Markup and margin measure the same profit from different angles. Markup is profit divided by cost. Margin is profit divided by price. A 50% markup equals a 33% margin. Confusing the two leads to underpricing: if you need a 40% margin and apply a 40% markup instead, you're actually running at 28.6% margin and leaving money on the table.
Markup & Margin Calculator for Painting
Pre-filled with real painting industry benchmarks
Painting pricing boils down to square footage rates, daily crew costs, and paint material markup. The industry standard for residential painting is $2 to $6 per square foot of wall surface for interior work and $1.50 to $4 per square foot for exterior. But smart painting companies do not quote per square foot to the customer, because that invites comparison shopping on a commodity basis. Instead, they provide per-job pricing based on their internal cost calculations. Paint materials are typically marked up 30 to 50% over contractor cost. A gallon of premium paint costs a contractor $35 to $55 and covers 350 to 400 sq ft. The real margin in painting is labor efficiency, where a crew that finishes a job in 3 days instead of 4 earns the same price with 25% lower labor cost. This calculator helps you model different pricing scenarios so you can find the sweet spot between winning bids and maintaining healthy margins.
Markup & Margin Calculator
Pre-filled with painting industry defaults. Edit any field to use your real numbers.
Markup
400.0%
Margin
80.0%
Profit
$280
Painting industry average: 80.0% margin (20.0% COGS).