How to estimate a paint job that actually covers your hours
To estimate a paint job, measure the wall and ceiling square footage, multiply by coats to get spread footage, divide by coverage (about 350 square feet per gallon) to price the paint, add sundries, then add hours at your production rate times a loaded labor rate and divide the total by one minus your margin. Interior repaints priced this way usually land between $1.00 and $1.75 per square foot of wall for two coats. Painters rarely lose money on paint; they lose it on prep hours they never counted.
Step by step
- Measure wall footage, not floor footage. Walk each room and multiply wall length by height, then add ceilings if they are in scope, and subtract only large openings like garage doors, not windows and doors under 20 square feet since the cut-in around them takes as long as rolling them would. A 12 by 14 room with 8 foot ceilings has about 416 square feet of wall. Floor-square-footage pricing is how painters end up working vaulted great rooms for ranch prices.
- Grade the prep before you price anything. Prep is the variable that swings a paint bid by half. Note nail pops, drywall patches, peeling, glossy surfaces needing scuff or primer at about $0.17 a square foot, and how much furniture must be moved and masked. Score each room light, medium, or heavy and attach hours to each grade instead of one blended guess.
- Convert footage to gallons with real coverage. Standard coverage is 350 square feet per gallon per coat on smooth walls, less on texture and raw drywall. Two coats over 2,800 square feet of wall is 5,600 spread feet, which is 16 gallons. At $168 for a five gallon bucket of quality interior paint, gallon math done right keeps you from donating a bucket to every job.
- Price the sundries as a kit. Caulk at $4.85 a tube, tape at $6.60 a roll, drop cloths at $12.50, roller covers at $5.60, and sandpaper add up to $100 to $200 on a whole-interior job. Build a standard sundries kit per room or per 1,000 square feet so it appears on every estimate automatically. Sundries are small enough to forget and large enough to notice at the end of the month.
- Estimate hours from production rates. A competent painter cuts and rolls 150 to 200 square feet of wall per hour per coat on prepped smooth surfaces, slower on ceilings, trim, and heavy colors. Multiply spread footage by your rate, then multiply hours by a loaded rate that includes wages, burden, and the van, not the bare wage. 5,600 spread feet at 175 per hour is 32 hours; at $50 loaded that is $1,600 of real labor cost.
- Handle color and sheen realities. Deep reds and blues over light walls, or white over dark, can force a third coat or a tinted primer pass, and that is 50 percent more spread footage on those walls. Sheen changes show every wall flaw, which loops back to prep hours. Put the coat assumption in writing: two coats, color change within a normal range, extra coats priced per coat.
- Divide by your margin and sanity-check per square foot. Materials plus labor is cost, and price equals cost divided by (1 minus margin), so a 35 percent margin divides by 0.65. Then check the result per square foot of wall: under $1.00 for two-coat interior work usually means you forgot prep or sundries. Marking up 35 percent instead of dividing by 0.65 silently gives away nine points of margin.
- Send a room-by-room estimate the same day. List each room with its prep grade and coat count so the homeowner sees where the money goes, and state exclusions like wallpaper removal, carpentry repairs, and lead-safe work on pre-1978 homes, which requires EPA RRP certification and adds containment time. Then send it as a link they can sign on their phone. Painters who quote same-day close more work at better prices than those who mail a number a week later.
The paint job pricing formula
Spread footage (wall square feet times coats) divided by 350 gives gallons; gallons times price plus the sundries kit equals materials; spread footage divided by your hourly production rate times your loaded labor rate equals labor; price equals (materials plus labor) divided by (1 minus target margin). Dividing by 0.65 produces a true 35 percent margin, while adding 35 percent to cost produces only 26 percent, because markup is figured on cost and margin on the selling price. On labor-heavy painting work, that difference compounds fast.
An interior repaint with 2,800 square feet of wall at two coats is 5,600 spread feet, and at 350 square feet per gallon that is 16 gallons: three five gallon buckets at $168 ($504) plus one gallon at $39. Caulk, tape, drop cloths, roller covers, and sandpaper add about $133, so materials total $676.30. At a production rate of 175 square feet per hour the spread takes 32 hours, and at a $50 loaded rate labor is $1,600. Cost comes to $2,276.30. Divide by 0.65 for a 35 percent margin and the quote is $3,502, almost exactly $1.25 per square foot of wall for two coats.
Cost factors painters price for
Prep condition
Peeling, water stains, smoke residue, and gloss surfaces can double or triple hours before a brush touches finish paint. Stain-blocking primer and skim work are their own lines. The walkthrough grade you assign to prep is the single biggest driver of whether the job makes money.
Ceiling height and cut-in complexity
Rooms over 9 feet slow production and add ladder or staging time, and vaulted spaces with accent angles multiply cut-in footage. Crown molding, chair rail, and two-tone walls all add brush hours. Price tall and detailed rooms at their own rate rather than averaging them away.
Occupied versus empty
An empty repaint lets you spray and roll at full speed; an occupied home means furniture moving, masking, daily cleanup, and working room by room. The difference is commonly 20 to 30 percent on labor. Ask the occupancy question before you quote, not after.
Color changes and sheen
Dramatic color changes add coats, and higher sheens telegraph every flaw, pushing prep hours up. A two-coat assumption with extra coats priced per coat protects you in writing. Tinted primer at about $128 a five is often cheaper than a third finish coat.
Exterior variables
Exterior work adds washing, scraping, substrate repair, weather windows, and taller ladders, with exterior paint itself at about $198 a five gallon bucket. Pre-1978 exteriors trigger EPA RRP lead-safe practices with real containment costs. Exterior square footage prices meaningfully higher than interior for these reasons.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge per square foot for interior painting?
For two coats on walls in reasonable condition, most professional painters land between $1.00 and $1.75 per square foot of wall surface, with ceilings and trim priced separately. Heavy prep, tall rooms, and dramatic color changes push it higher. If your number is below $1.00, check whether prep hours and sundries actually made it into the estimate.
What margin should a painting business target?
Painting overhead looks light (no heavy equipment) but insurance, the van, unpaid estimating time, and callbacks still consume 15 to 25 percent of revenue, and the owner's profit has to come on top. Target a 35 to 45 percent gross margin, meaning divide job cost by 0.55 to 0.65. Ten percent over cost is not a business, it is a job with extra paperwork.
How many square feet does a gallon of paint cover?
Plan on about 350 square feet per coat on smooth, sealed walls, and less (250 to 300) on texture, raw drywall, or masonry. A five gallon bucket at roughly $168 covers about 1,750 square feet per coat. Always figure coverage per coat, not per job, since two coats doubles the spread footage.
Should I bid by the hour or by the job?
Flat bids priced from measured footage and production rates almost always beat hourly work: they reward your speed, remove the customer's incentive to hover, and let you price prep honestly by grade. Keep hourly language only for genuinely unknowable scopes like matching failing plaster. The key is that the flat bid must come from real measurements, not from a glance.
Can I price a paint job by talking instead of typing?
Yes, Staxen's Eddie drafts a priced line-item paint estimate from a spoken description: rooms, footage, prep grade, coats, and it becomes a clean estimate you review and text or email for e-signature, with a deposit collectable on the same page. It is $59 per month and the first job is free with no card required. All three Staxen employees together are $149 per month.
Start free with Staxen: your first job is on us, no card required.