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This calculator vs. PaintScout
Two different shapes: PaintScout is an account-based platform for estimating, proposing, and following up on every job a painting company's sales team sells. This page is a free, private worksheet for one question — what should this exterior job cost, given its elevation, stories, and access, before you open a sales tool.
What each tool is for
PaintScout is estimating, proposal, and sales-follow-up software built specifically for painting contractors — it describes itself as dedicated solely to the needs of painting businesses, unlike general-trade estimating tools. Companies use it to standardize how every estimator on a sales team prices and presents a job from shared finish-system templates, send that estimate on as a branded proposal, automate the follow-up that turns a sent quote into a signed job, and track the pipeline across every job the company runs. It is sold on an ongoing, per-seat subscription, with a separate add-on commonly used for job and production tracking once work is sold. PaintScout's own pricing page is not reachable from this session to confirm today's exact plan names or dollar figures, so no price for it is invented here: only its well-documented identity and category — painting-specific estimating and proposal software, sold as a per-seat account — are stated, and no dollar amount for PaintScout appears on this page.
This calculator does none of what PaintScout does. It does not store a customer record, brand a proposal with a company's finish-system library, or automate a follow-up sequence across a sales team. It takes one house's elevation square footage, story count, trim length, shutters, and flags for scrape, primer, an occupied home, and hard second-story access, plus crew wage, payroll burden, and target margin, and turns that into the crew hours the job actually consumes, the price per elevation square foot, the bid price, and the walk-away price below which the job loses money — plus, if you already have a number on the table, a check of whether it clears that walk-away floor, and a single printable customer proposal for that one job. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| I need every estimator on my sales team quoting from the same finish-system templates and branded proposals. | PaintScout, or a comparable painting-specific estimating platform — standardizing a whole sales team is not something this calculator does. |
| What should I charge for this one exterior job, given its elevation, stories, trim, and access, before I open a sales tool? | This calculator — free, instant, private, no account. |
| How many extra crew hours does a second story and hard access actually add next to a one-story ranch with sound paint? | This calculator's hour split from elevation, stories, and access, not a blended per-square-foot guess. |
| Is the price I'm about to send still above my walk-away cost? | This calculator's compare-to-proposed-price check. |
| I need automated follow-up on every proposal I send and reporting across every job my company sells. | PaintScout — built as an ongoing, account-based platform for exactly that job. |
| How does the math behind a per-job exterior paint price actually work? | This calculator's own pricing walkthrough. |
| Do I need to create an account or sign up to use the tool? | This calculator: no. PaintScout is used through a paid account. |
Most painting companies get different value from each: PaintScout (or a comparable painting-specific platform) for standardizing estimates, proposals, and follow-up across a whole sales team as an ongoing account, and a private calculator like this one for an instant, no-login gut-check on what one exterior job should cost from its elevation and access before a sales system is involved. This page's own figures are a pricing model, not a signed proposal, an invoice, or a paint-condition inspection.
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off.
Common questions
Should I use this calculator or PaintScout?
They do different jobs, and a painting company of any size will likely end up touching both eventually. PaintScout is estimating, proposal, and sales-follow-up software built specifically for painting contractors, sold on an ongoing per-seat subscription with a separate add-on for job and production tracking. It is built to standardize how a whole sales team prices and presents jobs, track those proposals through follow-up, and report on the pipeline across every estimator and every job the company runs. This calculator does one narrower thing: starting from a house's elevation square footage, story count, trim length, shutters, and flags for scrape, primer, an occupied home, and hard access, it turns that into the price per elevation square foot, the crew hours the job actually consumes, and the walk-away price below which the job loses money, before you have entered anything into a sales system. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type. A company that already runs its whole sales pipeline through one system and needs every estimator quoting from the same templates is better served by PaintScout or a comparable painting-specific platform; a painter who wants an instant, private gut-check on what a job should cost from its elevation and access before opening a sales tool is in the right place here.
Is this page affiliated with PaintScout?
No. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by PaintScout. PaintScout is a trademark of its owner, named here only to describe what this calculator is and is not.
Open the Exterior Painting Bid Calculator to price your own job.