Painting estimating software that scopes the prep.
Painters price by surface and coats, and the bid is won or lost on prep - the patch, sand, caulk, and prime that never shows in a finished photo. billWright takes off walls, ceilings, trim, and doors, prices coats and prep from your own production rates, and carries the cut-in and masking that eat the hours. Approve it and the number becomes a branded quote, an invoice, and a job budget. Built by a working contractor, free through the beta.
Free for the duration of the beta. Your data is yours - export it any time, in a format that opens anywhere.
Prep is where the hours hide.
On a repaint the paint is the small number and the labor is the whole game. The losing bids come from the same three places, every time.
Prep gets lowballed
Patch, sand, caulk, and prime are half to two-thirds of the hours, but they are invisible in the after photo, so they get buried in the wall rate. One missed afternoon of sanding wipes the margin.
Coats do not get counted
The bid assumes two coats; the deep navy accent or the white-over-red change needs three. That is a fifty percent labor add on those surfaces that never made it into the number.
Trim priced like flat wall
Brushwork runs two to three times slower per unit than rolling open wall. Measure wall square footage but eyeball "and the trim" and you are short hours on every detailed job.
Ballpark an interior repaint, right now.
This is a three-room interior repaint - about 1,400 square feet of wall plus ceilings, two coats, full trim and three doors, with real prep. Watch how much of the total is masking, prep, and prime before a drop of finish paint goes on. Adjust the quantities and your own rates; in the app these become reusable assemblies.
billWright vs a spreadsheet, for a painting bid.
Everything that makes a bid fast, right, and worth keeping after you win.
| For a painting bid | billWright | Spreadsheet / generic tool |
|---|---|---|
| Price by surface and coats, not by the room | Built in - price book + calculators | Eyeballed, inconsistent |
| Prep as its own visible line (patch, sand, caulk, prime) | Always there | Buried in the wall rate |
| Count trim by the linear foot, doors as units | Built in | Lumped in and lowballed |
| Your own production rates and loaded labor rate | Built in | Generic per-foot guess |
| Reusable assemblies (room, whole-house, exterior) | Built in | Rebuild every time |
| Approved quote becomes an invoice + job budget | Automatic | Re-enter everywhere |
| Cost the real job against the estimate | Built in job costing | No |
| Price | Free through the beta, honest after | Varies |
Different trade? See remodeling or general contracting estimating, or compare billWright to the tools you know.
The estimate is the start, not the end.
Estimating
Price from your own numbers, send a branded quote, and watch the bid close.
Crew time
The crew punches in from a phone; you approve a whole week in one pass.
Invoicing
Bill from the approved estimate in one click, record payments, chase overdue.
Books
Expenses, income, and tax already coded - so you know the job made money.
Painting estimating, answered.
What is the best estimating software for painters and painting contractors?
The right pick is the one whose calculator thinks in surfaces, coats, and prep the way you already do, lets you set your own production rates and loaded labor rate, and that you will actually open on the truck. Painting-specific estimators shine at room-by-room takeoff; all-in-one field tools cover scheduling and CRM but estimate more generically. billWright prices from your own numbers and is free through its closed beta.
How is painting estimating software different from a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet does not know that prep is sixty percent of your hours or that a dark accent wall needs a third coat - it does whatever you remembered to type. Good software encodes your production rates and prompts for the lines you forget under pressure - caulk, prime, masking - so the same surfaces get priced the same way every time. That consistency is what protects your margin.
Will it use my numbers or some generic average?
The good ones let you set your own loaded labor rate, your crew's production rates, your paint costs, and your markup. Generic averages are a starting point, not a quote. Be wary of any tool that hard-codes a dollar per square foot with no way to tune it to your market and your crew, because your costs are not the national average.
Can I quote on-site from my phone?
Yes, mobile on-site quoting is the main reason painters adopt these tools, since the goal is handing the homeowner a number before you leave the driveway. billWright runs in the browser on a phone, and an approved quote becomes the invoice and a job budget with nothing re-keyed.
Scope the prep, hold your margin.
Built by a working contractor, answering to the people who use it - not a board chasing a quarterly number. Your data stays yours.
Prefer email? hello@billwright.app