Exterior House Painting Cost
Painting a house exterior costs $1.50–$5.00 per square foot of wall — $2,600–$8,500 for a typical 2,000 sq ft home. Price your size and siding type, and see how many gallons the job takes.
Painting a house exterior costs $1.50 to $5.00 per square foot of wall — most 2,000 sq ft homes land between $2,600 and $8,500, labor and materials included. The siding material sets the rate, the home's size sets the area, and the whole job typically takes a crew 4 to 5 days.
How big is your home?
Your home's interior square footage — the number from the listing or tax record. We convert it to paintable wall area for you (a 2,000 sq ft home has about 1,700 sq ft of exterior walls once windows and doors are subtracted).
What's the siding?
The material changes the price more than people expect. Vinyl is the cheapest to paint (though check your siding warranty first — some are voided by painting). Wood usually needs priming. Stucco is porous and drinks extra paint. Brick has the highest starting price because it takes the most prep and primer. Aluminum falls in the middle.
When was your home built?
This doesn't change the estimate — it changes the warnings. Homes built before 1978 may have lead-based paint under the current layers, which is fine when it's intact and painted over, but expensive if it ever has to be stripped. Painters must be EPA-certified to disturb it.
Cost to paint a 2,000 sq ft wood-sided home
$2,550–$8,500
labor and materials, two coats — trim, shutters, and heavy prep work are extra
How to keep the bid near the bottom of the range
Paint when your siding still has a sound surface — washing and painting over intact paint is cheap; scraping years of peeling is labor at $25–$75/hour. Bundle trim, doors, or a fence into the same visit for a package rate, and skip premium $100+/gal paint on siding that gets repainted on a short cycle anyway.
What moves a painting quote inside the range
Prep is the wildcard — power washing, priming, and repairing damaged siding are labor on top of painting. Height matters too: three-story walls need staging and slow everything down. And the add-ons people forget to budget: trim, shutters, eaves, foundation, and gutters are each their own line. Painting vinyl? Check the siding warranty first — paint voids some of them.
Based on $1.50–$5.00 per paintable square foot by siding type (vinyl cheapest at $1.50–$4.50, brick highest-floor at $2.50–$5.00), using your home size to estimate wall area with windows and doors subtracted. Paint itself runs $20–$80 per gallon at 350–400 sq ft of coverage per gallon. Assumes a one- or two-story home in paintable condition; heavy prep and premium paint push past the top of the range.
💡About this calculator▼
A fresh coat of exterior paint is the highest-leverage curb-appeal money a homeowner can spend — and one of the most quote-varied jobs in the trades, with bids on the same house routinely landing thousands of dollars apart. The spread isn't mystery pricing. It's three knowable things: how much wall you have, what that wall is made of, and how much prep it needs.
The market rate is $1.50 to $5.00 per square foot of paintable wall, labor and materials included. Your house's interior square footage translates to wall area at roughly 80 cents on the dollar — a 2,000 sq ft home carries about 1,700 sq ft of paintable exterior wall once windows and doors come out — which lands most homes that size between $2,600 and $8,500.
Siding sets the rate inside that band. Vinyl is the cheapest to paint at $1.50–$4.50 (check your warranty first — paint voids some of them). Wood runs the full $1.50–$5.00 and usually wants priming. Aluminum sits mid-pack at $2.00–$4.50. Stucco ($2.00–$5.00) is porous and simply drinks more paint. Brick carries the highest floor at $2.50–$5.00 because of prep and primer.
Enter your home's square footage, pick your siding, and answer one more question — whether the house predates 1978 — because that's the year lead paint left the shelves, and it changes the warnings (not the price) that come with your estimate.
Your square footage becomes wall area; your siding sets the rate; two coats set the gallons.
From house size to wall area. Painters don't bid your interior square footage — they bid your walls. Industry pricing tables map the two: a 1,000 sq ft house has about 800 sq ft of paintable exterior, a 2,000 sq ft house about 1,700, a 4,000 sq ft house about 3,350 — roughly 80–84% of floor area, with windows and doors already subtracted. This calculator uses that published mapping directly, filling in between the table's rows for in-between homes.
The siding rate. Each material carries its own installed band per paintable square foot: wood $1.50–$5.00, vinyl $1.50–$4.50, stucco $2.00–$5.00, brick $2.50–$5.00, aluminum $2.00–$4.50 — all including labor and materials. Where you land inside the band is mostly prep (washing, scraping, priming, repairs), height (three-story walls need staging), and paint quality ($20–$80 per gallon standard, $100+ premium).
The gallons. Standard exterior paint covers 350–400 square feet per gallon, and a proper job is two coats — so a typical 2,000 sq ft home uses about 9–10 gallons of wall paint, before primer and trim.
📐How it's calculated▼
Total = paintable wall area × siding rate.
Paintable wall area (HomeGuide's published house-size mapping):
| House size | Paintable walls | |---|---| | 1,000 sq ft | ~800 sq ft | | 1,500 sq ft | ~1,200 sq ft | | 2,000 sq ft | ~1,700 sq ft | | 2,500 sq ft | ~2,100 sq ft | | 3,000 sq ft | ~2,500 sq ft | | 4,000 sq ft | ~3,350 sq ft |
Siding rates (per paintable square foot, labor + materials):
- Wood: $1.50–$5.00 · Vinyl: $1.50–$4.50 · Aluminum: $2.00–$4.50 · Stucco: $2.00–$5.00 · Brick: $2.50–$5.00
Gallons = wall area × 2 coats ÷ 350–400 sq ft per gallon.
The pre-1978 question doesn't enter the math — it flags the lead-paint rules: intact old paint gets encapsulated at normal cost, but stripping lead paint runs $6–$17 per square foot and requires EPA lead-safe certified crews.
🔍Finding your inputs▼
How big is your home? Use the interior square footage from your listing, appraisal, or county tax record — the number you already know. The calculator converts it to exterior wall area using the published mapping, so don't measure your walls; that's the point of this input.
What's the siding? Pick what's on the walls today. If your home mixes materials — brick front, vinyl sides is a classic — pick the one covering most of the house; the bid will blend anyway. Painting vinyl deserves one extra step: read your siding warranty before committing, because some manufacturers void coverage on painted siding, especially in dark colors that absorb heat.
When was your home built? Before or after 1978, the year the U.S. banned lead-based house paint. Older homes very likely carry lead somewhere under the current layers. That's not a crisis — painting over intact paint is routine — but it changes who should do the work (EPA lead-safe certified painters) and what scraping costs if the old paint is failing.
⚠️Special situations▼
My house is three stories tall
Expect the top of the range or past it. Height is a genuine cost driver — staging, ladders or lifts, slower work, and higher insurance all ride along, and the by-size pricing tables assume one- and two-story homes. Get bids from crews that paint tall houses routinely; a two-story crew improvising on a three-story colonial is where both budgets and safety records break.
The paint is peeling, chipping, or alligatoring badly
Budget for prep as its own project. Scraping, sanding, priming bare spots, and repairing damaged siding are hourly labor ($25–$75/hour) before the first coat goes on, and heavy prep can rival the painting itself. On a pre-1978 home, failing paint also triggers the lead-safe rules — containment, certified crews, and $6–$17 per square foot if full removal is required.
I only want to paint the trim, shutters, and doors — not the walls
That's a real and much smaller project — trim-and-accents refreshes are a fraction of a full repaint and bundle well with other small jobs for a package rate. The reverse also matters: if you're pricing a full repaint, remember the walls-only number this calculator gives excludes trim, shutters, eaves, foundation, and gutters — each is its own line on a complete bid.
I'm painting to sell the house
Exterior paint is consistently among the best-returning pre-sale projects — but spend like a seller, not a keeper: standard-grade paint (not $100/gallon premium), a neutral color the widest pool of buyers accepts, and full attention to the street-facing side. If the whole house doesn't fit the budget, a front-elevation refresh plus the front door delivers most of the first-impression value.
Can I just paint it myself?
On a single-story home in good condition, DIY saves most of the bill — you're buying 9–10 gallons of paint ($200–$800) plus supplies instead of paying $25–$75/hour for a crew, though plan on multiple weekends of washing, scraping, taping, and rolling. The honest stop signs: two-plus stories (falls from ladders are the injury that fills ERs every summer), failing paint on a pre-1978 home (lead rules), and stucco (spray equipment and technique matter).
❓Common questions▼
How much does it cost to paint a 2,000 square foot house exterior?
About $2,600 to $8,500, labor and materials included. A 2,000 sq ft home has roughly 1,700 sq ft of paintable exterior wall (windows and doors subtracted), priced at the market band of $1.50–$5.00 per square foot. Where you land depends on siding type, how much prep the surface needs, paint quality, and your local labor rates.
How much does exterior painting cost per square foot?
Professional exterior painting runs $1.50 to $5.00 per square foot of paintable wall, including labor and materials. By siding: vinyl $1.50–$4.50 (the cheapest), wood $1.50–$5.00, aluminum $2.00–$4.50, stucco $2.00–$5.00, and brick $2.50–$5.00. Note that these rates apply to wall area, not your home's floor square footage — walls come out to roughly 80% of floor area.
How many gallons of paint does a house exterior take?
Standard exterior paint covers 350–400 square feet per gallon, and a proper job is two coats. A typical 2,000 sq ft home (about 1,700 sq ft of wall) uses 9–10 gallons of wall paint; a large 4,000 sq ft home closer to 17–20. Add primer where needed — it covers slightly less per gallon — and rough surfaces like stucco consume noticeably more.
How often should a house exterior be repainted?
By siding: wood every 3–7 years, stucco every 5–7, aluminum every 5–10, vinyl anywhere from 2–10, and brick can go 3–20 years depending on exposure and paint quality. Climate moves these numbers — harsh sun, coastal salt, and freeze-thaw cycles all shorten the cycle. The practical signal beats the calendar: repaint when you see fading, chalking, or the first hairline cracking, before peeling starts and prep costs jump.
What if my house was built before 1978 — is painting it dangerous?
Painting over intact old paint is routine and safe — encapsulation is a recognized approach. The rules kick in when old paint is disturbed: any contractor scraping or sanding a pre-1978 home must be certified under the EPA's lead-safe (RRP) rule and use containment practices. Full lead paint removal, when actually required, is the expensive path at $6–$17 per square foot. Ask every bidder how they'll handle it; a confident, specific answer is a good hiring filter.
When is the best time of year to paint a house exterior?
Dry, mild weather — late spring through early fall in most regions, with temperatures roughly between 50°F and 85°F and no rain in the forecast for a couple of days. Paint applied in cold, heat, or high humidity cures poorly and fails early. Bonus of shoulder-season scheduling: painters' calendars loosen after the summer rush, and quotes often soften with them.
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