How Do Painters Price a Job?

Professional painters take several components into account when they are determining the price for a job. Every painter is different, and there are many approaches to getting the closest estimate. Here are 3 different ways a painter could price a job:

1. Job Price Based on Square Footage

Simply take the overall square footage of a home or building and use a multiplier to get a simple price.

This method normally leads to problems and the degree of difficulty is never considered.  Many times contractors have regrets once they get onto the job and that leads to corners being cut.

2. Job Price Based on Experience

Look at the home or room and use past memories to give a price that is comparable to past jobs.

This method is better if you have seen lots of jobs, though there are many times when a project will have something unique and unseen that can lead to issues.

3. Job Price Based on Coverage and Surfaces

This pricing method entails measuring the square footage and linear feet of paintable surfaces. Measure the linear and square footage of each paintable surface, then multiply those using specific multipliers.

This is a good method.  As long as the multipliers are detailed enough to take into account the degree of difficulty, this works well.

In Review: How to Price a Paint Job

All of these measurement styles can work, though some of them work better than others. Here at Elite Pro Painting, we use a combination of square foot pricing and price from linear feet of paintable surfaces. We then follow that up by comparing our pricing and workload with what we saw on site and our past experiences. This allows us to catch any possible pricing issues before they happen.

So the final answer to “How do painters price a job?” is that they price jobs in many different ways. If you are trying to hire a painting contractor, make sure that they will give you a good estimate in writing, and make sure that they stand behind their work with warranties on painting jobs, especially exterior.  This is important because if they under-estimate your job due to simple guesswork, they may decide to rush your project or cut corners on your home.

At Elite Pro Painting, we have industry-leading warranties for our exterior painting projects that keep our customers protected.