Painting Cost Calculator

Painting is priced off square footage, which makes it one of the easier jobs to budget honestly. Work out the area you are covering, pick a rate, and you have a number you can hold a quote up against. Enter the area below and the calculator splits it into paint, supplies and labor.

The formula

Every painting estimate, whether you write it or a contractor does, comes down to the same line:

Cost = area to paint × rate per square foot

The area is wall square footage, not floor square footage, and the paint square footage calculator works it out from your room dimensions. If you need the wall area on its own, or you are pricing a whole house exterior, the wall square footage calculator handles perimeter times height and the gable triangles.

Doing it yourself changes the shape of the sum. There is no labor line, so the cost is gallons times the price per gallon, plus sundries:

DIY cost = (area × coats ÷ coverage per gallon) × price per gallon + supplies

Cost per square foot

These are the ranges you will see quoted by residential painters, covering labor and materials together. Regional variation is wide, so treat them as a starting bracket rather than a price.

Job	Typical range per sq ft of surface
Interior walls only, smooth, similar color	$2.00 to $4.00
Interior walls, ceiling and trim	$3.00 to $6.00
Interior with heavy prep, repairs or a dark-to-light change	$4.00 to $7.00
Exterior, smooth siding, single storey	$2.00 to $5.00
Exterior, stucco, rough timber or multi-storey	$4.00 to $8.00

Note what the rate is applied to. A painter quoting "per square foot" almost always means per square foot of surface painted, not per square foot of floor. Some quotes for whole-house interiors do use floor area as a shorthand, at a much higher rate per foot. Ask which one a number refers to before you compare two bids, the same trap the price per square foot calculator covers for materials generally.

What is actually in the rate

This is the part most cost guides skip, and it is the part that tells you whether a quote is reasonable.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for painters in construction and maintenance at $23.75 an hour, or $49,400 a year as of May 2025. Its May 2023 wage survey put the mean at $25.05 an hour across 215,910 painters.

The wage is not the rate. A contractor billing you has to cover that wage plus payroll taxes, liability and workers' compensation insurance, equipment, vehicles, travel time, estimating time, the hours nobody is painting, and profit. That is why a billed crew rate of $60 to $90 an hour is normal even though the painter on the ladder earns a fraction of it. A bid far below that band usually means one of those costs is missing, most often insurance.

Roughly, on an interior repaint:

Labor is 70 to 85 percent of a hired job. Painting is a labor trade.
Paint and sundries are 15 to 30 percent.

That split is the useful sanity check. If a quote for a room comes to $1,000 and you know the paint is $150, you are paying about $850 for labor. Decide whether the hours implied by that feel right before you decide whether the total does.

Cost by room size

Interior walls only, 8 foot ceilings, two coats, with a door and two windows subtracted. DIY is paint at $45 a gallon plus supplies. Hired is at $3.00 and $5.00 per square foot of wall.

Room	Wall area (net)	Gallons	DIY materials	Hired at $3	Hired at $5
10 x 10 ft	269 sq ft	2	about $125	$807	$1,345
12 x 12 ft	333 sq ft	2	about $130	$999	$1,665
12 x 14 ft	365 sq ft	2	about $134	$1,095	$1,825
14 x 16 ft	429 sq ft	3	about $186	$1,287	$2,145
20 x 20 ft	574 sq ft	4	about $249	$1,722	$2,870

The gap between the DIY column and the hired columns is the labor, and on a single room it is most of the bill. That is why painting one bedroom is the classic first DIY job and why repainting a whole house is the classic one to hand over.

For the room sizes behind this table, the standard room sizes guide has the full set, and the room calculator works out any size you actually have.

Cost to paint a house interior

A whole-house interior repaint is the sum of the rooms, plus the hallways, stairwell and ceilings people forget. The shortcut most estimators use is to figure wall area at roughly two and a half to three times the home's floor area for a single storey with 8 foot ceilings, then price that.

A 1,500 square foot single-storey home is therefore somewhere around 3,750 to 4,500 square feet of wall. At $3 a square foot that is $11,250 to $13,500 for walls alone, and adding ceilings and trim pushes it higher. If that sounds steep, it is because whole-house interiors are quoted per room or as a package far more often than by the foot.

The reliable way to check it is to measure. Add up each room's wall area with the wall calculator, total the list, and apply a rate. A measured total beats a multiplier every time, and it is the same approach the how to calculate square footage guide takes to a whole house.

Cost to paint a house exterior

Exterior pricing runs off the exterior wall area, which is the perimeter of the building times its height, plus the gable triangles, minus the large openings. It is not the home's floor square footage, and quotes that use floor area are using a shorthand.

Home	Rough exterior wall area	At $3 per sq ft	At $6 per sq ft
1,200 sq ft single storey	about 1,400 sq ft	$4,200	$8,400
1,800 sq ft single storey	about 1,700 sq ft	$5,100	$10,200
2,000 sq ft two storey	about 2,300 sq ft	$6,900	$13,800
2,600 sq ft two storey	about 2,600 sq ft	$7,800	$15,600

Those wall areas are estimates from a typical footprint and storey height, and yours will differ, sometimes a lot, because a long thin house has far more exterior wall than a square one of the same size. Measure it properly with the wall calculator, which handles the gable ends off the roof pitch.

Exterior work carries costs interior work does not: washing or scraping, priming bare timber, caulking, masking windows, and ladder or lift time above one storey. Rough surfaces also cut paint coverage close to half, so the materials line is bigger than an interior job of the same area.

What pushes the rate up

Prep. By far the biggest variable. Filling, sanding, scraping, repairing drywall and washing down all happen before any paint goes on, and they are pure labor.

Colour changes. Light over dark needs a tinted primer plus two coats, or three coats of finish. Strong reds and yellows often need three regardless. Each extra coat is another full pass over the whole surface.

Texture. Popcorn, heavy knockdown and stucco drink paint and slow the roller. Coverage can halve, which hits both the materials and the hours.

Height. Stairwells, vaulted ceilings and second storeys mean scaffolding or lifts, and slower, more careful work.

Trim and detail. Baseboards, casings, doors and windows are quoted by the linear foot or by the piece because they take far longer per square foot than a flat wall.

Occupied rooms. Moving and covering furniture, working around people, and cleaning up daily all add hours that an empty house does not.

DIY or hire

The room table above makes the trade clear. A 12 by 14 bedroom is roughly $134 in materials or $1,095 to $1,825 hired, so a weekend of your time is worth about $1,000 to $1,700 on that one room.

DIY makes sense on a single room with sound walls, no repairs, and no height. It makes much less sense on a whole-house exterior, a stairwell, anything needing real drywall repair, or a ceiling, which is the job most people regret starting.

If you do hire, get three quotes, ask each one what surface area they measured and what prep is included, and check they carry liability and workers' compensation cover. Two quotes only compare if they include the same scope.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to paint a room?

Most interior rooms land between $2.00 and $4.00 per square foot of wall for walls only, or $3.00 to $6.00 including the ceiling and trim. A 12 by 14 bedroom has about 365 square feet of wall after subtracting a door and two windows, so roughly $1,100 to $1,800 hired. The same room costs about $134 in paint and supplies if you do it yourself.

What is the painting cost per square foot?

For interior walls, $2.00 to $4.00 per square foot of surface painted covering labor and materials, rising to $4.00 to $7.00 with heavy prep or a dark-to-light change. Exteriors run $2.00 to $5.00 on smooth siding and $4.00 to $8.00 on stucco or multi-storey work. The rate applies to the surface being painted, not the floor area.

How much does it cost to paint a house?

It depends on the wall area rather than the floor area. A 2,000 square foot two-storey home has roughly 2,300 square feet of exterior wall, which is about $6,900 to $13,800 at typical rates. Interiors are usually more, because there is far more wall surface inside a house than outside it. Measure the actual wall area rather than working from the home's square footage.

How much of a painting quote is labor?

Usually 70 to 85 percent. Painting is a labor trade, and the paint itself is a minority of the bill. If a $1,000 room quote includes $150 of paint, you are paying about $850 for the hours, which is the number worth questioning.

Why do painters charge so much more than their hourly wage?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median painter's wage at $23.75 an hour, but a contractor's billed rate also covers payroll taxes, liability and workers' compensation insurance, equipment, vehicles, travel, estimating time and profit. A billed crew rate of $60 to $90 an hour is normal. A bid well under that usually means something is missing, most often insurance.

Is it cheaper to paint a house yourself?

On materials alone, dramatically. A room that costs $1,100 to $1,800 hired runs about $134 in paint and supplies. The saving is your time plus the risk of a poor finish. DIY suits a single room with sound walls; whole-house exteriors, stairwells and ceilings are where hiring earns its money.

How much does interior painting cost per square foot of floor area?

Some quotes use floor area as a shorthand, and those rates run much higher per foot because a room has roughly two and a half to three times more wall than floor. Always ask which area a quoted rate applies to before comparing two bids.

Does texture change the painting cost?

Yes, on both lines. Heavy texture like popcorn or stucco can cut paint coverage close to half, so you buy more, and it slows the roller, so you pay more hours. Estimate textured surfaces separately from smooth ones.

Painting Cost Calculator