Understand the true painting cost per square foot in the UK for both interior and exterior jobs. Get a detailed breakdown of labour, materials, and prep…
A single 'cost per square foot' for UK painting is a myth. The real price is built from three core elements: your labour rate, reflecting the job's complexity and your location; the cost of materials, from trade emulsion to designer brands; and the time-consuming prep work involved. Quoting on area alone is a recipe for losing money.
Pricing a job isn't just about the size of the room; it's about the size of the headache. I've seen decorators lose their shirts by quoting on square footage alone, forgetting that some square feet are much, much more difficult than others. Pricing a decorating job involves a whole host of factors, and if you miss one, it comes directly out of your pocket.
Your time is the biggest variable. Are you a seasoned pro who can cut in a straight line in your sleep, or are you just starting out? Your experience level dictates your day rate, which is the foundation of your quote. A simple emulsion job on a new-build plasterboard wall is quick. A Grade II listed building with sash windows and ornate coving? That’s not a paint job; it’s a long-term relationship. As decorator Mike Cupit often says, you're not just charging for the hours you're holding a brush, but for the years it took you to get that good.
The client wants a feature wall in a designer paint that costs £100 a tin and covers about three square feet. Your standard quote, based on a trade vinyl matt from the Dulux Decorator Centre, just went out the window. The type of paint (matt, silk, eggshell), the brand, and the number of coats required all drastically change the material cost. And don't forget the sundries: the good masking tape that doesn't pull off the plaster, the quality rollers that don't shed, the endless supply of sandpaper. These small costs add up fast.
Here lies the graveyard of a thousand profitable quotes. A client will show you a smooth wall, but you know what's lurking beneath that 1970s woodchip. Hours of steaming, scraping, filling, and sanding. This is where most jobs are won or lost. Prep work needs to be accounted for when pricing a decorating job, and it’s often the biggest chunk of the labour. Quoting per square foot without seeing the state of the surfaces is pure guesswork. I once saw a post by decorator David Holmes where the prep on one wall took two days; the painting itself took half a day.
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Before you even think about a number, run through this list. Missing just one can turn a good job into a charity project.
Thinking interior and exterior painting are the same is like thinking a house cat and a tiger are the same. They're both felines, but one will eat your lunch and the other will eat you. The costs for interior and exterior jobs differ significantly for very good reasons.
For interior work, you're fighting against furniture, flooring, and the client's cat. The focus is on a flawless finish. A standard room (say, 12ft x 12ft) might take a day or two. The square footage is easy to calculate, but the complexity comes from cutting in, painting woodwork, and working around light fittings. The price per square foot for a simple two-coat emulsion job on good surfaces will be at the lower end of the scale. But start adding in ceilings, skirting boards, and doors, and you're quickly moving towards a day-rate calculation.
Outside, you're battling the British weather. The prep work is usually ten times worse: scraping flaky masonry, treating algae, filling cracked render. The materials are more expensive because they need to be durable and weatherproof. You’ll often need scaffolding or a tower, which adds a hefty hire cost. The window for working is smaller (good luck painting in the rain), so jobs can drag on. For this reason, exterior painting costs are higher, sometimes significantly more per square foot than interior work, and sometimes much more for complex jobs on period properties.
A good quote is an honest quote. It shows the client exactly what they're paying for and protects you from doing work for free. Don't just slap a single number on an email. Break it down. It builds trust and stops the inevitable "why is it so much?" conversation before it starts.
This is tricky. The best way is to work out your day rate and then estimate how many square feet you can realistically prep and paint in a day to a high standard. For a straightforward emulsion job, your productivity can be high, allowing you to cover a large area in a day. If you know your day rate and can estimate the area you'll cover, you can work out a baseline labour cost per square foot for that type of job. But for a fiddly job with lots of cutting in, your daily coverage might halve, which would effectively double your labour cost per square foot. Your speed and the job's complexity are everything.
Material costs are a key component of a decorating job's price. Don't just guess. Measure the room, calculate the total square footage, and check the paint tin for its coverage rate (usually around 12m² or 130 sq ft per litre). Add a percentage for a second coat and a bit of contingency. Add your trade discount, then add a markup for the hassle of sourcing, buying, and transporting it.
Your van doesn't run on good intentions. You have public liability insurance which is a key cover for trades, tool maintenance, phone bills, and accounting software to pay for. These are real costs. A common way to account for this is to add a percentage on top of your combined labour and material costs. If you don't, you're not running a business; you're funding a hobby. This is the part that separates the pros from the people who disappear after six months.
Let's price up a simple feature wall. It's 12ft wide by 8ft high.
Area Calculation:
Labour Estimate:
Material Estimate:
Total & Per Square Foot:
This simple example shows how quickly a "per square foot" price is built. And this is for a perfect, simple wall.
Where you are in the UK has a massive impact on your price. A painter in central London has higher living costs and fuel expenses than a decorator in rural Wales. It's simple economics.
You can expect to pay significantly more for a decorator in London and the South East than you would in the North of England, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. This isn't because they're better painters; it's because a bacon butty costs a fiver in London and their van insurance is probably more than your mortgage. Always check the going rate in your specific area by talking to other trades or checking local forums. A quick search on Google for local decorating services can also give you a feel for the market.
If a client starts using words like "limewash," "graining," "marbling," or wants perfectly crisp geometric patterns, the price per square foot model goes straight out the window. These are specialist skills that take time to learn and even more time to execute. You price these jobs based on the skill and time required, not the area covered. A single small wall could cost more than painting three entire rooms with standard emulsion.
Look, the obsession with a 'per square foot' price is mostly a client thing because it feels tangible. For us on the tools, it's just one small part of the puzzle. This article isn't about giving you a magic number; it's about showing you the machinery behind that number. While the rest of the internet gives vague ranges, we've broken down how to build your price from the ground up: labour, materials, prep, and the overheads that keep your business alive.
The key is to stop thinking in square feet and start thinking in hours. How many hours will this really take me? Once you have that, you can work backwards to a square foot price if the client insists. But your quote, your profit, and your sanity are all built on an honest assessment of your time. Get that right, and the rest falls into place. And for God's sake, get it written down and sent off quickly. You can have the most accurate price in the world, but if it takes you three evenings to type it up, the job's gone. Using a tool that lets you create Unlimited proposals & quotes fast isn't a luxury; it's survival.
