized disc — but on a product page it is a shape word only: it says the pieces are round and mounted on a sheet, and nothing about what they are made of or how wide they are. Penny round mosaic tiles puts it in one sentence: "Circles do not tessellate, which is the whole story of this shape." Squares and hexagons meet edge to edge. Circles cannot, and the collection page draws the consequence: "Between every four of them sits a small concave gap, so a penny round surface carries more grout for its area than a square chip does."
One thing follows from that, and the collection page states it. The grout colour decides what you actually see: "a dark tone separates the chips into dots, a matching tone pulls them together into texture". That is the collection page's account of the shape, not a row on the product page, and it is the reason this guide keeps coming back to the joint.
2. The one sheet here, row by row
| Row on the product page | What it records |
|---|---|
| Product type | Mosaic tile |
| Style / shape | Round mosaic |
| Sheet size | 285 × 305 mm |
| Piece size | 20 mm |
| Finish | Honed |
| Material | Marble |
| Thickness | 8 mm |
| Slip-rating reference | Not specified |
| Sold by | The sheet · about 0.0869 m² per sheet |
The description is one sentence: "A natural marble mosaic in a compact round repeat, with a honed surface." Read the rows against it. The sheet is not square: 285 mm one way and 305 mm the other, a difference of 20 mm, which is one piece. The piece is 20 mm, given as a single figure because a circle has one dimension. The finish is honed, one of two honed sheets in the Carrara series (Fan is the other), and the Material row reads Marble, which is what "natural marble" in the description means when it is written into a row. One row reads Not specified: the Slip-rating reference row. The quantity row reads Sold by: the sheet is the unit you order, and the page works its per-square-metre figure and its planner from the sheet size, at about 11.5 sheets per m². Thickness reads 8 mm, as it does on all five Carrara sheets that record Marble.
3. What the four rows let you work out, and what they do not
A sheet size and a piece size are enough for one calculation and not for another. They tell you how many sheets cover an area, and since this mosaic is sold by the sheet, that is the count you order: Measure a mosaic project takes a sheet size through that arithmetic, and the same method applies to a 285 × 305 mm sheet as to any other. They do not tell you how many circles are on a sheet, because that depends on the gap between circles, and the gap is not recorded. Along a 285 mm edge, 20 mm circles laid touching would fit fourteen times; with a gap between them the count depends on the gap, and the page does not record one. Kit kat tiles: the sheet maths works through the same limit for a finger sheet: count by the sheet when the sheet is recorded, and do not count by the piece when the gap is not.
The joint is the other thing the rows leave open. On a square mosaic the gap is a line; on a round one the collection page calls it a "small concave gap". The recorded numbers fix the size of the circles and the size of the sheet, and the look of the surface is fixed later, by a colour that is not on this page. Grout colour: dried sample joint vs chart is where that decision is made.
4. Round, fan, hexagon: the three curved-or-cornered sheets in one series
Carrara Round is one of nine Carrara sheets and one of five that record Marble; the other four marble sheets are Fan, Large Hexagon, Stack and Petite Herringbone, and the four that do not are ceramic or porcelain, as Is Carrara marble? Nine names, three materials sets out. Three of the nine are worth reading side by side because they are all small repeating shapes recording Marble. Carrara Fan Mosaic Tile records a 225 × 230 mm sheet and a 75 mm piece, a "flowing fan repeat"; Carrara Large Hexagon Mosaic Tile a 250 × 290 mm sheet and a 70 mm hexagon, cut larger "so the veining reads across each piece". The round, at 20 mm, is the smallest piece of the three by a long way, and the page describes it as a "compact round repeat". The pages do not say how a vein reads on a 20 mm piece; the Large Hexagon page is the one that says its size was chosen for the veining, and the Round page says nothing about veins at all. Hexagon tiles: what they are called and how big sets the two hexagon sheets side by side.
5. What it looks like laid
One installed room on this site shows the sheet in use. Carrara Round as a powder room floor photographs the rounds running under a wall-hung vanity, which is the clearest way to see what the collection page means by texture: at room scale the circles stop being circles and become a surface with a grain. The photograph shows one grout colour in one light. It does not show what the sheet looks like with a darker joint or a lighter one, and this guide has not gone looking for another photograph that does; that pair is a sample question.
6. What to check before you order
Four things, in this order. Material first, because it is the row that separates this sheet from the ceramic and porcelain ones in the same series, and the row the name does not tell you. Sheet size second, and the sheet is not square, so note which way is 285 mm and which is 305 mm when you work out how many you need. Finish third: honed is what is recorded, and The twelve ways this range writes a finish explains what that word means on this site against polished and matt. Grout fourth, and separately, because it is not on the page and, as the collection page says, decides what you actually see.
What this page will not tell you is how the surface behaves once it is laid, cleaned or sealed. The Carrara Round page records none of durability, slip class or water absorption, so this guide makes no claim on those grounds, and where a tile may be laid is settled by your installer or specifier, not by a shape. The page does not record what form the sample piece takes for a mosaic sheet, so ask what it is before ordering it if the sheet itself is what has to be seen; how to compare samples at home covers what to write down, and Tile samples explains how ordering works.
Questions people ask
What size are penny round tiles?
On this site, 20 mm: the one penny round sheet records a 20 mm piece on a 285 × 305 mm sheet. The name itself carries no size, so a penny round from another supplier can be larger or smaller, and its page is the place to read.
Are penny round tiles the same as penny tiles?
Yes. The collection page records the shorter name as the same shape "with the round dropped from the name". Both describe small circles mounted on a sheet.
How many penny tiles are on a sheet?
Not recorded. The page gives the sheet size and the piece size, not the count or the gap between pieces, and a count worked out from a 20 mm circle without the gap is a guess. Count by the sheet.
Is the penny round here real marble?
Yes. The Material row reads Marble, and it is one of five Carrara sheets that do. The Carrara name on its own does not say so; four other Carrara sheets record Ceramic or Porcelain.
Where these facts come from
Every row above was read on 21 September 2026 from the Carrara Round Mosaic Tile product page — the Sheet size, Piece size, Finish and Thickness rows, the Product type, Style and Material rows in the specifications panel, and the opening description sentence — and from the Penny round mosaic tiles collection page, cross-checked against the product feed at /products.json. Words in quotation marks are the product page's or collection page's own wording, copied as written. The gap between circles and the count per sheet are not recorded, and this guide does not estimate them. The Thickness row was updated on 1 October 2026 from supplier documentation and now reads 8 mm. The Sold by row, which replaced the box coverage row, was updated on 4 October 2026, when the mosaics began to be sold by the sheet. The Finish row and the opening description sentence were also updated on 4 October 2026 from supplier documentation, and now read Honed and "a honed surface". Nothing here is a performance claim or a statement of where a tile belongs. Supplier documentation changes, so read the page on the day you order, and confirm the specification your project needs with the responsible installer.
Where this guide sits: Where to start sets out the order the guides follow.
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