How much does it cost to paint a room?

Cost by room size

Room size drives cost through wall area, not floor area — which is why a long narrow room costs more to paint than a square one of the same square footage. Every row below is computed from the room’s actual wall surface at an 8 ft ceiling, two coats:

Room	Wall area	Gallons	DIY materials	Professional
8×10 room	288 sq ft	2	$126–$172	$468–$1,116
10×10 room	320 sq ft	2	$126–$200	$520–$1,240
10×12 room	352 sq ft	3	$173–$247	$572–$1,364
11×12 room	368 sq ft	3	$173–$247	$598–$1,426
12×12 room	384 sq ft	3	$173–$247	$624–$1,488
12×14 room	416 sq ft	3	$179–$271	$676–$1,612
12×16 room	448 sq ft	3	$179–$271	$728–$1,736
14×14 room	448 sq ft	3	$179–$271	$728–$1,736
14×16 room	480 sq ft	3	$191–$283	$780–$1,860
15×20 room	560 sq ft	4	$233–$325	$910–$2,170
16×20 room	576 sq ft	4	$233–$325	$936–$2,232
20×20 room	640 sq ft	4	$251–$371	$1,040–$2,480

DIY figures are materials only. The low end assumes you already own brushes and need no primer; the high end includes primer and trim enamel. Neither includes your time — see the hours column further down before deciding that is free.

Estimate your own room

Enter your dimensions for the gallon count and paint cost:

How much paint do I need?

Length

ft

Width

ft

Ceiling height

ft

Coats 1 coat2 coats3 coats

Surface Smooth drywall (~350 ft²/gal) Textured / bare (~250 ft²/gal)

Paint the ceiling too

You'll need about

—

Paintable area
Coverage needed (with coats)
Estimated paint cost

Buy interior paint → Get quotes from painters →

Estimate for walls (2 coats by default). Coverage assumes smooth, primed drywall; bare or textured walls absorb more — pick "Textured." Small doors/windows are left in as a cut-in buffer. Cost is an estimate (as of June 2026) — confirm the price of your chosen paint.

What a professional quote is actually made of

Painters do not price by the room, and a quote that arrives as one number for “the bedroom” is hiding three separate calculations:

Component	Typical rate	Measured against
Walls, 2 coats	$1.50–$3.50 / sq ft	Wall surface area
Ceiling	$1.00–$2.50 / sq ft	Ceiling area (= floor area)
Trim, baseboard, doors	$1.00–$3.00 / linear ft	Perimeter and openings
Minimum job charge	≈ $350	Applies regardless of size

The minimum job charge is the one that surprises people. Sending a crew out costs a painter a day whether the room is 80 square feet or 300, so almost every quote has a floor under it. In the table above, every room up to about the smallest sizes hits that minimum rather than its measured price — which means painting one small room professionally costs nearly the same as painting a considerably bigger one. If you are hiring out, hire out several rooms at once.

Two more things that move a quote and are worth asking about explicitly: whether the price includes the paint (often it does not, and premium paint at $35+ a gallon adds up), and how much preparation is included. Filling nail holes is standard. Repairing cracked plaster, sanding down flaking gloss, or removing wallpaper is not, and it is the most common reason a final invoice exceeds the estimate.

The DIY bill in full

For a 12×14 room — the most common master-bedroom size, with 416 sq ft of wall:

Item	Estimated cost
Wall paint — 3 gallons at ≈ $35	$105
Primer (only if bare, patched, or a big colour change)	$28–$56
Trim enamel	≈ $18 per quart
Tape, drop cloths, roller covers, tray, brush	≈ $50–$80
Total	$179–$271

Note how much of that is not paint. On a single room, consumables and trim enamel are often close to the cost of the wall paint itself — and unlike the paint, most of it carries over to the next room. If you plan to paint more than one room, the second room costs meaningfully less than the first, which is an argument for doing them in a batch.

One economy worth taking: at 4 gallons or more, buy the 5-gallon pail (≈ $145) rather than singles. It is cheaper per gallon and it removes batch-to-batch colour variation across a large surface.

What it costs to paint a whole house

Whole-house figures quoted online are close to meaningless without knowing which rooms are in them, so here is the mix behind this one — five rooms, walls only, two coats:

Room	Size	DIY materials	Professional
Master bedroom	12×14 room	$179–$271	$676–$1,612
Bedroom × 2	10×12 room	$346–$494	$1,144–$2,728
Living room	12×16 room	$179–$271	$728–$1,736
Dining room / office	10×10 room	$126–$200	$520–$1,240
Total		$830–$1,236	$3,068–$7,316

That is roughly 37 hours of DIY work — call it two to three weekends at a realistic pace, and note that the professional total is inflated by the minimum job charge applying to the smaller rooms individually. In practice a painter quoting all five rooms in one visit charges the minimum once, not five times, which typically brings the professional figure down considerably. Always get the whole job quoted together.

What actually drives the price

Ceiling height

Wall area scales directly with ceiling height, so going from 8 ft to 9 ft adds 12.5% to the wall area and often a whole gallon. Above about 10 ft, or on a stairwell, professional prices rise faster than the area does because the work now needs scaffolding.

Surface condition

This is the biggest swing factor and the one no calculator can see. Smooth, previously painted drywall in good condition takes paint at the full 350 sq ft per gallon. Bare drywall, new plaster, or heavy texture drops that to around 250 — roughly 30% more paint, plus primer that would otherwise have been optional.

Colour change

Going light over dark, or using a saturated red or yellow, can need three coats instead of two. That is 50% more paint and 50% more labour. A tinted primer is much cheaper than a third finish coat and gets you there in two.

Region

Labour rates vary far more than material prices. Paint costs roughly the same nationwide; a painter’s day rate in a major metro can be double a rural one. The professional ranges here are US national average figures — treat them as a sanity check on a quote, not a target.

Should you do it yourself?

Interior wall painting is one of the genuinely good DIY jobs: the tools are cheap, the skill ceiling for a decent result is low, and mistakes are fixable with another coat. The honest case for each:

• Do it yourself for standard-height rooms in reasonable condition, especially if you have several to do — the supplies carry over and your cost per room drops fast after the first.
• Hire it out for high ceilings and stairwells, for anything needing real repair work first, for spray-finished trim, or when the whole house needs doing on a deadline. A crew does in two days what takes one person three weekends.

Whichever way you go, work out the quantities first. Knowing a room needs 3 gallons and about 8 hours is what lets you read a quote critically — and it is the difference between negotiating and guessing.

Work out your room

• Paint calculator — gallons for any size, coats and surface
• How much paint do I need? — the full method
• Which paint sheen? — washability vs hiding, room by room
• How we calculate — every constant and its source

Or start from a common size:

• Cost to paint a 8×10 room — 2 gallons, $126–$172 DIY
• Cost to paint a 11×12 room — 3 gallons, $173–$247 DIY
• Cost to paint a 12×16 room — 3 gallons, $179–$271 DIY
• Cost to paint a 15×20 room — 4 gallons, $233–$325 DIY