In this guide
A painting bid is three measurements and one honest guess. The measurements are the areas, the gallons and your hours from your own production rates. The guess is the prep. Bids go wrong when the guess is hidden inside a square-foot price, so the method below keeps it on its own line where you can see it.
Measure the room
A 12 by 14 foot bedroom with 8 foot ceilings, one door and two windows:
- Walls: the perimeter is 12 + 14 + 12 + 14 = 52 ft. Times 8 ft high, that's 416 sq ft. Take off the door (about 21 sq ft) and two windows (about 15 sq ft each) for 365 sq ft.
- Two coats of walls: 730 sq ft of coverage.
- Ceiling: 12 × 14 = 168 sq ft, one coat over a sound ceiling.
- Baseboard: 52 ft less the 3 ft doorway, 49 linear ft.
Gallons
At roughly 350 sq ft per gallon per coat (check the can for the product you're using), 730 sq ft of walls needs just over 2 gallons. Buy 3, so you finish without stretching the last coat and have touch-up paint to leave behind. The ceiling needs about half a gallon, so buy one. The trim needs a quart.
Hours, from your own production rates
This is where a bid becomes yours. Use the rates you actually achieve, not a table from a book. These are illustrations:
| Task | Quantity | Rate | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walls, cut in and roll | 730 sq ft | 150 sq ft/hr | 4.9 |
| Ceiling | 168 sq ft | 100 sq ft/hr | 1.7 |
| Baseboard | 49 lf | 40 lf/hr | 1.2 |
| Prep: move and cover furniture, patch, sand, mask | 1.5 | ||
| Cleanup | 0.5 | ||
| Total | 9.8, call it 10 |
If you don't know your rates yet, time the next three rooms you paint. It's the most valuable ten minutes of paperwork in the trade.
Price it
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Labor, 10 hours at a $65 billable rate | $650 |
| Paint and sundries: 3 gal walls ($165), 1 gal ceiling ($45), 1 qt trim ($25), tape, plastic and patch ($30) = $265, plus 20% | $318 |
| Bid | $968, rounded to $975 |
The billable rate isn't a wage. It has to cover the hours you don't bill (estimates, driving, buying paint) plus insurance and your vehicle. The labor cost calculator works out what yours needs to be.
Where painting bids go wrong
- Prep
- A room of fresh drywall and a room of forty years of nail holes and gloss over flat are not the same job at the same square footage. Look before you price, and put prep on its own line, so a higher bid is explained rather than defended.
- Color changes
- Going from dark to light often needs a primer coat or a third coat. Price it when you see the color card, not after the second coat shows through.
- Pre-1978 homes
- The EPA's lead-safe rule applies to paid work that disturbs more than 6 sq ft of paint per room inside, or 20 sq ft outside. Containment and cleanup take real time, so price it in.
- Occupied homes
- Moving furniture, working around people and covering everything add time. Write down who moves what.
Put the bid on paper
List the rooms, the surfaces, the coats, the paint line and the colors if they're chosen. The painting estimate template is set up that way, and the invoice template carries the same lines through. After the job, check what it made with the job profit calculator.
What did that job really make?Profit and margin for any job in seconds.FAQ
How do you calculate a painting bid?
Measure the wall, ceiling and trim areas, work out gallons from coverage, estimate hours from your own production rates, add prep and cleanup, then price labor at your billable rate and materials with a markup.
Should painters charge per square foot or per room?
Either works for clients, as long as you build the number from measurements and hours underneath. Per room is easier for homeowners to compare. Per square foot suits exteriors and open plans.
How much paint does a 12 by 14 room need?
About 2 gallons for two coats of the walls, plus about half a gallon for one coat of the ceiling, depending on the product's coverage and the surface.
