Painting Pricing Calculator
Price painting work from your real costs — painter labor, van & equipment overhead, paint and sundries — with your profit margin built in, not diluted away. Every price comes with a full breakdown so you can see exactly where it comes from.
Your Company Setup
Set these once — they reflect your business, not the job.
Price a Job
Enter the job — the price updates as you type.
Instant Rate Card — Common Painting Jobs
Twelve common residential jobs priced with your company settings above. Change your painter rate or margin and the whole menu reprices instantly. Hours and materials costs are typical starting points for average-condition surfaces — adjust them to your market, your quality level, and the prep in front of you.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical materials | Your flat rate |
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We really appreciate feedback from working pros like yourself to get these numbers accurate — to help our fellow trades and businesses succeed, now and for the next generations to come.
Worked Examples: Three Real Painting Jobs
Using the default company settings above ($32/hr loaded painter rate, $18/hr overhead, 30% paint & sundries markup, 30% target margin, 3% card fee, 2% touch-up reserve):
1. Bedroom repaint, walls only — five hours, $90 in paint and sundries
Labor $160 + overhead $90 + materials charged at $117 (your $90 cost with markup) = $367 base → flat rate about $565, netting roughly $169 at your 30% target. Look at the split: materials are barely a fifth of the price. Painting is a labor business — which is why upgrading to better paint costs the customer little but cheap paint that needs a third coat costs you a fortune in unpriced hours.
2. Front door refinish — three hours, $45 in materials
Labor $96 + overhead $54 + materials charged at $59 = $209 base → flat rate about $321. On a refinish, the prep is the job — sanding, deglossing, priming, and two finish coats with dry time between them. The three hours are honest hours; the shop that quotes "an hour to paint a door" is either skipping the sanding or donating the rest.
3. Interior door, both sides, brushed — an hour and a half, $25 in materials
Labor $48 + overhead $27 + materials charged at $33 = $108 base → flat rate about $165. This is why professional painters price doors per unit: setup, masking, and cleanup make a single small item disproportionately expensive alone — and progressively cheaper by the fifth door in the same trip. Price the first door to carry the visit; discount the rest deliberately, not accidentally.
What Does Painting Overhead Actually Cost?
Overhead is every cost of being in business that isn't a specific job: van payment and fuel, general liability insurance (overspray on a customer's car is a real claim), workers' comp priced for ladder work, ladders and planks, an airless sprayer or two plus the tips and filters they eat, drop cloths, masking film and tape by the case, brush and roller replacement, pressure washer for exterior prep, software, phone, and marketing. Painting runs lighter on equipment than the mechanical trades, but the consumables never stop — masking supplies alone quietly consume thousands a year that no invoice ever names.
The number that matters is overhead per billable hour — hours actually painted for customers, not hours quoting, color-consulting, or picking up paint. A busy small operation bills maybe 1,300–1,500 hours per painter per year once weather, estimates, and supply runs take their share. Divide annual overhead by those billable hours: roughly $25,000 ÷ 1,400 billable hours ≈ $18 per billable hour — the default this calculator starts with. Painters who treat overhead as "just gas and insurance" price every room as if the sprayer, the ladders, and the tape were free.
Common Painting Pricing Mistakes
Recommended Profit Margins for Painting
These are working benchmarks, not laws. Production work runs thinner because it's won on volume with minimal prep variables; residential repaint carries more because every job is a custom mix of prep, colors, furniture, and finish expectations — and because your reputation hangs on the cut lines. What matters is that the margin is a decision you made, visible in your price — not whatever was left after the tape and the third coat.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge to paint a room?
Build it from your numbers: your loaded painter rate for the honest hours — prep, cut-in, coats, and cleanup, not just roller time — plus overhead per billable hour, plus paint and sundries with markup, divided by one minus your target margin. Painting is a labor business: on a typical room, materials are a fifth of the price and labor is the product. Price the hours truthfully and the room prices itself.
Should I price painting by the square foot or by the job?
Quote the customer a flat job price, but build that price from your own production rates — how many square feet of wall your crew actually covers per hour at your quality level, on that surface, with that prep. Square-foot shortcuts from the internet skip the two things that decide profitability: prep condition and cut-in complexity. Two identical-sized rooms can honestly differ by half a day.
What profit margin should a painting company target?
Common working targets: 30–45% true net margin on residential repaint work, and 15–25% on production or new-construction work won on volume, after all costs, card fees, and a touch-up reserve. Paint and sundries are typically marked up 20–50% over cost on top of that.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the final price that's profit. A 40% markup on $250 gives $350 — but only a 29% margin. To earn a true 40% margin you divide by 0.60, giving $417. Confusing the two is one of the most common reasons painting companies underprice.
Should I charge extra for color changes and heavy prep?
Yes — as line items, decided at the walkthrough. A dark-to-light color change is an extra coat, which is real hours across every wall. Wallpaper glue, smoke staining, water damage, and unfilled nail holes from a gallery wall are prep hours the base price never included. Walk the rooms, name the conditions, and price them in writing — surprises absorbed silently on day two come straight out of your margin.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no ads. The calculator runs in your browser and the numbers you enter are never sent to us. We use basic traffic analytics, described in our privacy policy.