Exterior House Painting Cost Calculator

Estimate exterior house painting prices near you, for regular paint, clear poly of ceramic coating, based on house size, number of coats, paint type, number of doors/windows, prep work, and many other options.

Basic house exterior painting costs $2,800-$3,200 for a 1500 sq. ft. ranch house. However, painting costs vary greatly depending on whether you need extensive prep work and rot repair, geometry and height of your home, and type of paint/coating.

This Exterior Painting Calculator helps homeowners estimate real local painting costs. You will get 3 instant price quotes (low end, mid range and high end) based on what painting contractors charge in your area.

Quotes are accurate, and are calculated based on house dimensions that you enter.

Estimate The Cost To Paint Your House Exterior Now!

All prices include labor and materials. If you got a local quote that is significantly higher, your contractor wants to overcharge you. We recommend getting at least 3 real quotes from painters near you, to compare cost and options/extras.

How to use this calculator, to get accurate house painting quote

Step 1: Enter accurate house (foundation) dimensions. Measure from corner to corner, and enter length and width into the calculator. If your house is odd shape, figure out the total length of each adjacent side. For example, if you have an “L” shaped house, use the longest sides length for your measurement.

Step 2: Select number of floors. For common home styles like Ranch/Cape and Raised Ranch, we have pre-configured settings. For other house types (like Colonial / Victorian / etc) use actual number for floors.

Step 3: Roof slope (pitch) is important setting, as this can add significant surface area to your job size. For example: on a 40×25′ cape, a slope difference between 3/12 and 8/12 will result in approximately 200 square feet more for the latter.

If your roof is Hip-Style, select FLAT, because Hip Roofs do not have any gables, which does not add any surface area to be painted.

Step 4: Select your paint type. In most cases you should go with “regular” or “premium” paint. Clear poly should only be used on un-primed wood (cedar or pine, etc) to preserve the natural color of the wood. Do not select POLY, if your siding has been painted before.

Ceramic paint/coating is more of a gimmick (costing 3-4 times more than conventional paint job), marketed by national brands and local “premium” painting contractors. There has been no real testing done, to verify that Ceramic paint is in fact “lifetime”.

Additionally, ceramic painting contractors define “lifetime” as it is beneficial to them, when WHEN a ceramic coating fails, these companies blame the homeowners for “lack of care and preventative maintenance”, and in many cases, refuse to do any warranty work.

Another proof that Ceramic paint is a gimmick, is the fact that not a single national or local paint manufacturer produces any “ceramic-based” coatings/paint products!

We included this option for “comparison purposes”.

Step 5: Number of Coats – most houses with wood siding (pine / cedar) or fiber cement (Hardie plank & others) or engineered wood siding, need painting roughly every 5 years. However, doing 2 coats, should extend the lifespan of your paint job by another 4-5 years. This principal applies to both paint and clear polyurethane coatings.

We made 1 coat a default option, as that is what most quotes are based on. However, we strongly recommend that you do 2 coats, when painting your home.

While it ads about 30% to the total cost, your 2-coat paint job should last twice as long as single coat, at a fraction of the cost. This means that instead of painting your home again in 5 years, you will need to do it again in 9-10 years!

Step 6: House difficulty or job complexity: identify how cut up or straight your house is, and may also include ease of access, existence of dormers / towers, random crown moldings, and other decorative wood, etc. Most cape / ranch / raised ranch and colonial homes with typical geometry and relatively easy access should be classified as simple or medium difficulty.

Consider this: If your painter will need to spend many hours to paint a relatively small section of your house, you should increase the difficulty setting.

Because your painter WILL include this extra work in their bid. If on the other hand, your house has straight runs, with easy access, select “simple” setting.

Most Victorian homes should be classified as cut-up.

Step 7: Prep- preparation work is ESSENTIAL element of a quality painting job! If you have peeling paint and rotten wood, and just paint over it, your job will fail very fast. By contrast, quality prep work, may extend the life of your paint job by years!

Any peeling/cracking paint should be power washed, brushed / scraped off and sanded. All rotten wood should be replaced (preferably with AZEK or other PVC trim boards. Rotten siding shingles or boards should also be replaced – these are typically found at the bottom course of your siding, or where siding and roof meet.

Select appropriate setting for your job, to get most accurate price quote.

Step 8: Windows/doors to be painted- Each window / door trim must be separately prepped and painted. This takes extra time, compared to straight runs of siding. Enter total number of all windows & doors. Include garage doors.

Step 9: Trim color – window/door trim, soffit, fascia, base trim, moldings, etc. Most homeowners will choose different colors for siding and trim. Hence, we made “accent color” a default option for trim.

In rare cases you will want your trim to be same color as the rest of the house – for example when you paint your house WHITE or if you are doing a clear POLY stain.

Accent color will typically cost more, as your painter will need to have 2 separate batches, sets of tools, etc, to apply two colors.

Step 10: Select your region, based on the map below.

Region setting adjust the cost to local economic conditions, cost of living, labor & material costs.

How To Get The Best Quality House Painting Job And The Best Price

Our number one suggestion, is to hire a LOCAL small-to-medium size, owner operated painting contractor! These painters will give you the best quality at reasonable prices!

Big contractors ALWAYS hire sub-contractors (your local painters) and you end up paying the Local Price + Big Company Overhead & Profit + Salesperson’s Commission, which is typically 100% more that you would otherwise pay to the local owner-run outfit.

Our second recommendation is to have quality prep work and 2 coats of paint done. While it will cost 30-40% more upfront, you will have to pay that one time, and it will last 10 years or more.

If you do not do these two items, your paint job may last 3-4 years, and you will have to pay even more second time around, as by then, your wood siding will have even more rot, so the prep work and rot repair will cost even more, on the second round.