How to Price an Interior Paint Job

Count the hours for each room, times your rate, then add paint and supplies. That is your price. The paint is the small part. Your time is the big part.

Do not start from a price per square foot you saw online. Two rooms the same size can take very different time. One has bare walls. The other has 3 windows, a closet and dents to fill.

Break each room into the tasks you do:

• Prep: move and cover furniture, cover floors, fill holes, sand and tape.
• Walls: cut in along the edges, then roll. Most jobs need 2 coats.
• Ceiling: often 1 coat if it is the same white.
• Trim and doors: base, door frames, window frames and the doors.
• Clean up: pull tape, fold drop cloths, put the room back.

Time a few rooms of your own. Your real hours beat any chart.

Add up the length of each wall, then times it by the wall height. Take off about 20 square feet for each door and 15 for each window.

A gallon of wall paint covers about 350 to 400 square feet for one coat on smooth walls. Rough or new walls soak up more, so plan on less.

For 2 coats, double the square feet before you work out the gallons. Then round up. Running out mid-wall costs you a trip to the store.

Here is one way the numbers can add up. Every figure is an example. Swap in your own rate, your own times and your supplier's prices.

The room is 12 by 14 feet with 8-foot walls, 1 door, 1 closet door and 1 window. That is about 360 square feet of wall.

Say your rate is $75 an hour for each painter. It has to cover pay, the truck, gas, insurance and your office.

• Prep: 1.5 hours.
• Walls, 2 coats: 4 hours.
• Ceiling, 1 coat: 1.5 hours.
• Trim and 2 doors: 2 hours.
• Clean up: half an hour.

That is 9.5 hours, or about $715 of labor. Labor means the work, not the paint.

Now the materials. Say wall paint is $50 a gallon, ceiling paint $40 and trim paint $25 a quart.

• Walls: 2 gallons, $100.
• Ceiling: 1 gallon, $40.
• Trim: 1 quart, $25.
• Supplies: tape, plastic, patch and caulk, about $25.

So this room comes to about $905, or about $900 on the quote. The next room in the same house costs less to start, since you are already set up.

Ask about these when you walk the job. Each one adds time or paint, so each one is fair to price.

• High walls: 10 feet and up means taller ladders and slower work.
• A big color change: dark to light, or light to dark, often needs a primer coat first.
• Stains and smoke: water stains and smoke need a special primer so they do not bleed through.
• Wall repair: big cracks and holes take time to patch, dry and sand.
• Wallpaper: taking it down is slow, so make it its own line.
• A full house of furniture: moving and covering it all adds hours.
• Lots of trim: crown at the top of the wall, wide base and many doors add up fast.

Homes built before 1978 may have lead paint. If you sand or scrape more than 6 square feet in a room, a federal rule says your company must be certified. Your crew must work lead safe too. Some states run their own program, so check your state's rules before you bid.

Give the customer 2 or 3 real choices, each with its own total. For example:

• Walls only: 2 coats on the walls, ceiling and trim left as they are.
• Walls and ceiling: the walls plus 1 coat on the ceiling.
• The whole room: walls, ceiling, trim and doors.

Name the rooms on each line, and say how many coats. Say who picks the colors and by when.

Then say what is not included. For example: big drywall repair, wallpaper removal, moving heavy items like a piano, cabinets and closet shelves. Each one can be its own line or its own quote.

Keep your price for each task in your price book. Then the next house takes a few minutes to quote, and it comes out the same every time.