← Exterior painting bid calculator
The number a homeowner wants is a published “$3,999 house special.” That number is not a takeoff. A one-story ranch with 1,800 square feet of sound existing paint is not the same job as a two-story colonial with 2,800 square feet of elevation, 240 feet of window and fascia trim, occupied landscaping, and hard second-story access. The word “paint the house” is the same. The hours are not.
Open the free bid calculatorInterior-painting calculators price rooms, walls, and ceilings. Cabinet-refinishing calculators price doors and drawers. An exterior paint job is an elevation takeoff: the included ranch, the extra story the coupon never mentions, the extra square footage of siding, and whether the existing film has to be scraped and primed. Quoting all of that from a published house special is how the first extra story eats the field margin.
Each extra story is a taller ladder, a second-floor run, and time that never appears on the coupon. Extra elevation over the included 1,600-square-foot ranch is billed as its own hours and extra paint. Failing paint, extra trim, shutters, occupied protection, and hard access are adders that get forgotten on a ranch special. On the sample rates a 2-story 2,800 sf colonial with 240 lf of trim, twelve shutters, occupied protection, and hard access prices about $6,287 ($2.25 per elevation square foot, 62.4 crew-hours). The same shop’s 1,800 sf one-story ranch prices about $1,940 ($1.08 per square foot, 12.5 hours, walk-away $1,397). Matching a $3,999 Facebook special on the colonial is how that job becomes a loss of about $528.
A 1-story 2,200 sf scrape-and-prime job with occupied landscaping is not the ranch special plus 20%. On the sample rates that scrape job prices about $8,180 ($3.72 per square foot, 86.3 crew-hours) — more as a total than the two-story colonial, because scrape and primer hours live on every square foot, not in a published per-house adder. A 2-story 3,400 sf peeling masonry / elastomeric job with scrape, primer, eight shutters, occupied protection, and hard access prices about $15,585 (163.1 hours, $4.58 per square foot). Treating either as a blended add-on is how the special that looked fine on the ranch turns into a loss after the first extra story.
A $36/h painter loaded at 32% payroll burden is $47.52. Margin is a share of the price you send, not a markup on cost. The walk-away price is total cost — below that the job makes nothing before you take a dollar home. On the sample rates the brochure ranch walk-away is $1,397, so a $3,999 coupon still covers that house. The same coupon on the colonial does not. Replace every rate with your paint invoices before you send either number.
This is not a lead-paint determination, a building-code inspection, a warranty that any surface will last a stated number of years, or a recommended market price. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type. Elevation square footage, stories, scrape condition, and whether a primer coat is required are yours to confirm.
Charge from the included one-story ranch, extra stories over that include, extra elevation square footage over the included ranch, extra trim, shutters, a scrape of failing paint, a primer coat, occupied-home protection, hard second-story access, loaded labor, overhead, and a margin that is a share of price. A default 1-story 1,800 sf two-coat ranch at the sample rates in this calculator prices around $1,940 — about $1.08 per elevation square foot.
Homeowners count 'a house is a house.' Extra stories, extra elevation, extra trim, peeling paint, primer, shutters, and hard access do not live in a $3,999 coupon. The special can look fine on a ranch and still lose more than $500 on a two-story colonial.
Not in proportion. On the sample rates a 2-story 2,800 sf colonial with extra trim, twelve shutters, occupied protection, and hard access prices around $6,287 ($2.25 per elevation square foot), while a 1,800 sf one-story ranch prices around $1,940 ($1.08 per square foot).