Painters charge $330 to $605 per day, depending on their professional experience and skill level. However, most professional painters charge a flat rate for a paint job, per square foot, or hourly versus a daily price.
On average, interior painters cost $362 to $686 per day. On the other hand, the average price to hire an exterior painter is $298 to $524 per day.
As you can see, interior painting costs more per day than exterior painting. This is because interior painting requires more skill and time than exterior painting per sq ft of surface being painted.
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Likewise, specialized paint finishes like faux painting, cabinet refinishing, stucco, or lime washing cost $537 to $963 per day on average.
Unquestionably, these specialty painting services require high-quality artisans which are in short supply these days.
Lastly, removing lead paint or dealing with asbestos requires special training, tools, and certifications versus a normal living room wall or baseboard repaint.
In particular, asbestos is often an issue when removing popcorn ceilings.
As a result, the average cost per day for hazardous painting jobs ranges from $684 to $1,132 on the high end.
Please note that these average daily painting prices don’t include the cost of paint materials which we’ll dive into below.
Daily Painters Pricing Guide
In this article, our painting industry experts uncover some of the biggest factors affecting the daily cost of painting.
Not to mention, we’ll reveal how much more an experienced painter will cost you versus a handyman or novice.
Thinking about painting the interior of your home this year? Learn more by checking out our interior painting cost guide.
Finally, we’ll give you some cost-saving tips when hiring painters per day.
Scroll down to find out if a daily painter’s price quote includes materials and how much the average painter can paint in a day.
Do Painter's Price Quotes Include Paint?
No, a painter willing to charge you a daily rate does not include paint or materials. The same goes for most painters that offer hourly rates.
Typically, a painter who gives homeowners a daily price to paint only charges for labor costs. The reason for this is that many novice painters have no idea how to price a paint job properly.
Accordingly, they don’t include materials or gallons of paint in their painting estimates. This means you’ll have to buy the paint, primer, and drywall patch if repairs are required. Do I need to wash walls before painting?
Finally, the total cost to paint will also be affected by the type of paint you choose and how many different paint colors you choose.
As you can imagine, adding an extra accent wall to every room means more cans of paint.
Don’t be surprised when you end up spending $400-$800 on paint when painting an entire house with multiple paint colors.
Get the low-down on the most popular indoor paint colors this season!
Daily Painting Cost Money-Saving Tip:
To save money on your daily painting job, ask the painter you hire to call the paint store for discounted contractor pricing. Professional painting contractors get 20% to 40% off retail paint costs.
Considering that the average gallon of paint costs $64 in 2024, this smart move can save you hundreds of dollars.
For full interior or exterior repaints, this adds up to thousands of dollars in material cost savings.
Discover which paints are best for your particular job in our Sherwin-Williams versus Benjamin Moore paint article.
How Much Do Painters Cost Per Day Near Me?
According to our recent survey of painting labor rates, the average cost to hire a painter is $468 per day in the United States.
However, the average cost of painting per day near you is different than a homeowner in another city or state.
This is because local labor rates, paint material prices, and business overhead costs vary between regions, cities, and even neighborhoods.
Below is a complete list of the average painter cost per day by state in the U.S.
However, painting is often the highest ROI home improvement you can do, with as much as a 107% return on the average exterior painting job. That means for every $1 you spend on painting, you get $1.07 back in house value when you sell your home.
Similarly, interior painting is not far behind in terms of return on spend and has a major positive impact on how you feel about your living space.
Own a house in the Denver area? Find out what a painting service costs in Denver, CO.
Professional Painter Daily Price Factors
Certainly, the cost to paint per day for painting companies changes based on location.
However, there are several more factors in the cost per day of painting including:
- Years of Experience
- Job Type or Difficulty
- Amount of Preparation Work
- Type of Paint or Quality
- Coats of Paint Needed
- Time of Year or Seasonality
- Guarantee or Warranty Provided
Next, we’ll talk about the first point on our list, a painter’s experience.
More specifically, we dive into how a painter’s experience factors into daily painting prices and labor rates.
Experienced House Painters Are Worth More Daily
The average cost per day for a painting project also depends on how fast the painter can work.
In general, experienced painters work faster and more efficiently than newer painters. Not to mention, they’ll spend less time on touchups and cleanup at the end.
However, the cost per day is higher for a painter with years of experience. If you are paying a painter per day, this experience can save you that extra day of labor.
In many cases, hiring a self-employed experienced painter costs less than hiring a slower and sloppier novice painter.
Painters with fewer than 5 years of professional painting experience charge $231 to $648 per day on average.
As you can imagine, less experienced painters take longer to paint a room. Indeed, these painters often require 4-8 hours more to paint the same space versus a more experienced pro.
Furthermore, painting contractors with 6 to 12 years of experience charge $418 to $703 per day on average.
How much do painters charge per hour?
Finally, the best house painters with 12 or more years of experience cost $649 to $1,132 per day.
Additional daily painting cost factors include the fresh coats of paint needed, the total square footage, and the prep work required.
For example, major color changes need at least 2-3 coats to cover properly. This requires more labor hours and often takes longer than a 1 day repaint.
Often overlooked, seasonality has one of the greatest effects on the cost of painting per day.
But first, let’s find out how much a painter can paint in a day’s work.
How Much Should a Painter Paint in a Day?
As a reference, a professional painter can paint a standard-sized room in one to two days. This includes preparation work, applying two coats of paint on the walls, dry time, and clean up.
Generally speaking, a standard-sized room in the US is 12x11 with 8-foot ceilings. This is about the size of a normal bedroom.
However, this doesn’t include painting ceilings, trim, doors, closets, or windows in a room.
If you include painting ceilings and trim with walls, a professional painter will paint a room in two to three days.
Accordingly, painting larger spaces like living rooms takes longer. Painting the walls of a standard-sized living room takes two to three days on average.
If extensive sanding, caulking, priming, or drywall repairs are needed, that can add hours or days to the length of your interior painting job.
Additional factors that affect how long a paint job will take include the following:
- Painter Experience or Speed
- Room Size or Sq Ft
- Wall or Ceiling Height
- Weather Conditions
- Moving Furniture or Decor
- Number of Coats Needed
- Hard-to-Reach Areas
- Surface Texture
- Power Washing Dry Times
Unsurprisingly, house painting costs that require more hours of labor are more expensive.
In other words, the longer an exterior or interior house painting job takes, the higher the overall cost of the project.
Here’s everything you need to know about the price to paint your home’s exterior.
Time to Paint Square Foot Vs Linear Feet
When budgeting the time to paint a home’s interior or exterior, there’s a difference between measuring surface sqft and measuring by linear feet.
In either case, remember to account for at least two coats to properly cover walls, ceilings, or trim. If you forget to do this, you’ll end up paying more than you expected.
And please don’t fall for the “paint that covers in one coat” marketing gimmick that cheap paint manufacturers claim. It’s not true unless you want an ugly paint job with streaks and inadequate coverage.
Measure Walls and Ceilings by Sq Ft
Typically, you would measure walls or ceilings using square footage. Here is a full guide on how to measure sqft of a room properly.
A professional painter can cover 150 to 350 square feet per hour with surface prep included. On average, painting a 12x12 bedroom with 9-foot ceilings takes a professional painter 2-4 hours. Remember, this is for the first coat.
Keep in mind that most surfaces take at least two coats to cover well, even if you are matching a similar wall or ceiling color. So budget time to apply at least two full coats of paint.
As mentioned prior, this amounts to one or two days for a painter to paint a standard room.
Use Linear Feet For Trim
On the other hand, you would use linear feet when calculating the time to paint trim work.
This includes surfaces like baseboards, door casings, crown molding, soffits, fascia, and window sills.
Most trim is around 6 inches wide so using sqft to measure trim doesn’t make sense.
For example, most door casings are 7 feet high and 3 feet wide. So a standard door casing would equal 17 linear feet of trim to be painted.
How much trim can a painter cover in an hour?
A professional painter can paint 40 to 80 linear feet of trim per hour including prep work.
Again, most painted surfaces require two coats so make sure to budget time for both coats.
Finally, don’t forget to add a few hours for setup and cleanup.
Paint Job Price Per Day Vs DIY Painting
In comparison, DIY painting may save you in painting labor costs but will likely take you much more than a day.
Sometimes, painting a room yourself makes sense. However, when you factor in equipment costs like ladders or drop cloths, you may end up paying more to do it yourself.
When it comes to painting, my rule of thumb for homeowners is simple. If you enjoy painting and have the time, expertise, and equipment to complete the job safely, do it yourself.
Sure, the job can take twice as long than you budgeted but at least you enjoy it and aren’t rushing.
However, if you are trying to save a few bucks but hate painting or have limited time, hiring a professional painter will cost you less in 95% of cases. Especially if you have high interior walls or require an extension ladder for exterior work.
For most homeowners, I would reconsider DIY painting and hiring a pro if the job involves any of the following:
- Kitchen Cabinets
- Matte, Semi-Gloss, or High-Gloss Finishes
- Oil-Based Paints
- Sprayers or Ladders
- Lead or Asbestos
- Entire Interior or Exterior Repaints
- Vaulted Wall Spaces
- 2nd Story Siding or Trim Work
This isn’t a sales pitch, I’m just sharing my personal experience of working with thousands of homeowners over two decades in the painting industry.
In most cases, I hire professional painters to paint my own home because my time and energy are far more valuable than the money I save by DIY-ing it.
Daily Painting Costs and Seasonality
Last but not least, the daily price to hire a professional painter is heavily influenced by the time of year you choose to paint. Some form of seasonality affects nearly all painters in the United States each year.
Professional painters are busiest during the Spring and Summer and will charge more per day.
On the other hand, business is slower in the winter and fall so painters will charge you less to paint per day.
See how cold is too cold to paint your house exterior.
In colder regions like the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the Northeast, it’s often too cold or wet to paint exteriors from October to April.
Indeed, this means 50% of the available work for painters dries up as soon as it gets too cold outside.
Consequently, the winter is when you can get the best deal on hiring a painter per day.
Oftentimes, you can save $90 to $170 per day to paint a room in the winter versus hiring a painter in warmer months. Learn more about exterior painting prices per job.
Southern State Interior and Exterior Painter Cost
Seasonality is less of a factor in warmer weather states like Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona. However, there are some instances where it is too hot to paint exteriors in the summer.
Accordingly, you can save some money by hiring a painter for interior work when it is too warm to paint outside in the dead of summer if you live in a southern state.
Lastly, home improvement demand in the US generally drops around the holidays. I often find that homeowners are focused on buying gifts and think less about hiring contractors.
This is why painters offer their best daily or hourly rates around Thanksgiving or New Year’s.
Even the best painters are more willing to negotiate during the slow season to keep their crews busy. This is why we highly recommend hiring a painter in the off-season to save some serious bucks!
Daily Painting Prices FAQs
Here are a few most frequently asked questions our expert painters get from homeowners considering hiring a house painter per day.
How much labor do you charge for painting?
Labor rates typically make up 40-60% of daily painter price estimates.
The remaining percentage of the job total is made up of profit and any overhead costs like gas and travel expenses.
Since most painters that charge daily don’t include the cost of paint in their price per day, you’ll have to add that to your total job price as well.
As a rule of thumb, paint materials typically make up around 10% to 15% of the total painting job price.
What is the average cost of a painter?
The average cost of a painter to paint a full house interior is $4,628 in 2024. Comparatively, the average cost of a full exterior painting job is $4,254 in total across the United States.
Oftentimes, the cost of living in expensive cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, or New York is higher than the national average.
Consequently, interior and exterior paint jobs in these metro areas are pricier than in more affordable cities like Dallas, Charlotte, or Phoenix, AZ.
Learn how much it costs to paint a room in a city like Chicago, IL.
How many hours do you work a day as a professional painter?
The standard professional painter workday is 8 hours with a 30-minute or an hour-long lunch break around noontime. Any longer, and you are violating federal labor laws.
Most painters start their work day at 7 am or 8 am and end around 4 pm or 5 pm. Certainly, some painters might want to work longer hours in a day but they likely aren’t insured, licensed, or provide a workmanship warranty.
How long does it take a painter to paint a 12x12 room?
It takes the average painter 6 to 8 hours to paint all the walls of a 12x12 room with two full coats of paint. This assumes an empty room and minimal surface prep as well as 8-foot high ceilings.
More time should be budgeted for higher ceilings and walls with tons of holes to patch.
Another factor to consider is a painter's experience or skill level and type of paint sheen. An experienced professional painter will work faster and provide a cleaner finish than new painters.
Finally, eggshell sheens are easier to apply and dry more uniformly than shiny paints like satin, semi-gloss, or high-gloss. Indeed, this means less time spent on touchups after the second coat is applied. Find out the main differences between satin and matte paint finishes.
