ChatGPTTL;DR
- Painting estimating is a production-rate problem. The software multiplies square feet by your crew's speed and your hourly rate; if you do not know that a painter rolls 85 square feet of wall an hour, no app at any price fixes the bid. Every price here is the vendor's own page on November 2, 2026.
- Painter-specific tools: PaintScout Sales at $99 a month billed annually ($119 monthly) with production rates built in, DripJobs at $97 or $147 plus a $99 a month Production Rates add-on, Estimate Rocket at $139 to $359 with three to 15 users, and The Paint Estimator at $129 one time for Windows.
- General quoting apps painters already use: Jobber from $29, Housecall Pro from $59, Markate at $49.95 plus $5 an employee, Joist from $12. Workiz has stopped printing prices.
- The rate books cost less than a month of software: PCA Cost and Estimating Guide Vol. II is $161 ($100 for members, $80.50 digital) and Craftsman's 2026 National Painting Cost Estimator is $118 in print or $59 as a PDF.
- Plan-set takeoff (PlanSwift $2,000 to $3,000 a year, STACK $299 a month, Togal $299 a month) is for commercial repaint bids off drawings. One Reddit painter called it "super crazy overkill" for anything under an apartment building, and his peers agreed.
- Skip the AI pitch. No painter-specific tool we read measures a room from a photo; the only AI on these pricing pages writes follow-up texts, and DripJobs' own page says to review them before sending.
Angi's October 14, 2026 cost guide puts the average interior repaint at $2,022 across 65,117 reported projects, with most homeowners paying $965 to $3,089, and the estimate that lands that job is arithmetic: walls times a rate, ceiling times a rate, trim times a rate, doors and windows by the piece, all multiplied by an hourly figure that covers the painter, the overhead and the margin. PaintScout's own help center calls it "time-based estimation" and runs the numbers on a 12 by 15 foot bedroom: 13.5 hours at $67 an hour plus $155.71 in paint, $1,060.21 total. The software's job is to hold your rates, do the multiplication on a phone in the customer's hallway, and turn the result into a proposal the customer can sign. This post prices the tools that do that, the general field apps painters use instead, the rate books that supply the numbers the software needs, and the plan-set takeoff programs for commercial bids. Every figure is the vendor's page on November 2, 2026. If the estimate count is the problem rather than the estimate, start with the painting leads post and our free website audit.
Painting estimating is a rate problem, not a measurement problem
Roofers measure from satellites and electricians count symbols on drawings, but a residential painter measures a room with a laser in two minutes and the hard part starts after. The bid depends on production rates: square feet of wall per hour, linear feet of baseboard per hour, hours per door. PaintScout's help center example is the clearest published version of the math, and it is worth reproducing because it is what every tool in this post does under the hood.
Where do the rates come from? Your own jobs, and nowhere else. The Paint Estimator's developer, a 30-year painting contractor named Patrick Miller, refuses to ship a rate list on purpose: "everybody has different rates and I don't even want to guess what yours are," and the question to ask is "how long does it take you to roll 100 sq-ft of textured walls instead of how much do you charge for 100 sq-ft of textured walls." His program ships a Rate Recorder for timing the next 200 feet of fascia you prime. Estimate Rocket's blog describes the same method with a stopwatch: three rooms came out at 140, 152 and 168 square feet an hour, so the shop's rate is 153. And the most recent Reddit comment we found on the subject, from October 30, 2026 in r/paint, says it in one line: "write down your actual hours on every job and check them against the bid. after 5 or 6 jobs you'll know your real numbers and estimates get way easier." PaintScout ships "default rates already built in" so you can quote on day one, and its guide says to replace them with yours as the hours come in. Treat every default as a placeholder.
The hourly rate is the other half. PaintScout's guide works it from a $27 an hour painter: if labor should be 40 percent of what you charge, the billing rate is $67.50, and 16 hours on a bedroom is $1,080. Your overhead decides your percentage. The painting estimate template is the free spreadsheet version of all of this, and a one-truck shop can run on it for a year before any subscription below earns its keep.
Painter-specific estimating tools, priced
These five are built around production rates and proposals. Ratings are Trustpilot and Software Advice on the same day; Capterra, GetApp and G2 block our reads, and neither PaintScout nor Estimate Rocket has a Software Advice listing at all.
| Tool | Price as printed | What you get for a painter | Trial, term, ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| PaintScout | Sales $99 a month billed annually or $119 monthly for one user; Operations add-on $79 or $99; team seats $20 a user a month; Success Packages $999, $1,499 or $1,999 one time | Production-rate estimating with default rates, interactive proposals, optional upgrades, change orders, eSignature, Wisetack financing, QuickBooks; Operations adds scheduling and pipelines | 14-day trial, no card; free onboarding; no contract term printed; Trustpilot 3.7 across 9 reviews |
| DripJobs | Pro $97 a month, Advanced $147, Growth custom at 5+ users; Production Rates add-on $99 a month; Job Costing $49; Chat $25; Jobi AI "Contact for pricing" | Proposals, good-better-best packages on Advanced, 40 prewritten drip messages, financing, customer portal; the painting production-rate engine is the add-on, not the base plan | No free trial; month to month, no contract; Software Advice 4.0 across 2, Trustpilot 3.7 across 1 |
| Estimate Rocket | Launch $139 a month for 3 full users, Accelerate $259 for 7, Expand $359 for 15; extra full users $79, $39 or $19; field users $10 | Every plan has the full platform; production rates, proposals, QuickBooks Online, Zapier, CompanyCam; 45-minute live training included; "Done for You" setup $995 on offer from $1,595 | 30-day trial and a 90-day money-back guarantee; no Software Advice listing, zero Trustpilot reviews |
| The Paint Estimator | $129 one time, two licenses, "no monthly or yearly subscriptions" | Windows 10 desktop program with five estimating methods (by item, by day, time and materials, historical production rates, kitchen cabinets), a Rate Recorder, and Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams product lines preloaded; version 2.0.0.9 released January 2, 2026 | 5-day full-feature trial; no ratings on either site; one developer, 15 years old |
| PaintPro (iOS) | $14.99 a month or $119 a year after a free download | Room calculator, pricing presets, PDF exports; "set your hourly rate, crew size, and markup" | App Store only, too few ratings to show a score; no company website |
| Estimating Edge, The EDGE | No price printed; "Schedule a Demo"; no pricing page in the sitemap | Commercial takeoff and estimating with paint quantity by manufacturer coverage, Smart Labor factors for wall height and prep, and supplier quote requests | Demo only; owned by Foundation Software |
| Verdict | PaintScout Sales at $99 for a one-estimator residential shop that wants rates and a proposal in one tool. Estimate Rocket Launch at $139 once three people quote. DripJobs only if the drip follow-up is the point, because the rates cost $99 more. The Paint Estimator at $129 for a Windows user who would rather own than rent. | ||
The DripJobs pricing deserves a second look, because the headline "Plans starting at $97/mo" in its page title does not include painting rates. The add-on list reads "Production Rates $99/mo. Industry-specific production rate estimating for painting, pressure washing, and other trades," so a painter on Pro pays $196 a month for the thing this post is about, which is double PaintScout's annual rate. DripJobs' strength is the 40 prewritten drip messages and the good-better-best packaging on Advanced; the r/paint commenter who recommended it in February 2025 remembered it as "150$ a month i believe, but well worth it," which is close to Advanced before the add-on.
PaintScout's page says nothing about contract length, and its Success Packages are the number to budget for: $999 buys production-rate setup, product import and two hour-long training sessions, and the $1,999 tier adds three presentation build-outs and custom follow-ups. A shop switching from a spreadsheet with no written rates will want the $999 one. Estimate Rocket folds a 45-minute training session into every plan and refunds every payment in the first 90 days, which is the friendliest term in the table.
Quoting faster only helps if the phone rings
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General quoting apps painters use instead
Most painters we work with are not on a painter-specific tool. They quote from a field service app that also schedules the crew and invoices the job, and they keep the production rates in their head or in a spreadsheet. Prices below are the annual-billing figure first where the vendor prints both.
| Tool | Price as printed | Quoting features | Trial and ratings, Nov 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber | Core $29, Connect $99, Grow $149 a month for one user billed annually ($49, $139, $199 with no commitment); Grow for 5 users $229; $29 per added user | Quotes on Core, automated quote follow-up on Connect, optional line items and job costing on Grow; no production-rate engine | Free trial, length not printed; Software Advice 4.6 across 1,489; Trustpilot 4.2 across 234. See the Jobber pricing guide |
| Housecall Pro | Basic $59, Essentials $149 for 5 users, Max $299 for 8 users a month billed annually ($79, $189, $329 monthly); $35 per extra user on Max | Price book on every plan, flat-rate pricing on Essentials, good-better-best proposal tool on Max; no painter page on the site | 14-day trial, no card; Software Advice 4.7 across 2,749; Trustpilot 2.9 across 700. See the Housecall Pro pricing guide |
| Workiz | No price printed as of November 2; Standard, Pro and Ultimate all read "Request pricing" | Unlimited estimates on every plan; sales proposals and flat rate on Ultimate only | 7-day trial; Software Advice 4.4 across 218; Trustpilot 2.0 across 127 |
| Markate | $49.95 a month or $45.95 billed yearly ($551.40), plus $5 a month per employee; most add-ons $10 a month each | Estimates, proposals as a $10 add-on, client portal as another; built for the owner-operator | 14-day trial, no card, no contract |
| Kickserv | Start $60 for 5 users, Run $119 for 10, Scale $199 for 20 a month; 20 percent off on annual | Estimates and invoicing; QuickBooks Desktop sync $50 a month on Run | 30-day trial on every plan; Software Advice 4.4 across 387 |
| Joist | Basics $12, Pro $17, Elite $32 a month, annual plans two months free; new Run plan $100, or $70 on an introductory annual rate | Estimates to invoices, line items and photos on Pro, change orders on Elite; up to 5 documents a month on Basics | 14-day trial, no card; the free plan "is no longer available" |
| Contractor+ | Freedom free forever with 5 estimates a month; Pro Team $58 a month for 2 users, $20 per extra; Max $500 with unlimited users | Estimates, job costing on Pro Team, "Estimatic AI" on Max with no description | 14-day trials of premium features; "all sales are final" |
| Verdict | Jobber Core at $29 or Joist Pro at $17 for the solo painter who prices from a spreadsheet and needs a signed proposal. Housecall Pro Essentials at $149 once a crew needs dispatch. Add PaintScout only when the rates themselves are the bottleneck. | ||
Workiz is the change in this table. On November 1 its pricing page still printed figures; on November 2 every plan card reads "Request pricing" and there is not a dollar sign on the page. The Workiz reviews post covers what its Trustpilot one-stars say about contracts, and a painter who cannot see the price before the sales call should read it first.
The rate books, which cost less than a month of software
If the software needs your production rates and you do not have five jobs of timed data yet, two published references exist, and both are cheaper than any subscription above.
| Reference | Price as printed | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| PCA Cost and Estimating Guide, Vol. II: Rates and Tables | $161, $100 for PCA members; digital edition $80.50, marked down from $100 | "Labor production rates for all work processes likely to be performed including surface protection, surface preparation, painting, gypsum board finishing, wall covering, caulking and decorative painting" |
| PCA Cost and Estimating Guide, Vol. I: Practices and Procedures | $161, $100 for members | How to calculate labor, materials and job costs and allocate overhead, with working drawings for residential, commercial and industrial estimates |
| PCA Industry Standards, P1 to P25 | Free behind a name and email form | The association's written standards for what a "properly painted surface" is; the measurement rule PaintScout cites (count openings under 100 square feet as wall) comes from here |
| Craftsman 2026 National Painting Cost Estimator | $118 paperback, $59 PDF; 444 pages, by Dennis Gleason | "Square feet covered per gallon; square feet covered per manhour; labor, material, overhead, and taxes per 100 square feet" for fast, medium and slow work, brush, spray or roller; National Estimator Cloud $13.99 a month |
| RSMeans Data Online | Core from $408 a year, Complete $1,049, Complete Plus $5,973 | General construction unit costs; no painting-specific book in the 2026 list, so painting lines sit inside the general datasets |
| Verdict | Craftsman's $59 PDF for a residential shop that wants a starting rate for every surface tomorrow; PCA Vol. II at $100 with the membership for a commercial painter who bids prevailing-wage work. Skip RSMeans; it is priced for general contractors. | |
Coverage rates come from the can, not the book. Benjamin Moore's Regal Select product pages print 400 to 450 square feet a gallon and "1 or 2" coats; Sherwin-Williams' product pages print no coverage figure at all in the text we could read, so take the number off the data sheet for the specific product. PaintScout's coverage example uses 400 square feet a gallon for walls and ceilings and 650 linear feet for baseboards, and Estimate Rocket's uses 350; the gap between those two assumptions on a 700 square foot job is half a gallon, which is why the labor rate, not the paint, is where estimates go wrong.
national average cost per square foot for walls alone versus walls, trim and ceilings on an interior repaint, across 65,117 projects reported by Angi pros (Angi, updated October 14, 2026)
Plan-set takeoff for commercial repaints
A commercial repaint bid off a 400-page drawing set is a different job, and the r/paint contractor who asked about it in 2023 explained why he was shopping: "we currently use a service to do this for us but for large projects that have multiple pages of drawings it can cost as much as $1000 or more per project." The tools below measure wall and ceiling area off the PDF so your estimator applies the rates to a number instead of tracing. The full comparison with every AI claim traced is in the AI estimating software post; this is the painting cut.
| Tool | Price as printed | Painting specifics | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| PlanSwift | Essential $2,000, Core $3,000 a year per seat | Painting Starter Pack with prebuilt assemblies that tie each surface to paint, prep, coats and production rates; Core adds Auto Takeoff, which the page calls an "80% head start" and "not a finished paint estimate" | 14 days of Core, no card |
| STACK Takeoff & Estimate | Premium $299, Pro $349 a user a month billed annually; free tier | Painting assemblies that add crew labor as you measure; Nationwide Paint Co. went from 3 bids a week to 15 on it, per STACK's page | Free version; 12-month terms on paid |
| Togal AI | Growth $299 a user a month billed yearly; Business custom at 4+ users | Painting is "the trade it fits fastest" per its own page: auto-detects wall, ceiling and baseboard area; "Togal produces the surface area, your estimator applies production rates and cost." NC Painting went from 19 to 60 bids a month; PHP Commercial Painting's estimator does "small projects in just 30 minutes to an hour" | No trial; demo. Full review in our Togal AI review |
| Kreo | Essential $100, Pro $175, Business $250 a user a month billed annually | AI room and wall takeoff on Pro, cost estimates in the same tool | 7-day trial |
| Bluebeam | Basics $260, Core $330, Complete $440, Max $590 a user a year | The markup tool most GCs send drawings in; area and length measurement with Excel export; one r/paint commenter runs tier-one bids on it | 14 days of Max |
| Verdict | Bluebeam Basics at $260 a year for the painter who bids a few commercial sets a quarter. STACK or Togal at $299 a month only once a dedicated estimator bids weekly. The r/paint verdict stands for everyone else: "unless you're bidding something like an entire apartment building ... using takeoff software to pull material numbers for paint is super crazy overkill." | ||
The r/estimators thread on painting takeoff is the longest conversation we found between painters who do this for a living. A Division 9 contractor who used PlanSwift for five years "purchased StackCT 6 months back and HIGHLY recommend it. High cost for sure." Another painting contractor runs Tally Systems on-screen takeoff because "it takes off LF, SF, and counts and drops them right where we need them in excel for our own system to calculate based on rates," which is the production-rate workflow again with a drawing in front of it. And one commenter, in August 2023: "We print the drawings and measure with architects tape." That is still a valid method at a few sets a year.
Where AI actually shows up, and where it does not
We searched every pricing and feature page in this post for the word. PaintScout's does not contain it. Estimate Rocket's does not. Estimating Edge calls its labor factors "Smart Labor" and never says AI. The Paint Estimator promises OpenAI-written scope descriptions "coming soon" in version 2.0.1.0, and they "require your own OpenAI account and secret API key." DripJobs' Jobi AI reads the deal notes and "writes the perfect follow-up or project update for you," with the disclaimer "AI can make mistakes. Review the suggested communications before sending to customers," and it is priced on request. Joist lists "built-in AI tools" on its $12 plan with no description, and Contractor+ lists "Estimatic AI" on its $500 plan with none either. No painter-specific tool we read claims to measure a room from a photo or produce a painting estimate from a plan.
The AI that measures lives in the takeoff tools, and it measures area, not production. PlanSwift's painting page is explicit: its Auto Takeoff finds "walls, areas, lengths and counts across a page automatically," and "these features use Artificial Intelligence to provide results. It is your responsibility to verify results to ensure accuracy." Togal's painting page says the same from the other direction: "You stay the captain of the ship: Togal produces the surface area, your estimator applies production rates and cost." Both are honest, and both leave the rate problem exactly where it was. The one trade where AI replaces the measurement step outright is roofing, where satellite tools like RoofMammoth (ours, $48 to $90 a month) return the squares from an address, and the roofing estimating post covers that. A painter's equivalent does not exist, because the square footage was never the hard part. Use Claude or ChatGPT for the proposal letter and the scope description, the way the AI-first contractor post lays out, and keep the rates in a tool that lets you edit them.
Three to skip
Skip the production-rate add-on before you have rates. DripJobs' $99 a month and PaintScout's $999 setup package both assume you can tell the onboarding rep how many square feet your crew rolls an hour. If the answer is "it depends," spend a month with the stopwatch and the free template first, then buy the tool and give it real numbers.
Skip plan-set takeoff for residential work. Togal, STACK and PlanSwift Core together cost more than a painter's truck payment, and they solve the measurement step that a laser handles in two minutes on a residential job. Bluebeam Basics at $260 a year covers the occasional commercial set.
Skip any tool that will not print a price. Workiz stopped printing its plans on its pricing page, Estimating Edge has no pricing page in its sitemap, and Jobi AI is "Contact for pricing." Every tool in the tables above with a printed price also prints a trial or a refund window, and the ones that hide the number are the ones whose Trustpilot pages are full of contract complaints. The painting contract template is for the customer side; read the vendor's terms with the same care.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best painting estimating software?
For a residential painting company with one estimator, PaintScout Sales at $99 a month billed annually, because production-rate estimating, default rates and the interactive proposal are in the base plan. For a shop with three or more people quoting, Estimate Rocket Launch at $139 a month for three full users with a 90-day refund. For a Windows user who wants to own the software, The Paint Estimator at $129 one time. Prices are the vendor pages on November 2, 2026.
How much does painting estimating software cost?
Painter-specific tools run $97 to $359 a month: PaintScout $99 to $119 for one user, DripJobs $97 or $147 plus $99 for the production-rate add-on, Estimate Rocket $139 to $359 for three to 15 users. General quoting apps start lower, Joist at $12, Jobber at $29 and Housecall Pro at $59 a month billed annually. Plan-set takeoff for commercial bids runs $260 a year for Bluebeam Basics to $3,000 a year for PlanSwift Core, or $299 a user a month for STACK and Togal.
What is a production rate in painting?
The average time your crew takes to finish a unit of work, expressed as square feet of wall an hour, linear feet of trim an hour, or hours per door or window. PaintScout's worked example uses 85 square feet an hour for walls, 60 for ceilings, 25 linear feet an hour for baseboards, half an hour per window frame and 1.5 hours per door. Your real rates come from timing your own jobs; Estimate Rocket's method is to time three rooms and average them.
Is there free painting estimating software?
Contractor+ has a free-forever plan with five estimates a month, STACK's takeoff tool has a permanent free tier, and PaintScout, Jobber, Housecall Pro, Markate and Joist all offer 14-day trials with no card. Joist's free plan is gone. Our painting estimate template is a free spreadsheet that does the production-rate math, and the PCA's 25 industry standards are free behind an email form.
Does PaintScout have AI?
Not on its pricing, home or feature pages as of November 2, 2026; the word does not appear. Its estimating engine is production rates and coverage rates, with default rates included and a $999 to $1,999 setup package to load yours. The AI on painter tools today writes follow-up messages (DripJobs' Jobi AI) or scope text (The Paint Estimator's coming OpenAI feature, which needs your own API key).
Can AI estimate a paint job from a photo?
No painter-specific tool we read claims to. The AI takeoff tools (PlanSwift, Togal, Kreo, STACK) measure wall and ceiling area off a PDF plan set, and both PlanSwift and Togal say the estimator still applies the production rates and verifies the result. Claude and ChatGPT can draft the proposal and check your arithmetic; their own documentation says their counts and measurements from images are approximate.