Cost to Paint a House Calculator
Price the whole job before you buy a drop: enter your paintable area and your real per-square-foot price, add labor and add-ons, keep a contingency buffer, and get one planning cost to paint a house — from your numbers, never a bid.
Painting a house of 3,000 sq ft of paintable surface at $2.00/sq ft plus labor is about $7,700.00 with 10% contingency. Enter your own prices — a planning estimate, not a bid.
Calculator inputs
The reliable way to budget a repaint is the same order of operations a good painter uses: settle the paintable area first, apply the price you were actually quoted, add labor and the extras that are easy to forget, then hold back a small contingency for the surprises every house hides. This tool does exactly that and keeps the four lines visible so you can see where the money goes.
“Cost to paint a house” is deliberately generic: it works whether you mean the interior, the exterior, or both. Because the price you enter carries all the local reality — labor rates, paint grade, region — the estimate stays correct no matter what prices do. If you want the interior and exterior added for you, use the whole-house interior + exterior tool; if you only know your home’s floor area, start with average cost by home size.
Formula
The cost is a quantity × unit-price sum with a buffer:
total = (area_sqft × $/sq ft + labor + add‑ons − discount) × (1 + contingency%)
- area_sqft — the paintable surface (walls + ceilings + trim), not the floor area.
- $/sq ft — your quoted rate; all-in, or paint-only with labor entered separately.
- add-ons — primer, patching, extra ceilings, high/vaulted access, prep and extra colors.
- contingency — a labeled 5–10% planning buffer, not a fee you pay.
Worked example
Say you are painting 3,000 sq ft of paintable surface at $2.00 a square foot, with $1,000 of separately-quoted labor, no add-ons and no discount, and a 10% contingency:
(3,000 × $2.00 + $1,000 − $0) × 1.10 = ($6,000 + $1,000) × 1.10 = $7,000 × 1.10 = $7,700
So you plan for about $7,700. Drop the contingency and it is $7,000; the buffer is the difference between “the quote” and “what you should actually set aside.”
Measure first, avoid re-orders
Measure the paintable area first. Floor area is not paint area — a room with tall walls or lots of ceiling paints far more than its footprint. Use the wall square-footage and room paint calculators before you price anything.
- Do not double-count labor. If your $/sq ft is all-in, leave the labor field at 0; if it is paint-only, enter labor separately — one or the other, never both.
- List the add-ons the quote hides: primer for bare or patched surfaces, ceilings, high or vaulted work, heavy prep and any extra accent colors.
- Keep the buffer. Even a well-scoped job finds a soft spot or an extra coat — 5–10% is cheap insurance against a re-order.
Reference table
Labeled all-in planning bands — a sanity check only. You enter your real price; costs swing with texture, color change, coats, prep, trim, ceilings, height, access, region and labor.
| Job | Typical all-in $/sq ft |
|---|---|
| Interior walls | $1.50–$4.00 |
| Interior walls, ceilings and trim | $2.00–$5.00 |
| Exterior siding | $1.50–$4.50 |