What to charge for interior painting
Price it by the square foot of wall you paint, and give the prep its own hours. Gallons at what one costs you, supplies, the hours of getting the rooms ready, the hours of painting them, and the trips: that is what the job costs you. Pick a price above it and divide by the square feet of wall.
By TailGateBid. .
Which square foot?
A square foot of floor and a square foot of wall are different numbers, and a price for one is not a price for the other. This page uses the wall: the walls all the way round, less the doors and windows. That is what gets painted, so it is what grows with the work.
If you quote by the room, or by the square feet of floor, work the price out from the walls first, the way the boxes below do. Then say it however your customer hears it best.
Ceilings, trim and doors are priced apart. Put them on the quote as lines of their own, so a square foot of wall stays a square foot of wall.
From the rooms to the gallons
- Each room's length and width, added and doubled, times the height: the walls. Add the rooms and take out the doors and windows.
- Times the coats, divided by what a gallon covers, rounded up: the gallons. Sherwin-Williams puts a gallon at about 350 to 400 square feet, and Benjamin Moore's calculator assumes 2 coats. Use the can's own figure and the coats this job needs.
- Gallons at what one costs you, plus supplies, is the materials.
- Hours of prep and hours of painting, added, at what an hour costs you, is the time.
- Materials, time and trips are what the job costs you. Pick a price above it and divide by the square feet you paint.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the walls
These boxes turn the rooms into square feet of wall and gallons of paint, and put the size, the materials and your hours in the calculator below.
A new row opens when the last one is filled.
All of them added up. Leave it empty to paint the walls as if they were solid.
It starts at 2. Type what this job needs.
On the can. It starts at 350; change it to yours.
Leave it empty if the customer buys the paint.
Tape, plastic, patch, caulk, covers, a brush that will not come back.
Moving furniture, masking, patching, sanding, caulk.
Cutting in and rolling every coat, and the cleanup.
Type the length and the width of a room, and the height of its walls. The square feet show here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each square foot.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
Two bedrooms, priced
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say two bedrooms are 12 by 14 feet and 11 by 12 with 8 foot walls: 784 square feet of wall. Take out 120 of doors and windows and you paint 664. 2 coats at 350 square feet a gallon is 3.79 gallons, so you buy 4. Say a gallon costs you $42, a made-up price: $168, and $35 of supplies makes $203. Say the prep takes 5 hours and the painting 9: 14 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $798.70. Say the trips cost you $36. The job costs you $1,037.70. Charge $1,483 and you keep $445.30, which is $30 of every $100. That is $2.24 a square foot of wall.
The same rooms at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $1,153 | $115.30 | $10 |
| $1,298 | $260.30 | $20 |
| $1,483 | $445.30 | $30 |
| $1,730 | $692.30 | $40 |
| $2,076 | $1,038.30 | $50 |
The hours are yours to time
The boxes count gallons. They do not say how long a wall takes. We looked for a figure at a source we would put a name to and found none: neither paint maker's page gives one.
So time your own. After each job write down the square feet of wall, the hours of prep and the hours of painting, kept apart. A few jobs in, you have two paces that are yours, and the next quote starts from them.
Before you price an older home
Scraping and sanding are prep. In an older home a federal rule about lead in paint can apply to them. This page gives no legal advice. Here is the agency's own sentence:
EPA
“In general, anyone paid to perform work that disturbs paint in housing and child-occupied facilities built before 1978 must be certified in lead-safe work practices. This includes all firms, even sole proprietorships.”U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program,
This is not legal or tax advice. Limits differ by state and province. Check yours.
What that asks of your business, and whether your state runs the program itself, is on the agency's page. Read it there, not here. If it applies to a job, whatever it adds in training, setup and cleanup is hours and supplies, and those belong in the boxes above.
What gets missed
- Moving and covering. Furniture to the middle of the room, floors covered, plates off the walls, and all of it back again. It is prep, and it is in the hours whether you count it or not.
- The patching. Holes, cracks and stains that show once the furniture is out. Say on the quote what is included, and what is extra by the hour.
- The second day. A second coat on another day is another drive, and so is coming back for touch-ups: what a trip costs you.
- Ceilings, trim and primer. Each is its own line and its own can. The paint counter counts the gallons for walls, ceilings and primer from the same rooms.
- Who buys the paint. If the customer does, empty the box for what a gallon costs you, and the materials are your supplies alone.
- The money out. Paint is bought before you are paid. A deposit and the sales tax are worked out on their own page; what your state allows is yours to check.
On a quote
In TailGateBid the walls go on a quote as a line charged by the square foot, with the prep by the hour and the paint as a line of its own. TailGateBid for painters has a living room worked through that way.
The hour under every figure on this page is what an hour costs you. If that is still a guess, start there.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
- The box for the coats starts at 2. Benjamin Moore's own calculator assumes that many. Starting there is our choice: type what this job needs. Benjamin Moore, paint calculator, . (our choice, change it)
- The box for what a gallon covers starts at 350 square feet. Sherwin-Williams puts a gallon of paint at about 350 to 400 square feet. Starting at the low end is our choice. Use the figure on the can you are buying. Sherwin-Williams, questions under its paint calculator, . (our choice, change it)
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Paint calculatorRooms into square feet of wall and gallons to buy, for walls, ceilings and primer, with lines to put on a quote.
- PaintingSquare feet, coats and gallons on a quote with options your customer picks from.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- Deposit and sales taxOn a sample quote, 7.25% of $2,035.00 is $147.54 of tax, and a 10% deposit on the total is $225.75.
On a TailGateBid quote the walls, the ceilings and the trim can be options your customer picks between, each with its own price.
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