The right price for a painting job is its cost, divided by one minus the margin you want to keep, then checked against what the job should bring per room or per square foot. Cost is your crew's hours, including prep and the drive, plus paint and supplies, plus your share of overhead. For a reference point, Housecall Pro's 2026 guide lists interior painting at $2 to $6 a square foot, exterior at $1.50 to $4, and most single rooms at $400 to $1,200 (Housecall Pro). Those are what customers pay, not what your jobs cost you, so this guide builds the price from your own costs and treats the market as a check. Our free painting price calculator does the math as you read.
What the market charges, and why it is only a check
Published painting prices come from software companies and marketplaces, and they overlap without agreeing.
- By the square foot. Housecall Pro lists interiors at $2 to $6 and exteriors at $1.50 to $4 (Housecall Pro). Jobber lists $1.50 to $3.50 for interiors and $2 to $4.50 for exteriors (Jobber).
- By the room. Housecall Pro lists a 10 by 12 foot bedroom at $400 to $800, a living room at $600 to $1,500 and a kitchen at $500 to $1,200 (Housecall Pro). Thumbtack puts the national average for one room at $364 to $965, with most people paying about $593 (Thumbtack).
- By the hour. Thumbtack puts the national average for an interior painter at $60 an hour, within a range of $30 to $150 (Thumbtack). The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for painters at $23.75 an hour in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). That is a wage, not a rate to charge a customer.
Across the sources above, one room runs from 364 to 1,200 dollars, and an interior square foot from 1.50 to 6 dollars. No number on a web page is yours. Your price comes from how fast your crew works and what it costs to send them.
Three ways to quote
- By the room. One number for a standard room. Housecall Pro says it suits standard bedrooms and quick phone estimates, and that underestimating prep erodes the margin (Housecall Pro).
- By the square foot. You multiply the paintable area by a rate from your own speed. Housecall Pro says it suits whole-home repaints and large open plans, once the paintable area is defined (Housecall Pro).
- By the hour. You charge for time on site. Housecall Pro keeps it for repair-heavy work and uncertain scope (Housecall Pro). Customers cannot budget for it, but it protects you.
A workable setup is a price per room for standard rooms, a rate per square foot for whole homes, and an hourly rate for repairs, all built from your costs.
How much to charge to paint a room
Price one standard room first, because it is the job most customers ask about. Write down what standard means: the size, the ceiling height, one color, whether the ceiling is in, two coats, and light patching only. Then list what moves the price as separate lines. Housecall Pro names ceiling height, surface damage, trim, moving furniture and the number of colors, and lists a ceiling repaint at $1 to $3 a square foot, trim at $1 to $3 a linear foot and drywall repair at $50 to $300 (Housecall Pro).
Step 1: measure the job
Wall area is the distance around the room times the ceiling height, minus the doors and windows. Ceiling area is length times width. Trim is a length in feet. Keep each surface separate, because they go at different speeds.
Paint follows from the area. Sherwin-Williams says a gallon of paint typically covers about 350 to 400 square feet and a gallon of primer about 200 to 300 (Sherwin-Williams). Multiply the area by the number of coats, divide by the coverage, and round up. The painting price calculator does this for each room.
Step 2: time your own speed, prep included
Time a few real jobs. Note the square feet per hour for open walls, cutting in, ceilings and trim, and use your own numbers, not another crew's. Then add the time that does not shrink with the size of the room: moving furniture, patching, sanding, caulking, masking, priming, setup, cleanup and the drive.
Housecall Pro's advice is to price from labor hours, not square footage, and to keep heavy repairs out of the base scope and itemize them (Housecall Pro). In a home built before 1978, add the lead-safe rules to prep. The EPA says anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in those homes must be certified, and that this includes sole proprietorships (EPA).
Step 3: labor cost
Multiply the people on the job by their hours on site plus the drive, then by each person's hourly pay. If you have employees, add employer payroll taxes and workers' compensation, which Jobber puts at 20 to 30 percent over a painter's salary (Jobber). Our labor rate calculator works out that fully loaded rate. If you work alone, pay yourself a wage here too.
Step 4: paint, supplies and equipment
Paint is gallons times the price per gallon. Jobber puts one-coat interior paint at $25 to $65 a gallon (Jobber). Add tape, plastic, caulk, patch compound and roller covers for each job, and a cost per on-site hour for the ladders, sprayer and truck.
Step 5: overhead and margin
Overhead is what runs whether you paint or not: insurance, phone, software, your website, and the hours you spend on estimates. Add up a year of it, divide by the hours you expect to be on site, and add that amount to every on-site hour. Our guide to what a service hour really costs covers each cost line.
Then divide the total cost by one minus your target margin. Housecall Pro says many painting companies aim for margins between 20% and 40%, and divides break-even cost by one minus the margin (Housecall Pro). Margin is profit as a share of the price and markup is profit as a share of the cost, so a 30% margin (dividing by 0.7) needs about a 43% markup.
Example: a bedroom, with invented numbers
This is an illustration with invented figures, not an average for any crew or city. Swap in your own.
The bedroom is 12 by 14 feet with 8 foot ceilings, and the walls and ceiling get two coats. The distance around is 52 feet, so the walls are 52 times 8, which is 416 square feet, less 66 for a door and two windows, which leaves 350. The ceiling is 168. That is 518 square feet a coat, or 1,036 for two. At 350 square feet a gallon, 1,036 divided by 350 is 2.96, so you buy 3 gallons.
One painter earns 24 dollars an hour in this example, and payroll costs add 25%, which makes 30 dollars. Painting goes at 130 square feet an hour, so 1,036 divided by 130 is about 8 hours. Prep takes 1.5 hours and setup and cleanup half an hour, which is 10 hours on site, and the drive adds half an hour, for 10.5 paid hours.
| Cost line (one bedroom) | Dollars |
|---|---|
| Labor: 10.5 paid hours at 30 | 315.00 |
| Paint: 3 gallons at 40 | 120.00 |
| Tape, plastic, caulk and patch | 25.00 |
| Ladders and truck: 10 hours at 2 | 20.00 |
| Overhead: 10 hours at 7.50 | 75.00 |
| Cost of the job | 555.00 |
- At a 30% margin: 555 divided by 0.7 is 792.86 dollars. Profit is 237.86, and 237.86 divided by 792.86 is 30%.
- The markup trap: 555 times 1.3 is 721.50. Profit is 166.50, which is about a 23% margin, so you are 71.36 dollars short on every room.
- Your rate: 792.86 divided by 168 square feet of floor is about 4.72 dollars a square foot of floor, which sits inside the $2 to $6 Housecall Pro lists (Housecall Pro). Measure the same way every time, because a rate per square foot of floor and a rate per square foot of wall are different numbers.
- Against the market: 792.86 is near the top of the $400 to $800 Housecall Pro lists for a smaller 10 by 12 foot bedroom, and well above the $593 most people pay in Thumbtack's data (Housecall Pro, Thumbtack). At $593, this job leaves 38 dollars, a margin of about 6%. Do not match the number. Work faster, cut prep the customer will not miss, or price above it.
- If prep runs long: wall repairs add 4 hours on site. That is 12.5 hours on site and 13 paid hours, and the cost becomes 653.75. At a flat 793 you keep 139.25 dollars, a margin of about 18%. Itemize repairs before you start.
Exterior: price the wall area and the prep
Price exterior work on wall area, not floor area, and expect prep to be where the risk sits. Housecall Pro lists a full-home repaint at roughly $2,500 to $10,000 or more, with the low end for single-story homes with little scraping and the high end for several stories, heavy prep or damaged siding (Housecall Pro). Measure the height times the distance around, minus the large openings, and add the gables.
Run the same five steps. Time the washing, scraping, caulking and priming separately from the painting, and count the ladder moves, lifts and weather days. For paint, 2,400 square feet of wall with two coats is 4,800 square feet, and at 350 square feet a gallon that is 13.7, so 14 gallons. Siding is rougher than a wall, so check the label for the coverage. If you wash the house before you paint it, price that as its own line, and how much to charge for pressure washing uses the same method.
Set a minimum charge
Setup, masking, the drive and cleanup take about the same time whatever the size of the job. Run the same steps for the smallest job you take. A door with two coats takes 2 hours on site and 2.5 paid hours. Labor is 75, paint and supplies 15, equipment 4 and overhead 15, so the cost is 109 and the price is 155.71 dollars. Housecall Pro says many painting businesses set minimums between $250 and $500 (Housecall Pro). Yours should cover the job and the unpaid estimate visit that comes before it.
Mistakes to avoid
- Pricing from the square foot alone. Two rooms of the same size can take a day or two days.
- Absorbing repairs. Patching, rot and water damage are separate lines.
- Copying a competitor's rate. Their speed, paint and costs are not yours.
- Mixing up margin and markup. The example above shows the gap.
- No minimum charge. Small jobs lose money at a per-room rate.
When to raise the price
- The job took longer than you quoted for several jobs in a row. Time it and requote.
- Your costs went up. Paint, pay, insurance and fuel all move. Rerun the numbers at the start of each season.
- The customer adds work. A ceiling, trim, a second coat of color or a repair is a new line on the quote.
Where your website fits
Once your price is set, the next job is making it easy to ask for. A website that lists the rooms and exteriors you paint and the towns you cover, with a way to request an estimate, helps. Our page on how a Fasite website works shows the pages that earn the call, and a phone that gets answered while you are on a ladder keeps the lead.
Fasite is $199 a month, or $1,990 a year, for a done-for-you website, a 24/7 AI receptionist on its own new number that books free visits, online booking, recurring jobs, estimates, invoices and scheduling. The receptionist does not quote prices, so your price stays yours. The first subscription starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed to start.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge to paint a room?
Enough to cover the room's cost and keep the margin you want: cost divided by one minus your margin. The cost depends on the room's size, the prep, your speed, your crew's pay, the paint and your overhead, so it differs from one painter to the next. Our markup calculator works out the price from your cost.
How do I price painting jobs?
Measure each surface, time your own speed including prep, then add labor, paint and supplies, equipment and overhead. Divide the total by one minus your margin, and never go below your minimum charge.
How do I price a paint job by the square foot, the room or the hour?
Work out the price of the job from your costs first. For a rate per square foot, divide that price by the area, and use the same area every time, floor or wall. A price per room suits standard rooms, and an hourly rate protects you on repairs. Published rates differ from one source to the next, so use the rates your own costs give you.
Should I charge extra for prep?
Charge for the prep that is in the base price, and itemize the rest. Housecall Pro says a base rate covers standard prep and two coats, and that heavy scraping, water damage and large drywall repairs belong on their own lines (Housecall Pro).
What is the difference between margin and markup?
Margin is profit as a share of the price. Markup is profit as a share of the cost. A price with a 30% margin has about a 43% markup.