How to price painting jobs: a contractor's guide (2026)
Most underpriced jobs aren't caused by a bad rate. They come from guessing the hours, forgetting overhead, or confusing markup with margin. Here's how to build a painting price from your own numbers, then check it against your local market.
1. Start with your break-even cost
Your break-even is what the job costs you before any profit. It has three parts:
- Labor: crew hours × wage × burden. Burden is payroll taxes, workers' comp and benefits, often 25–35% on top of the wage.
- Materials: paint, primer, caulk and consumables (tape, plastic, roller covers, sandpaper).
- Overhead: insurance, truck and fuel, phone, software, advertising, your office time. Divide a month of overhead by the hours your crews bill in a month to get overhead per billable hour.
Overhead = hours × overhead per billable hour
Break-even = labor + materials + overhead
2. Add profit as a margin, not a markup
Markup is added on top of cost. Margin is the share of the price you keep. Adding 35% to your cost does not give you a 35% margin; it gives you about 26%. To keep a target margin, divide:
| Target margin | Markup it takes | $5,000 break-even becomes |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | 25% | $6,250 |
| 30% | 43% | $7,143 |
| 35% | 54% | $7,692 |
| 40% | 67% | $8,333 |
Painting companies commonly aim for 20–40%. The margin pays for growth, equipment, callbacks and slow months, so set it on purpose.
3. Get the hours right: production rates
Hours drive almost everything, because labor is most of a paint job's cost. Track how much your crew paints per hour on each surface, including cutting in, moving furniture and cleanup:
Track a separate rate for walls, ceilings, trim, doors and exteriors. A new crew member, tall ceilings or a tight stairwell all slow the rate; that's what height and access adjustments are for.
4. A worked example
Repainting the walls of an 1,800 sq ft house, two coats, normal condition:
- Wall area: about 4,140 sq ft (roughly 2.3 sq ft of wall per sq ft of floor with 8 ft ceilings).
- Hours: 4,140 ÷ 85 sq ft/hr ≈ 49 crew hours.
- Labor: 49 × $26/hr × 1.30 burden ≈ $1,660.
- Materials: 4,140 × 2 coats ÷ 350 sq ft per gallon ≈ 24 gallons × $28 = $672, plus about $150 of consumables ≈ $820.
- Overhead: 49 hours × $30 per billable hour ≈ $1,470.
- Break-even: $1,660 + $820 + $1,470 ≈ $3,950.
- Price at a 35% margin: $3,950 ÷ 0.65 ≈ $6,080, about $1.47 per sq ft of wall.
Your wage, burden, overhead and production rate will differ; plug in your own. For comparison, SiteQuote's typical price for this job in Albrightsville, PA, with its default rates and a 35% margin, is about $7,100.
5. Price the extras as their own lines
Your base rate should cover standard prep (filling nail holes, a light sanding) and two coats. Anything beyond that should be its own line, so two similar-looking houses don't produce two very different profits, and the customer sees exactly what changed:
| Extra | SiteQuote starting rate | Why it's separate |
|---|---|---|
| Ceilings (flat) | $1.50/sq ft | Overhead work, slower than walls |
| Baseboard / door casing | $2.25 / $3.00 per ft | Brush work and careful cutting in |
| Interior door | $125 each | Both sides, edges, drying time |
| Drywall repair | $50 / $125 / $250 | Small, medium, large patches |
| Moderate / heavy prep | $0.75 / $1.50 per sq ft | Scraping, patching, sanding |
| Wallpaper removal | $3.25/sq ft | Steaming, scraping, washing the wall |
| Pressure washing | $0.45/sq ft | Exterior prep so paint sticks |
Starting rates set in 2026 for Pennsylvania's Poconos; every SiteQuote contractor sets their own.
6. Minimum charges, rush and after-hours work
A small job still takes a trip, setup, masking and cleanup. Set a minimum (SiteQuote starts at $500 for interiors, $750 for exteriors and $350 for touch-ups) so small jobs don't lose money.
Jobs that jump your schedule or happen on evenings and weekends cost more to run. Set the premium ahead of time as a percentage of labor, so nobody makes it up on the spot. SiteQuote starts at 15% on labor for a rush start and 25% for evenings or weekends on homes, and 35% for night or weekend work at businesses.
7. Your market sets the range: local wages
National cost guides give one range for the whole country. But painter wages, and so painting prices, vary a lot from town to town:
| Area | Painter mean wage | vs. U.S. |
|---|---|---|
| Williamsport, PA area | $24.80/hr | −7% |
| Allentown–Bethlehem–Easton, PA–NJ | $25.91/hr | −3% |
| United States | $26.64/hr | — |
| New York–Newark–Jersey City | $33.62/hr | +26% |
The same 1,800 sq ft interior (walls, ceilings and trim) runs a typical $10,340 in Shamokin, PA, $10,890 in Albrightsville, PA and $14,450 on Manhattan's Upper East Side in our painting cost calculator.
Sources. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Painters, Construction and Maintenance (47-2141), May 2025. Prices: SiteQuote's calculator, October 2026.
8. Check yourself after every job
- Quoted hours vs. real hours. If a service keeps taking 20% longer than quoted, either the production rate or the price is wrong.
- Won vs. lost quotes. If lost quotes average a higher price per sq ft than won ones, that service may be priced above what your customers accept.
- Once a year, when new wage figures come out in the spring, review rates, production speeds and minimums.
See how it works
Common questions
What's the difference between margin and markup?
Markup is added on top of your cost; margin is the share of the selling price you keep. A 35% margin needs a 54% markup: price = cost ÷ (1 − 0.35).
Should I price by the square foot, by the room or by the hour?
Pick one main method and use it every time. Square-foot pricing scales best for whole houses and commercial space, room pricing is quick for standard homes, and hourly pricing fits repairs and jobs you can't scope.
How often should I update my prices?
At least once a year, and sooner if wages, paint or fuel jump.
Should prep and repairs be in my base price?
Light prep, yes. Heavier scraping, patching, drywall repair and wallpaper removal should be their own lines.