384-Well Plate Tool

384-Well Plate Template, Layout & Plate Map Maker

Describe your screening layout — or ask for a blank template — and get a publication-ready 384-well plate figure: all 16 rows lettered A to P, all 24 columns numbered, colour-coded groups and a legend.

Example 384-well plate figures

A blank template and a screening plate map, each a real render — click a card to load the prompt that drew it.

Blank template

Screening plate map

What is a 384-well plate template?

A 384-well plate template is a figure of the high-density microplate grid — 384 wells in 16 rows lettered A to P and 24 columns numbered 1 to 24, with well A1 at the top left. Coloured by group with a legend it becomes a plate map, the way a screening protocol, a qPCR run sheet or a methods figure records what each well holds.

Key facts

A 384-well plate has 16 rows lettered A to P and 24 columns numbered 1 to 24 — the layout ANSI/SLAS 4-2004 specifies.
It shares the 127.76 × 85.48 mm ANSI/SLAS 1-2004 footprint of a 96-well plate, with the well pitch halved to 4.5 mm.
A standard Corning 384 well is square, 2.7 × 2.7 mm, holding 112 µL in total with a 25–50 µL working volume.
One 384-well plate holds the wells of four 96-well plates, which is why screening moves to it.

How does the 384-well plate maker work?

Describe the layout

Name each region by explicit ranges — controls in columns 1–2 and 23–24, compounds in 3–22, rows A–H for one cell line. The tool already knows the 16 × 24 grid and its headers; a blank request gives an empty template.

Pick a style

The default is a flat publication plate — white background, one outline weight, a legend. Or choose grayscale print, pastel, dark slide, hand-drawn or 3D labware.

Refine and export

The figure opens in your workspace, where you can recolour groups, edit the legend on the canvas, regenerate with a changed layout and export in high resolution.

384-well plate dimensions and volumes

What the ANSI/SLAS standards fix for a 384-well plate, and the well size and volumes they leave to the manufacturer.

Dimension	Value	Where it is specified
Grid	16 rows (A–P) × 24 columns (1–24)	ANSI/SLAS 4-2004
Footprint	127.76 × 85.48 mm	ANSI/SLAS 1-2004
Well-to-well pitch	4.5 mm in both directions	ANSI/SLAS 4-2004
Centre of well A1	12.13 mm from the left edge, 8.99 mm from the top edge	ANSI/SLAS 4-2004
Well size, standard	2.7 × 2.7 mm, square	Corning CLS-AN-209
Total well volume	112 µL (low-volume plates: 50 µL)	Corning CLS-AN-209
Working volume	25–50 µL (low-volume plates: 5–40 µL)	Corning CLS-AN-209
Growth area per well	0.056 cm²	Corning CLS-AN-209

The standards fix the plate and the well positions; well shape and volume are the manufacturer's. Quote volumes from the datasheet of the plate you used — a low-volume 384 plate holds less than half of a standard one.

384-well vs 96-well plates

Both formats share one footprint, so they fit the same readers and robots. The 384-well plate puts four times the wells in that space by halving the pitch.

Feature	96-well	384-well
Grid	8 rows × 12 columns	16 rows × 24 columns
Row letters	A–H	A–P
Well pitch	9 mm	4.5 mm
Working volume (Corning)	100–200 µL	25–50 µL
Typical use	ELISA, qPCR, general assays	High-throughput screening, qPCR

Moving a 96-well assay to 384 wells cuts reagent use per well about fourfold but asks for more precise pipetting — most labs fill 384-well plates with a liquid handler or a 16-channel pipette.

Where are 384-well plate figures used?

At 384 wells a layout is too dense to describe in prose — a plate map is how the design is agreed, run and reported.

Screening campaigns

Control columns at the edges, compounds in the middle: the map shows where every control sits, which is what the Z′-factor and hit calls are computed from.

qPCR run sheets

Samples, standards and no-template controls across 384 wells — a coloured map checked against the instrument's plate setup before the run catches transposed rows.

Methods figures

One panel states the full plate design, with the row and column ranges readable at a glance by reviewers.

Common questions about 384-well plates

How many rows and columns does a 384-well plate have?

Sixteen rows lettered A to P and twenty-four columns numbered 1 to 24 — 16 × 24 = 384 wells. Well names run from A1 at the top left to P24 at the bottom right, the layout ANSI/SLAS 4-2004 specifies.

What is the well spacing on a 384-well plate?

4.5 mm centre to centre in both directions, half the 9 mm of a 96-well plate. ANSI/SLAS 4-2004 puts the centre of A1 12.13 mm from the left edge and 8.99 mm from the top edge; the 24 columns span 103.5 mm and the 16 rows 67.5 mm.

How much liquid does a 384-well plate hold?

A standard Corning 384 well holds 112 µL in total, with a recommended working volume of 25–50 µL. Low-volume 384 plates hold 50 µL with a 5–40 µL working range. No ANSI/SLAS standard fixes well volume, so take the figure from your plate's datasheet.

How does a 384-well plate relate to four 96-well plates?

Because the pitch is exactly half, each 96-well position maps onto a 2 × 2 block of 384 wells. Four 96-well plates can be interleaved into one 384-well plate, one per quadrant offset (A1, A2, B1, B2) — worth showing in the map when samples come from 96-well source plates.

When should I use a 384-well plate instead of a 96-well plate?

When the number of conditions or the reagent cost matters more than volume per well — compound screens, dose–response panels and large qPCR runs. Stay with 96 wells for manual pipetting, assays that need 100 µL or more, or when cells must be harvested per well.

How should I describe a 384-well layout so every well lands correctly?

Give explicit row and column ranges. "Negative controls in columns 1–2, positive controls in 23–24, compounds in 3–22" or "cell line A in rows A–H, cell line B in rows I–P" places every group exactly; "40 compounds in duplicate" leaves the arithmetic to the model.

Can I make a blank 384-well plate template?

Yes — ask for a blank template and you get the empty 16 × 24 grid with rows A–P and columns 1–24, ready to print and fill in by hand or to annotate in the workspace.