How to Price Painting and Decorating Jobs

How to price painting and decorating jobs: measure every surface, estimate the hours for prep, each coat and the woodwork, multiply those hours by a labour rate that covers your real costs, then add materials with a markup and any extras for access, furniture or making good. Quote the total as a fixed price for a written scope.

Why decorating is easy to underprice

Painting looks simple from the doorway. The paint is the quick bit. The hours go on everything before it: moving furniture, sheeting up, filling, sanding, caulking, masking. Most underpriced decorating jobs didn’t go wrong on the painting. They went wrong on the prep nobody counted and the drying nobody charged for.

Step 1: Pick how you’ll charge

A day rate suits older properties where you can’t see what’s under the paper and puts the overrun risk on the customer. A price per room is quick on repeat work like rentals, and dangerous when the room hides a day of filling. Price per m² is the standard on commercial jobs priced from drawings, and falls apart in bitty rooms full of cutting in.

Whichever one the customer sees, build it from hours underneath.

Step 2: Measure everything

Walls: perimeter × height, less doors and windows.

Ceilings: length × width.

Woodwork: skirting and architrave in linear metres, doors, frames and windows counted each.

Note the condition. Bare plaster, colour changes and stained ceilings all add coats.

Step 3: Time the prep separately

Prep gets its own line: filling, sanding, caulking, washing down, masking, and moving furniture in an occupied home. On a lived-in room it can match the painting time.

Agree what “making good” includes before you quote. Filling hairline cracks is prep. Patching blown plaster is a different job with a different price.

Step 4: Time the coats and the drying

Count coats per surface, not per room. New plaster needs a mist coat first. A same-colour refresh might take one coat.

Dulux Trade gives its Vinyl Matt a recoat time of 2 to 4 hours, and oil-based woodwork needs longer. If drying pushes the job into another day, you’re paying for that day either way. The coat doesn’t take longer. The job does.

Step 5: Work out materials and mark them up

Litres = area × coats ÷ coverage. Take coverage from the data sheet or the tin. Dulux Trade quotes its Vinyl Matt at up to 17 m² per litre, and “up to” means perfect conditions, so use a lower working figure on porous surfaces.

Add filler, caulk, tape, abrasives and sheets, then a markup. Your trade discount pays you for buying, collecting and standing behind the materials. It isn’t a saving to hand over. The material markup and margin calculator shows the difference.

Step 6: Add the extras and set a minimum

Access equipment, stairwells, high ceilings, out-of-hours work, parking and waste all go on the price. Set a minimum charge too. A two-hour touch-up still costs you the drive, the setup and the clean-down.

Worked example

Example figures to show the method, not market rates. Use your own rate and your supplier’s prices.

A lived-in living room, 4.5 m × 3.8 m, 2.4 m high, one door, one window. Same-colour walls, white ceiling, skirting, door and frame in satinwood.

Walls: 16.6 m perimeter × 2.4 m = 39.8 m², less door and window, about 36 m²

Ceiling: 17.1 m²

Woodwork: about 15 m of skirting, one door and frame, one window board

Move and sheet furniture, fill, sand, caulk, mask: 5

Ceiling, 2 coats: 2.5

Walls, 2 coats: 4.5

Woodwork, 2 coats: 4

Clean up and snag: 1

Total: 17

17 hours is just over two days, but woodwork drying brings you back on day three. Price three days.

Labour: 3 days × £220 (example rate) = £660

Materials: £95 cost + 20% markup = £114

Price: £774

Price it on the painting alone and you’d have quoted a day and a half. That’s a day and a half of prep and drying done for nothing.

Commercial vs domestic

Domestic work is priced by the room or the day, around someone’s furniture. Commercial work is priced per m² from a spec, often out of hours, with RAMS, access equipment and longer payment terms. For mixed-trade jobs, see how to price building work.

Common mistakes

Pricing from the paint area alone. Prep and drying are real hours.

Quoting “making good” without defining it. Fill or replaster? Write it down.

No minimum charge. A small job still eats half a day once you count the drive.

Do this in FieldHive

Put your hours through the trade job pricing calculator to check labour, materials and margin come to a price that actually pays you. Not sure of your rate? The day rate calculator and true labour cost calculator work it out from your real costs. Then build the quote as a free PDF, and watch how to price materials for trade jobs. To have the quote become the job and the invoice without retyping it, get the FieldHive app.

Aid, not advice

The worked example figures are illustrations, not market rates or recommended prices. If you’re VAT registered, add VAT to your quote as your accountant advises.

Coverage and recoat figures checked September 2026 against the Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt product page. Check the data sheet for the product you use.