Here’s how to estimate a paint job correctly.
Because the only thing worse than getting outbid on a job is winning it by being the lowest bidder-who then loses money. It may take a bit longer, but careful estimating will help you be more profitable, look more professional to potential customers, and win the jobs that are best for your business.
You can lose a lot of money bidding like that.” The difference between an 8-foot-ceiling and a 10- or 12-foot ceiling will be hundreds of extra square feet of wall space to paint per room-times how many rooms you’ve made that mistake on. “But I always measure all the walls and ceiling areas to be painted. “I’ve seen guys just take the floor square footage, and say ‘That’s $500,’” explains Tony Severino, owner of Professional Painters in LaGrange, Illinois. Each of these methods will work sometimes, but if you want to have a successful business based on providing a fairly priced, reliable service to customers who give you free word-of-mouth marketing, it pays to be as accurate as possible on the front end with your paint job estimate.
Some contractors use a rough base rate of $1.50 or $2.00 per square foot, some multiply 4 to 6 times the paint cost, some estimate the time the job will take and add it to an estimate of materials-and some may simply offer the lowest price to outbid the competition. Ask five different contractors how to price a painting job and you’re likely to get five very different calculations.