How to Price Decorating Jobs: A Guide for UK Decorators
The short answer
Price a decorating job from the hours each stage takes (protection and prep, coats, snagging), costed at your true hourly rate, plus paint, sundries and travel, then divide by (1 − your margin floor). Use room and m² rates to check the price, never to make it.
- A room rate is not a price. At a £450 bedroom price, our example job must be finished in 7.5 hours to keep a 30% margin.
- Hours × true hourly cost. Not the wage: with NI, pension and holiday, a decorator on £18 costs about £27.40 an hour.
- Prep is its own line. It is where the hours hide, so the client must see it on the quote.
- Commercial is priced by m² and terms. CIS, retention and 30-day payment change the price, not just the rate.
Most decorators price the way they learned on the tools: "about £200 a day" or "£450 for a bedroom", because that is what everyone charges. Then the walls need twice the filling you expected. The client picks a darker colour after the first coat. The job runs into a third day you never charged for.
This guide shows how to price decorating jobs so every quote makes money. It is for owners of UK painting and decorating businesses who want to stop selling their own days. Want your rates checked against a real job? Book a free strategy call.
For setting your margin floor and budgeting the year, see our decorating profit margin guide. This page is about pricing the job in front of you.
Why a room rate or day rate loses money
Homeowner cost guides are a useful market check. MyBuilder's 2026 guide puts a decorator at about £150–£250 a day. It prices a medium room such as a bedroom at about £450 and a large living room at about £1,000, paint included. But "a bedroom" means very different work:
- A clean repaint, same colour: light prep, two coats, empty room
- A dark-to-light colour change: an extra coat, sometimes two
- Cracked walls and old woodwork: hours of filling, sanding and caulking
- A lived-in room: moving furniture, dust sheets, working around the family
- A pre-1960s house: paint that may contain lead, so slower, safer methods
Quote them all at one rate and you win the easy rooms and lose money on the hard ones. A day rate has a second problem: it caps you at your own labour. You cannot grow a team on a rate that only pays one person.
Know your numbers before you price anything
You need two numbers from your own books:
- True hourly cost. Wages plus employer NI, pension, holiday, van, tools, access kit and insurance, divided by the hours you can charge. For a decorator on £18 an hour, our playbook works it out at £27.40.
- Margin floor. Your overheads as a % of turnover plus the net profit you want. With 20% overheads and 10% profit, nothing goes out below a 30% gross margin.
Every price on this page is cost ÷ (1 − margin floor). At 30%, that is cost ÷ 0.7. The margin guide shows how to work out both numbers.
Now your day rate. Eight chargeable hours at £27.40 is £219. At a 30% floor it must sell for about £313 a day, before paint. That is above the £150–£250 the cost guides quote. The market rate pays a sole trader for his own labour. It does not pay for a team, a van and an office.
Price every stage, and prep as its own line
Never price a job from a photo. On the visit, check the surfaces, the colours now and the colours wanted, ceiling heights, access and how old the paint is. Then price the hours stage by stage:
- protection: moving furniture, dust sheets, masking
- preparation: filling, sanding, caulking, stain block, stripping paper
- coats: mist coat, undercoat and top coats on each surface
- snagging and clean-up
On decorating, labour is most of the cost. Preparation is where the hours hide — price it as its own line.
Show "preparation" on the quote with what it includes. When the walls are worse than described, you have a line to point to, not an argument.
Quoting a period door and windows at your normal rate, then finding lead paint on day one. Test suspect surfaces at the survey. Wet methods and clean-up take longer, so price them in.
A worked example: one double bedroom
Double bedroom, lived-in house (example figures). Walls and ceiling, two coats. Skirting, door and frame, undercoat and gloss. Light filling.
| Stage | Hours | Cost £ |
|---|---|---|
| Protection and preparation | 4 | 109.60 |
| Coats: ceiling, walls, woodwork | 9 | 246.60 |
| Snagging and clean-up | 1 | 27.40 |
| Labour at £27.40/h | 14 | 383.60 |
Then add what is not labour:
Direct cost: £493.60. At a 30% floor the price is £493.60 ÷ 0.7 = £705. Add VAT if you are registered. That is about £16.80 per m², inside the £8–£25 range in the cost guide.
Now the check. At the £450 "bedroom price", your cost can be no more than £315 to keep your floor. Take off £110 for paint and travel and you have £205 of labour. That is 7.5 hours. If your team cannot do the room to your standard in a day, £450 is a loss.
UK Painting & Decorating Profitability Playbook
Work out your true hourly cost and margin floor, then job-cost every interior, exterior and commercial job.
Get the free guideDay rate, room rate, m² or fixed price
Use each method where it fits, and build all of them from the same hourly cost:
| Method | Use it for | How to set it |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed price per job | Homeowners, whole rooms, whole houses | Stage hours × cost + paint and travel, ÷ (1 − floor) |
| Room rate | A quick first figure on the phone | Your own past jobs, job-costed, never the cost guide |
| Price per m² | Commercial, new-build, large areas | Your production rate per m² × cost, plus access and prep |
| Day rate | Dayworks, unknown scope, labour for a builder | 8 h × £27.40 = £219, ÷ 0.7 = about £313 minimum |
A room rate is only as good as your records. Job-cost your last ten bedrooms: hours by stage, paint used, price. That gives you a real rate for the phone, and it shows which jobs to stop chasing.
Not sure your hourly cost and margin floor are right?
Book a free strategy call and we will check them with you.
Commercial and exterior jobs
Commercial decorating is priced differently. Here is how to quote commercial decorating without losing the margin in the terms:
- Measure from the drawings. Walls, ceilings, doors and frames by type, in m² or numbers.
- Use your own production rates. How many m² a decorator really does per hour on this surface, from your job-costing.
- Add the extras as lines. Access towers or scaffold, protection, out-of-hours work, snagging after other trades.
- Price the terms. Painting for a contractor falls under CIS. Expect 20% off your labour (30% if not registered) unless you hold gross payment status. The VAT reverse charge may apply, and retention is often held.
Exteriors depend on the weather. Add a realistic allowance for lost days, and keep exterior and interior jobs costed apart. If you are close to £90,000 of taxable turnover in 12 months, you must register for VAT, so price with it in mind.
For a four-minute score of your pricing, cash, sales and systems, take the free Construction Business Scorecard.
Write a quote that protects your margin
A quote is not a number on a WhatsApp message. Put in writing:
- Scope. Rooms, surfaces and coats, and the colours agreed
- Preparation. What it includes, and what happens if the surfaces are worse
- Exclusions. Plaster repairs, moving heavy furniture, damage by other trades
- Payment. Deposit for materials, stages or completion, and the date due
- Changes. Colour changes after the first coat and extra rooms are priced extras
When the client asks for more, use one line every time: "No problem, we can do that. It's outside the original quote. I'll send you a price today, and we'll start once you've approved it in writing." See how to get paid for variations.
Ghennadi, decorator: £2K a month to £13.5K a month profit in 60 days
He started pricing every job properly with a clear scope of works and moved from £34K to £50K projects. Individual results, not typical or guaranteed.
Sviat Jay runs a working construction company, Craftex, and mentors owners one to one himself. Every decorating business is different: one owner is strong on finish, another on sales. Working one to one, he builds on what you are already good at.
He is aiming for results in about 4 months rather than 1–3-year programs. Ready to grow past your own labour? See how to grow a decorating business, or book a free strategy call.
Want your decorating prices built from your own numbers?
Book a free strategy call.
Before you send your next decorating quote
Tax and safety points are general information as of October 2026. Check the details with your accountant and current HSE guidance.
Before you go
- You surveyed the surfaces, colours, access and age of the paint
- Hours are estimated stage by stage, prep as its own line
- Labour is costed at your true hourly cost, not the wage
- Paint and travel are in at cost, and the price is cost ÷ (1 − floor)
- Scope, exclusions, payment and colour-change terms are in writing
