By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does quoting a repaint as one price cost painters money?
Most painters build a repaint quote around the whole job, three bedrooms repainted for one price, with prep, cutting in and the number of coats folded into that single figure and never separately costed. The problem shows up the moment the job does not run to plan.
When a wall turns out to need extra prep because of old flaking paint or a patch of mould, or a ceiling needs two coats instead of one to cover evenly, that extra labour comes straight off the painter's margin because it was never a line the client agreed to pay for. The quote said one number for the whole job, so the extra hours are absorbed rather than charged. Over a run of repaints this can quietly erode the profit on jobs that looked fine on paper.
What happens when a client adds a feature wall or a colour consultation partway through?
A feature wall, an extra colour consultation, or a request to repaint the hallway as well forces a painter working from a lump sum quote to stop and renegotiate the whole job, which is awkward for the painter and confusing for the client.
On a strata job or a commercial repaint this gets harder again, because a strata manager or a facilities contact wants to know exactly what an addition costs before approving it, not a revised total that bundles the original scope back in. A defect found once prep starts, flaking paint, a crack that needs filling, a section that was never meant to be repainted, puts the painter in the position of either absorbing the extra work or having an uncomfortable conversation to ask for more money on a job the client thought was already priced.
How do you price a repaint so every hour of prep and every coat is covered?
You price a repaint the way a menu prices a dish, each item, prep, cutting in, each coat, scaffold or access, colour consultation, feature wall, priced on its own with labour, materials and your margin built in, instead of quoting the whole job as one number.
Once prep and extra coats are priced items rather than hidden labour, the client can add a feature wall, remove the ceiling from scope, or ask for a colour consultation and the price moves with the scope, without you going back to re-quote the whole job. This is also where AI agents, software that does a job the way you would, with your prices, wording and rules, can take the quote building off your hands: an agent assembles the priced items from your list into a clear quote for the client, worded the way you would word it, while you are on the tools or walking a site. AI agents can also flag when a job's prep is running past what was quoted for that item, so you catch the variation while it is still a conversation, not a loss already absorbed.
How do you know what to charge for each item on your price list?
The number that should sit behind every item on your price list is your true cost for it, paint and primer by the litre, scaffold or access hire, crew time including prep that never gets its own line, plus the margin you need to run the business, not a figure carried over from the last job that felt about right.
Picture a painter who needed a way to price jobs and compare options for people he met at a home show. Rather than quoting each visitor from memory on the day, he built his own pricing and comparison tool from his own item costs and used it at the show to put prices and options straight in front of people as they asked. An agent can sit behind that kind of tool, reading your own job data, what prep actually took on the last run of repaints, what paint and primer actually cost from your supplier, so the price list is built on your business, not a guess carried from one quote to the next. That is data first pricing: starting from what your own jobs actually cost rather than what a competitor charges or what felt fair last time.
How often should a painter review their price list?
You should treat your repaint price list as something that needs regular review, because paint supplier costs move and crew rates move, and a list built last year quietly erodes this year's margin on every job quoted off it without you noticing.
A painter running crews across several sites, residential repaints, a new build for a builder, a commercial or strata job, cannot rely on memory to know whether this quarter's item prices still cover this quarter's true costs. The data in your own quoting and job costing tells you whether your prep hours, your coats, your touch-up time and your exterior weather delays are still priced where they need to be, so you are adjusting the list on evidence rather than waiting until the margin has already gone.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts from the painter's own job and quoting data inside the Trade Business Intelligence, not a generic price list, because the real problem is rarely the headline quote, it is the prep hours, the coats and the colour consultations that never got their own price. Greg Allan built this from running his own trade business, and his view on pricing is simple: “know your overheads, your material costs, and your desired profit margin” before deciding what any item on the list should charge. The how, building that price list and the agents that sit behind it, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who is open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
Looking for a business coach who starts from your numbers? Painter Business Coach or every answer for painters.
