Painting cost calculator
- Price at your margin
- $2,349.01
- Computed on this page from the inputs below
- Labor hours including prep
- 28
- Computed on this page from the inputs below
- Labour cost
- $1,064
- Computed on this page from the inputs below
- Gallons of paint
- 10.29
- Computed on this page from the inputs below
Every figure here comes from the numbers you enter and the method stated beside it: your own wall area, your own coats, your own crew's production rate, your own fully loaded labour cost. This site publishes no book rate for painting and no price list. What a job should sell for in your town is your figure, not ours.
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The figures above start from a worked example ($2,349.01). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Painting cost calculator worked example (CSV)
This worksheet prices a whole job from your own figures: the surface area, the number of coats, your crew's production rate, the prep hours, your fully loaded labor cost an hour, the coverage on the tin you actually use, what a gallon costs you and the margin you want. It gives you labor hours, labor cost, gallons of paint, paint cost, what the job costs you altogether and the price that leaves your margin intact.
Painting cost calculator: common questions
Why divide by the margin instead of adding a markup?
Because a margin and a markup are different arithmetic and mixing them is how a painting business quietly earns less than it thinks. Cost divided by one minus the margin gives a price that really leaves that margin; cost times one plus the same number does not.
What coverage should I use for the paint?
The figure on the tin you are actually buying, adjusted down for rough or porous surfaces. Coverage varies by product and substrate far more than by brand, and the default here is a middling interior figure that you should replace with your own.
Does it cover sundries, ladders and dump fees?
No, only labor and paint, which are the two that scale with the job. Fixed costs of that kind are better added as a line on the estimate once, rather than smeared across a square foot rate where you can no longer see them.
Is this what I should charge?
It is what leaves your margin intact given your costs. What the job will sell for depends on your town, your reputation and who else is bidding, and this site publishes no price per square foot for painting because that number does not travel.