Painting Time Calculator

How the painting time calculator works

Painting time is area multiplied by a production rate, divided by the number of people doing the work. The calculator gives you the elapsed hours on the wall, the total person-hours you'd pay for, the working days at your chosen hours per day, and the labour cost at your hourly rate. Enter the area in square feet with the rate in hours per 100 ft², or in square metres with the rate in hours per m²; the maths is the same either way.

With the defaults, 215 ft² of wall at 0.45 hours per 100 ft² is 215 × 0.45 ÷ 100 = 0.97 hours for one painter, about $48 at $50 an hour. The metric default, 20 m² at 0.05 hours per m², is 1.0 hour, £24 at £24 an hour. Those numbers look fast, and the reason matters more than anything else on this page: the default rate covers rolling two coats on walls and not much else.

Where the default rate comes from

The rate is taken from Craftsman's National Painting Cost Estimator, a US estimating book that publishes production rates by surface and method. The 2026 edition's preview lists rolling a first coat of flat latex on drywall walls at 400 ft² per man-hour for its "Slow" category, 538 for "Medium" and 675 for "Fast". The 2019 edition's preview, which shows the full table, gives the same first-coat figures and a second coat at 500, 600 and 700 ft² per man-hour. The book describes "Slow" as smaller or more difficult repaint jobs with less experienced painters, so that is what the calculator uses: 100 ÷ 400 + 100 ÷ 500 = 0.45 hours per 100 ft² for two coats. The metric default rounds the equivalent 0.048 hours per m² to 0.05.

For a skilled crew on bigger, easier work, the book's "Medium" rates give 0.35 hours per 100 ft² for two coats (0.038 per m²) and "Fast" gives 0.29 (0.031 per m²).

What the rate includes, and what it doesn't

The book's table includes brushing in at corners and at the ceiling line when walls and ceiling share a colour, minor preparation, and minimum setup and clean-up. It excludes cutting in to a ceiling of a different colour, extensive preparation, heavy masking, material handling, scaffolding and supervision, and it assumes walls up to 8 ft high; the book adds a separate difficulty factor for anything taller. Ceilings, doors, windows, skirting and trim are separate items with their own rates, not part of the wall figure.

So on a real repaint, the wall-rolling time can be the smaller part of the day. Moving furniture, filling and sanding, masking, a second colour at the ceiling line, tall walls and the woodwork all sit outside the rate. Two practical ways to handle that: raise the rate to cover your own conditions, or run the calculator for the walls and add the other items separately.

Using your own rate

If you know how fast you or your painter works, convert it. A painter who rolls 150 ft² an hour per coat takes 100 ÷ 150 = 0.67 hours per 100 ft² for each coat, so 1.33 for two. In metric, 12 m² an hour per coat is 1 ÷ 12 = 0.083 hours per m² per coat, or 0.17 for two. Trade figures assume experienced painters, so if you're doing it yourself, time yourself on the first wall and use that.

Worked examples

A 12 ft by 14 ft room with 8 ft walls has 2 × (12 + 14) × 8 = 416 ft² of wall. At the default rate that's 1.87 person-hours, or 0.94 hours with two painters. The book doesn't deduct openings under 100 ft², so leave ordinary doors and windows in the area. The metric equivalent, a 4 m by 3.5 m room with 2.4 m walls, is 2 × (4 + 3.5) × 2.4 = 36 m², or 1.8 hours at 0.05 per m².

A 2,000 ft² commercial job at the "Medium" rate of 0.35 hours per 100 ft² is 2,000 × 0.35 ÷ 100 = 7 person-hours, or 3.5 hours for two painters, just under half an eight-hour day.

Crew size and working days

The calculator divides the work evenly across the crew, which holds on large open areas. In a small room, two people get in each other's way and share one set of ladders and one tray, so a second painter may not halve the time there. Working days are elapsed hours divided by the hours per day you enter; use productive hours, not time on site, because setup, breaks and cleaning down all come out of the day.

Labour cost is total person-hours times the hourly rate, so it doesn't change with crew size. Time on the job does. Drying time between coats also sits outside the calculation. Benjamin Moore's data sheet for Regal Select flat, for example, gives a recoat time of 1 to 2 hours at 77°F (25°C) and 50% humidity, and longer when it's cool or damp. On the 12 ft by 14 ft room above, the first coat takes 416 ÷ 400 = 1.04 hours and the second 416 ÷ 500 = 0.83, so a 1 to 2 hour wait between them adds roughly as much time again as either coat.