FREE CONTRACTOR TOOL
Commercial painting
bid calculator.
Enter the area, coats and your own rates to get labor hours, gallons, total cost and a bid price at your target margin. It works for one surface at a time.
Defaults are example inputs for a 12,000 sq ft repaint, not industry benchmarks or Sourci pricing. Replace them with your own numbers.
How the calculator works
- Labor hours = area × coats ÷ production rate
- Gallons = area × coats ÷ coverage × (1 + waste)
- Direct cost = labor hours × labor rate + gallons × paint price + equipment, sundries and supervision
- Total cost = direct cost × (1 + overhead)
- Bid price = total cost ÷ (1 − margin)
Margin and markup are different. A 20% margin on price is a 25% markup on cost. Pricing with markup when you meant margin underprices every job.
Using it on a real bid
Run each surface as its own line: walls, ceilings, doors and frames, trim, steel. Production rates and coverage change a lot between them. Add the lines together in the commercial painting estimate template, then present the number with the commercial painting proposal outline. For the full method, read how to bid commercial painting jobs.
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