Interior Painting Cost Calculator 2027: Rooms & Whole House

How to Use the Interior Painting Calculator

The starting price assumes 8-foot ceilings, a light color, two coats on the walls and one on the ceiling. Each field adjusts from there.

1. Area to be Painted. Enter floor area, not wall area. For the whole house, use the square footage on your listing or appraisal. For one room, multiply its length by its width.
2. Doors and windows. Count only the ones getting paint. They’re priced by the piece, about $61 per door and $24 per window.
3. Project Type. Choose Paint Existing Home for a repaint. New Construction is for fresh drywall and hides the repair and wallpaper options.
4. Wall colors. A charcoal or brick red usually needs a third coat or a tinted primer to look even. One dark color adds about 7%. Two colors per room adds roughly 30%, or about 40% if both are dark.
5. Ceilings. Vaulted and cathedral ceilings need staging before a roller moves, which adds about a quarter to the painting cost. Pick No if you’re only doing walls.
6. Moldings. Baseboards work out to roughly $0.68 per linear foot. Crown and chair rail aren’t in the math, so get those quoted separately.
7. Show More Options. Add wall repairs, furniture moving and wallpaper removal (all rooms or half the house). Repairs are priced by wall area, not by the hour.

Two things the calculator can’t see: walls taller than 8 feet and heavy texture. Extra height means more square footage and more ladder time, and heavy texture drinks paint and slows the roller. Ask painters to price either one as its own line.

How Much Does Interior Painting Cost Per Square Foot?

Priced by floor area, walls and ceilings on a typical 1,500-2,000 sq. ft. home run about $1.94-3.21 per square foot. Add baseboards, light patching and furniture moving, and you’re closer to $3.09-4.84. Lots of cutting-in or a choppy floor plan pushes you toward the top of either range.

Labor makes up 75-80% of the bill, so better paint barely moves your total. Extra hours do.

Bigger homes cost less per foot. For walls and ceilings, a 1,000 sq. ft. home averages about $3.08 a foot, a 2,400 sq. ft. house about $1.97 and a 3,000 sq. ft. house near $1.70.

What Does a Whole-House Interior Paint Job Cost?

For a 2,000 sq. ft. single-story home, a walls-and-ceilings repaint typically runs $3,880-5,480. On that same house, baseboards add about $350-490 and light patching $290-410. Having the crew move furniture is the big one, at roughly $1,660-2,330. Spread the same footage over two floors and expect to land higher, because stairwells and tall foyers eat ladder time.

At the calculator’s default 1,650 sq. ft., walls and ceilings come to about $3,540-4,990, or roughly $5,440-7,680 with baseboards, patching and furniture moving.

The table shows national-average ranges for both scopes. Your region moves them up or down.

Home size (sq. ft.)	Walls + ceilings	Plus baseboards, patching, furniture moving
1,000	$2,720 – $3,840	$3,870 – $5,460
1,500	$3,410 – $4,820	$5,140 – $7,260
2,000	$3,880 – $5,480	$6,180 – $8,730
2,500	$4,300 – $6,070	$7,180 – $10,140
3,000	$4,500 – $6,350	$7,960 – $11,230
3,500	$5,250 – $7,410	$9,280 – $13,100

Doing the outside too? Price it with our exterior house painting calculator.

Why Does One Room Cost More Per Foot?

A plain 140 sq. ft. bedroom runs about $570-810 for walls and ceiling, or $730-1,040 with baseboards, patching and furniture moving. Two 150 sq. ft. rooms done in one visit come to roughly $1,180-1,670.

That’s $4.07-5.79 a foot for walls and ceiling alone, against about $1.94-2.74 for a 2,000 sq. ft. house. The painter still drives over, tapes off, spreads drop cloths and washes out brushes, and that overhead is nearly the same for one room as for ten.

So if you’re on the fence about the hallway, add it to the same visit. It’s the cheapest square footage you’ll buy.

Should You Paint It Yourself?

Rolling the walls yourself typically saves 50-60%, often $2,310 or more on a whole house. Before you buy rollers, be honest about the trade:

• What a crew finishes in two days can eat several of your weekends.
• Prep and cleanup take longer than the painting itself.
• Stairwells, vaulted ceilings and crown need scaffolding or a tall ladder, plus a steady hand.
• Wobbly cut lines and lap marks make a room look cheap.
• Selling soon? Most agents tell sellers to hire a pro for listing-ready walls.

How Should You Compare Painter Bids?

Pros typically bill around $46-74.75 an hour, depending on the market. For one small room, a good handyman at a lower rate often does the job fine. Many contractors quote by the floor foot instead, usually $1.94-3.21 for whole-house walls and ceilings, more once trim and prep are in. To sanity-check an hourly bid, figure a skilled painter covers roughly 100-150 sq. ft. of flat wall an hour, cutting in included.

An established company with insurance, crews and an office often bids 15-20% higher than a newcomer. Sometimes that premium is worth it. Sometimes you’re paying for the truck wrap.

1. Collect three written quotes for the identical scope: same rooms, same number of coats, same trim.
2. Ask what prep, ceiling work and furniture moving are included.
3. Line each one up against your calculator number. A big outlier owes you an explanation.

Be wary of the rock-bottom bid. Prep is half the job, and that’s where bargain crews save time, so expect nail pops, bubbling, roller marks and paint on the outlet covers. Trim gives them away too, since crisp ceiling lines take patience. If your house has lots of millwork, hire the painter who can show photos of similar work.

Built Before 1978? Test for Lead Paint

Homes from that era may have lead paint on walls, windows and door trim. Sanding it makes dust that’s dangerous for young kids, so test first.

A lead inspection usually costs a few hundred dollars. Ask the inspector whether it’s an actual hazard or can stay sealed under fresh paint. Any painter who sands or scrapes in a pre-1978 home should be EPA lead-safe (RRP) certified.

Full abatement is a different animal and can easily run into five figures, which is why sealing it under fresh paint is often the smarter call. Renting the place out? Federal law requires lead disclosure to tenants, and some states and cities require lead-safe certification too.

Interior Painting FAQ

How do painters measure for a quote?

Many quote off floor area, the same number the calculator uses. Some measure actual wall area instead. Either way, one- or two-room jobs get a higher per-foot rate to cover setup.

When should painting happen in a remodel?

Near the end, after drywall and cabinets, but before new floors go down (price those with the flooring calculator). Budgeting a bigger project? Try our home remodel cost calculator.

How do I get a firm price?

Rerun the calculator above with your real square footage and options, then have local pros look at your walls. Get free painting quotes and compare each one line by line against your number.