Painting estimating software that wins more jobs

An interior painting price has four parts:

1. Protection and setup: moving and covering furniture, protecting floors, masking trim, windows and fixtures.
2. Prep: patching, caulking, sanding, removing wallpaper or popcorn, and priming or sealing stains.
3. Finish coats: walls, ceilings, trim, doors and anything else in the scope.
4. Cleanup and touch-up: pulling masking, touching up, putting the room back and hauling out trash.

Measure walls, not floors

Wall area is the perimeter of the room times the ceiling height, less large openings.

Example: A 12-by-15 room with 8-foot ceilings has 54 feet of perimeter and 432 square feet of gross wall. Take out a door and two windows and you're near 380.

Raise the ceiling to 10 feet and the same room has 540 square feet of gross wall. That's why per-floor-foot pricing goes wrong on tall rooms.

Ceilings, baseboard and pieces

• Ceilings are the floor area.
• Baseboard is roughly the perimeter, less door openings.
• Doors, windows and closets count as pieces.

Line items: price each one from your hours

These are the common lines on an interior painting estimate and what each is measured in:

• By the square foot: walls, ceilings, primer and floor protection.
• By the linear foot: trim, caulk and masking.
• By the each: doors, patches and furniture moving.

The hours and prices are yours to set, and every line's hours are editable to match your crew's pace.

A bedroom's painting runs about 13 hours

Example: Here's a bedroom with 400 square feet of wall after openings, a 200-square-foot ceiling, 50 feet of baseboard and one door. The hours below are example figures; say your own records show your crew needs:

Work	Your hours
Walls, two coats	5
Ceiling, two coats	3
Baseboard, two coats	2.5
Door slab, both sides	1.5
Door casing and jamb	1
Painting total	13

Moving and covering the furniture and protecting the floor add more time. BuildWell prices those at the construction laborer wage, not the painter wage.

Prep comes on top, and it depends entirely on the walls you find.

Your labor rate covers more than wages

A painter's wage isn't your labor rate. Your rate has to cover:

• the wage
• payroll taxes, workers' comp and liability insurance
• ladders, sprayers, drop cloths and the van
• the hours spent bidding, buying paint and driving between jobs

Then it needs a profit.

How BuildWell prices each hour

BuildWell builds your rate in three steps:

1. Wage: the median painter wage for your metro.
2. Overhead: your labor overhead, which starts at 100%, doubling the wage.
3. Markup: your labor markup, which starts at 20%.

What the bedroom's labor comes to

Example: Say your painter costs you $24 an hour. Use your real number. The 13 hours of painting in that bedroom come to:

• Wages: 13 × $24 = $312
• With 100% overhead: $624
• With 20% markup: $748.80 for that labor

Read the coverage on the can

Many wall paints list 350 to 400 square feet per gallon per coat on smooth, primed walls. So two coats on the 400 square feet of wall in that bedroom take a little over 2 gallons.

Rough or porous walls and big color changes take more.

Primer, enamel and sundries get their own lines

Primer, ceiling paint and enamel for the trim and door are planned on their own lines.

Sundries like tape, caulk, roller covers and brushes are planned per foot or per piece. They add up with the size of the job instead of being forgotten.

Mark up paint for the trips and leftovers

Add a markup that covers the trips to the paint counter, the color that had to be remixed and the gallon left over. Your material markup starts at 20% and can be set differently on each estimate.

If the homeowner already bought the paint, mark it as theirs. It stays listed so the scope is clear, but it isn't charged.

Prep, primer and the walls you can't see yet

• Color changes: going from a deep color to a light one, or the reverse, can take a primer coat or a third coat. Price it as its own line, not as a surprise.
• Stains and odors: water stains and smoke need a stain-blocking or shellac primer before any finish coat will hide them.
• Wallpaper and popcorn: both take far longer than painting the same area, and what's under them is unknown. Price the removal, then say in your terms how you'll price wall repair you find underneath.
• Homes built before 1978: the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule requires lead-safe work practices, by a certified renovator, when you disturb painted surfaces beyond its small-repair exemption. Mark the home as pre-1978 in BuildWell's site questions, and the lead-safe setup and cleanup line is added.

Spraying or rolling: price the one you'll use

Spraying covers wall area faster than rolling, and BuildWell gives each method its own line. But the sprayer needs setup and cleaning, and everything that isn't being painted needs masking.

On an empty house or new drywall, spraying usually wins. In a furnished bedroom, rolling often does. Price the method you'll actually use.

Pay depends on the market and who's rolling

What painters earn depends on the market and on who's holding the roller. Wages vary between metro areas and with experience.

A painting business owner earns the margin between the price and the cost of labor and paint. Your labor rate, how you price prep and how fast your crew works matter more than any wage table.

Self-employment tax is 15.3% of net earnings

As a sole proprietor or single-member LLC, you pay self-employment tax on your net earnings: 15.3% in total.

• Social Security, 12.4%: applies to net earnings up to the Social Security wage base, which is $184,500 for 2026.
• Medicare, 2.9%: applies to all of it.
• Deduction: you can deduct half of the self-employment tax on your income tax return.

That's on top of federal and state income tax. Set part of every payment aside.

Pay quarterly estimated taxes

Since nobody withholds tax from your jobs, make estimated payments during the year with Form 1040-ES. They're usually due in mid-April, mid-June, mid-September and mid-January.

Late or skipped payments can add penalties.

Track these deductions

Painting businesses commonly deduct:

• sprayers, ladders, scaffolding and tools
• drop cloths and reusable supplies
• the business share of your van
• fuel
• insurance, license and certification fees
• phone and software

Keep receipts and log mileage as you go.

Send a 1099-NEC to subs and crews you pay

If you pay an unincorporated subcontractor for services, you'll generally need to send them a Form 1099-NEC. For payments made in 2026 and later, that applies once you've paid them $2,000 or more in a year, up from $600 before 2026.

Collect a Form W-9 before the first payment. Whether a painter is a subcontractor or an employee depends on how you control the work, not on what you call them.

Sales tax on materials depends on your state

States treat painting contractors differently. Some have you pay sales tax when you buy paint and supplies; others have you charge it to the client on materials, or on the whole job.

Check your state's revenue department. In BuildWell, sales tax applies to materials only, not labor, at the rate you set.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. A tax professional who works with contractors can tell you what applies in your state and to your business.