Interior Painting Cost
Painting a room professionally costs $350–$850, and a whole 2,000 sq ft home interior runs $6,000–$8,000 — or $100–$300 per room DIY. Price your scope and see where painting money actually goes.
Painting prices follow two things: the scope — one room and a whole home are different jobs with different math — and what's included: walls alone sit at the bottom of any range, while ceilings, trim, doors, and baseboards push toward the top. Labor dominates either way, which is why the DIY comparison is worth seeing.
Whole home, or one room?
Whole-home jobs price by your home's square footage. Single rooms price by which room — sizes and wall area vary more than people expect.
How big is your home?
Your home's floor square footage — the listing or tax-record number. Painters translate it to wall area; you don't have to.
Cost to paint the interior of a 2,000 sq ft home
$6,000–$8,000
professionally painted — walls at the low end; add ceilings, trim, doors, and baseboards and you're at the high end
Where painting money actually goes
The paint is the cheap part — labor runs $180–$650 of a room's price, and most of it is everything except rolling: prep and masking take up to two hours a room, ceilings and trim take twice the time walls do, and each window adds a half hour of cutting-in. That's why a quote's real variables are how much prep your walls need and whether trim and ceilings are in scope — nail down both before comparing bids.
The honest DIY math
A room is the most DIY-able job in home improvement: $100–$300 in paint and supplies against $350–$850 professionally, because you're keeping the labor. The trade is your weekend and your cut lines. Where pros earn their bill: whole homes (weeks of your evenings), tall spaces, repairs-heavy walls — and anywhere the ceiling's involved. One leveler: pros pay up to 50% less for the same paint you'll buy retail.
Based on published national pricing: $1–$3 per square foot of painted surface, which lands whole homes at $3–$4 per square foot of floor area and rooms at their table rates. Assumes standard-height walls in paintable condition — vaulted spaces, wallpaper removal, drywall repairs, and dark-to-light color changes run past the top. Kitchen prices cover walls, not cabinet painting. Paint itself runs $15–$55+ per gallon by brand and sheen.
💡About this calculator▼
Paint is the highest-leverage dollar in home improvement — nothing else transforms a space this completely for this little — and it's also the trade where quotes confuse people most, because the same gallon of paint shows up in a $150 kitchen job and an $8,000 whole-home contract. The decoder: painting is a labor product, and the price follows how much cutting-in, prep, and masking your scope demands.
The two ways people actually buy it: by the room, where professional pricing runs from $150–$250 for a kitchen (cabinets own most of the walls) through $350–$850 for a standard bedroom to $600–$2,000 for a living room — or the whole home, which lands reliably at $3–$4 per square foot of floor area: $3,000–$4,000 for a 1,000 sq ft home, $6,000–$8,000 for 2,000, $9,000–$12,000 for 3,000.
Where you sit inside any of those ranges is mostly one question: walls only, or everything? Ceilings, trim, doors, and baseboards each roughly double the fussy labor, which is why walls-only jobs sit at the bottom of the band and the full treatment sits at the top.
And because labor is 70-plus percent of the bill, the DIY comparison deserves daylight: a room costs $100–$300 to paint yourself — two gallons and supplies — against $350–$850 professionally. Pick your scope below and see both numbers.
Pick your scope, and the published pricing does the rest.
Whole home. Interior painting for an entire house tracks floor area with unusual consistency — $3 to $4 per square foot of home, which is the exact rate behind the published size table from 800 sq ft ($2,400–$3,200) to 3,000 ($9,000–$12,000). The low end of the band is a walls-focused job; the high end is walls plus ceilings, trim, doors, and baseboards. Underneath the rate: painted surface area prices at $1–$3 per square foot, and a home's paintable walls run well past its floor area.
Single room. Rooms price by what they are, not just their size, because wall area and fussiness vary: a kitchen runs $150–$250 (cabinets and appliances own the walls), bathrooms $150–$650 depending on size, a standard bedroom $350–$850, a primary bedroom $650–$1,400, and a living room $600–$2,000 — the big walls, tall spaces, and cutting-in around windows and built-ins add up. Labor alone is $180–$650 of any room's price.
The DIY line. On single rooms, the calculator shows the do-it-yourself comparison: $100–$300 for the two gallons of paint and supplies a typical room takes. The gap between that and the professional price *is* the labor — visible, and yours to keep if you want the weekend project.
📐How it's calculated▼
Whole home: floor square footage × $3–$4.
That rate is the published size table's own arithmetic, exact at every row: 800 sq ft → $2,400–$3,200 · 1,000 → $3,000–$4,000 · 1,500 → $4,500–$6,000 · 2,000 → $6,000–$8,000 · 2,500 → $7,500–$10,000 · 3,000 → $9,000–$12,000.
Single room: the published per-room bands. Kitchen $150–$250 · bathroom $150–$400 · primary bathroom $250–$650 · bedroom $350–$850 · primary bedroom $650–$1,400 · living room $600–$2,000. For reference, a 12'×12' room runs $400–$950, with labor alone at $180–$650.
DIY comparison (rooms): $100–$300 — roughly two gallons of paint plus rollers, tape, and drop cloths.
The underlying surface rate — $1–$3 per square foot of painted area — explains both tables: more wall, more trim, more ceiling means more surface, and the room's furniture and fussiness set the labor pace.
🔍Finding your inputs▼
Whole home, or one room? Price what you'll actually buy. Whole-home contracts get better per-room economics (one mobilization, production workflow), so if you're doing more than three rooms, price the whole home and negotiate rooms out rather than adding rooms in.
How big is your home? (Whole-home path.) The floor square footage from your listing or tax record — painters translate it to wall area; you don't have to. If your home has vaulted ceilings or a double-height foyer, expect the top of the range or past it: tall walls are scaffold territory.
Which room? (Single-room path.) Pick the closest match. The logic behind the spread: kitchens are cheap because cabinets, backsplash, and appliances leave little paintable wall; living rooms cost the most because they have the most wall, the tallest spaces, and the most edges to cut around. If your room is borderline — a big bedroom with a sitting area — price it as the next room up.
⚠️Special situations▼
My walls need repairs, or have wallpaper on them
Budget prep as its own line — it's honest work the painting bands don't include. Nail holes and hairline cracks are normal prep, but real drywall repairs, texture matching, and especially wallpaper removal (slow, wet, unpredictable) get billed hourly or by square foot on top. A painter who inspects your walls before quoting is protecting both of you; one who quotes sight-unseen is planning a change order.
I'm going from dark walls to light — or want a bold accent wall
Color changes cost coats: covering deep red or navy with a light neutral often takes primer plus two finish coats, and each wall coat adds a half hour to an hour per room of labor. Accent walls flip the math the other way — one dramatic wall costs a fraction of the room while changing its whole character, which makes it the budget-friendly bold move. Tell bidders the colors up front; it changes the number.
I'm painting to sell or between tenants
This is the one scenario where the bottom of the range is the right buy: a single coat of a neutral over similar colors, walls only, builder-grade paint. Sellers get the fresh-and-clean effect that photographs well; landlords get turnover speed. Spend the savings on the two things buyers and tenants touch: the front-facing rooms and clean trim. Whole-home refreshes at this spec routinely beat the band's floor.
Should the ceilings and trim be done at the same time?
If they need it, yes — same-visit pricing beats a separate mobilization, and fresh walls make tired ceilings and yellowed trim suddenly conspicuous. That's exactly why quotes climb toward the high end when everything's included: trim and ceiling work is slower, brushier labor than rolling walls. The middle path many people miss: ceilings now (they're behind rollers anyway), trim next year.
How much does the paint quality actually matter?
More than the gallon price suggests, less than the marketing does. Better paint covers in fewer coats (a labor saving that can pay for the upgrade), scrubs clean, and holds color — worth it in halls, kids' rooms, and kitchens. Where it matters less: ceilings and low-traffic bedrooms. Note that pros buy the same paint up to half off retail, so on a professional job, upgrading the line costs less than it would on your own cart.
❓Common questions▼
How much does it cost to paint a room?
Professionally, $350–$850 for a typical bedroom — with the room type driving the spread: kitchens run $150–$250 (cabinets own most of the walls), bathrooms $150–$650, primary bedrooms $650–$1,400, and living rooms $600–$2,000. A 12'×12' room averages $400–$950, of which labor is $180–$650. Doing it yourself costs $100–$300 in paint and supplies.
How much does it cost to paint a whole house interior?
About $3–$4 per square foot of floor area: $3,000–$4,000 for a 1,000 sq ft home, $6,000–$8,000 for 2,000 sq ft, and $9,000–$12,000 for 3,000 sq ft. Walls-only jobs land at the low end; adding ceilings, trim, doors, and baseboards pushes to the high end. The typical whole-interior project runs $3,500–$10,000.
Why is painting labor so expensive when paint is cheap?
Because rolling walls is the fast, easy part — the job is everything around it. Prep and masking take up to two hours per room; ceilings and trim take twice the time walls do per coat; every window and door adds cutting-in by hand. Labor runs $180–$650 per room, or 70-plus percent of most bills. It's also why DIY saves so much on paper: you're not buying materials cheaper, you're keeping the labor.
Is it cheaper to paint room by room or the whole house at once?
The whole house, per room — one mobilization, one setup, and a production workflow beat six separate visits. Painters price accordingly, which is why a 2,000 sq ft whole-home job at $6,000–$8,000 works out cheaper per room than buying its rooms individually. Room-by-room makes sense when cash flow demands it or only some rooms need help; otherwise batch it.
How often should interior walls be repainted?
There's no calendar — walls tell you: scuffs that won't wash off, fading around windows, and dated colors are the real signals, typically every 5–10 years in living spaces and faster in halls, kids' rooms, and kitchens. Quality paint stretches the cycle (it scrubs clean instead of scrubbing off). The one preventive repaint worth doing early: bathrooms showing any moisture wear, before the drywall pays for the delay.
What should a painting quote include?
Four things, itemized: scope (walls, ceilings, trim, doors — named, not implied), coats (one vs. two changes everything), prep (patching, sanding, caulking — and any wallpaper removal or repairs as separate lines), and the specific paint line and sheen. Add who moves furniture and whether touch-ups are covered. Two bids with those four answers pinned down are comparable; two bids without them are just two different guesses.
🔗 Related Calculators
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Calculate how many gallons of paint to buy for a room. Enter dimensions or wall area, deduct doors and windows, plan for two coats, and add ceiling and primer.
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.
Baseboard Replacement Cost
Baseboards cost $6–$9 per linear foot installed — but how many feet do you have? Enter your home's square footage and room count and get the footage estimated for you, plus tear-out, install, and painting costs.
Popcorn Ceiling Removal Cost
Removing popcorn ceiling costs $1–$2 per square foot to scrape, or $2–$6 fully retextured and painted — $2,000–$9,000 for a typical home. Price your ceilings, and see why pre-1986 texture gets tested first.