Estimating guide
How to estimate a painting job
Painting is measured in area, but it is priced in the small things: how many coats, whether it is sprayed, how many doors, what has to be protected and what has to be fixed first.
The job in the example below is made up, with realistic figures, so you can see every step: repainting the common areas of a 40-unit apartment building, Minneapolis, MN. It is not a price list. Use your own rates and your own hours.
1. List each kind of surface
Corridor walls, stairwell walls, ceilings, doors and frames, and the sprayed parking garage walls. In the example each is a line of its own, because each takes a different time and a different paint.
2. Measure in the right unit
Walls and ceilings by area. Doors and frames by count, both sides. A door is a count, not an area: the example allows 1.2 hours for each door.
3. Say how long one unit takes
Hours per unit is yours, from your own crews. In the example, “Corridor walls, two coats eggshell” allows 0.006 hours per square foot. The sprayed walls take much less time per unit than the corridor walls: “Garage walls and columns, sprayed, two coats white” allows 0.00279 hours per square foot, against 0.006 for the corridor walls.
4. Add the paint, with waste
Materials are the quantity times the price times one plus waste. The example uses 5% on the corridor walls and 10% on the sprayed walls, where some paint is lost in the air. Use what your own jobs show.
5. Add the equipment
Equipment is priced by the hour and charged to the line that uses it, so the cost is in the line it belongs to. The example has “Scissor lift”, “Airless sprayer” and “Line striper”.
6. Let the packages out, and add your running costs
The example lets out three packages to subcontractors, with up to four quotes each. The lowest is carried unless I pick another, and one package is an allowance because there is no quote yet. Running costs sit apart, and weekly items follow the length of the job, so a longer job costs more. Both lists are under the example.
7. Then contingency, profit and the rest
In this order: contingency on the direct cost, then your fee on the direct cost plus contingency, then the bond and insurance on that subtotal. The table below shows each step.
The worked example
The job: repainting the common areas of a 40-unit apartment building, Minneapolis, MN. It runs 7 weeks. Every figure here is in the example spreadsheet below.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Hours
| 168 hours |
Labor
| $8,736.00 |
Materials
| $4,410.00 |
| Line total | $13,146.00 |
Per square foot
| $0.47 |
Every line of the estimate is worked out like this one. Then the lines are added up, and the rest of the bid is built on top of them.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Own work
| $71,222.57 |
Subcontractors
| $17,420.00 |
General conditions
| $8,626.00 |
Direct cost
| $97,268.57 |
Contingency
| $4,863.43 |
Fee
| $10,213.20 |
| Subtotal | $112,345.20 |
Bond
| $1,123.45 |
Insurance
| $561.73 |
| Bid total | $114,030.38 |
Sales tax, shown apart
| $0.00 |
The two lists behind the subcontractors and general conditions lines above:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Wallcovering, lobby feature wall | $3,700.00 |
| Intumescent coating, exposed steel in parking garage | $10,920.00 |
| Drywall repairs before painting, allowance | $2,800.00 |
| Total | $17,420.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Supervision, part-time foreman | $5,320.00 |
| Floor protection and drop cloths | $1,450.00 |
| Small tools, rollers and brushes | $896.00 |
| Resident notices, signage and wet paint barriers | $520.00 |
| Paint waste and empty can disposal | $440.00 |
| Total | $8,626.00 |
Common mistakes
- Pricing doors by area. Count them. Each one is a fixed amount of work.
- Treating sprayed and hand-applied work the same. Different hours, different waste, often a different trade rate.
- Nothing for protection and notices. In an occupied building they are real cost. The example puts them in the running costs.
- Options inside the price. The example prices a scuff-resistant coating as an alternate with the line marked Excluded. You see the figure, and it adds to nothing until the customer asks for it. That left out $4,236.12 in this example.
Free estimating spreadsheet
Painting estimate spreadsheet for Excel
The worked example on this page, as an Excel workbook you can make your own: type your rates, your lines and your subcontractor quotes, and formulas work out the bid summary and a one-page quote, to the cent.
Download the example spreadsheet Download a blank spreadsheet
The example has a whole job filled in, ready to change into your own. The blank one starts empty.
Same totals as Bidfident, to the cent. Version 0.1, October 2026.
Filled one in already? Import lines in Bidfident brings in the lines from its Estimate tab.
No sign-up, no email. Free for your own bids. Check every figure before you send a bid. Please don't resell it. All free estimate spreadsheets for the US
Starter cost codes: Painting 15 codes
Bidfident's own starter codes, ready to change into your own. To bring them in, go to Libraries, then Cost codes, then Import from Excel in Bidfident, and pick the file. You see a preview before anything changes. Version 0.1, October 2026.
Free to use for your own bids. Change it to suit your business. Please don't resell it or hand it out as your own list. All starter cost-code lists for the US
When your spreadsheet gets heavy
If you end up with lots of bids, changing rates or more than one person working on them, Bidfident does the same sums on a page and keeps every bid with its saved versions.
Enter your email and Bidfident sends you a sign-in link. New companies start with a starter rate library. Who runs Bidfident, and what it keeps about you.