How to Quote a Painting and Decorating Job That Wins the Work

What a painting and decorating quote needs to include

A decorating quote is a small contract-in-waiting — get the details right and there's nothing to argue about when you're stood on dust sheets on day three. Nine things, every time:

1. 1Your business details — name, logo, contact details, and public liability insurance if you carry it (worth stating; it reassures customers letting you into their home for days at a time).
2. 2The customer's name and the site address — access, parking, and whether it's occupied or empty all affect timing and price.
3. 3A quote number and date — makes the “did you get my quote?” follow-up simple.
4. 4Itemised line items — never one lump sum for “decorating”.
5. 5What's not included — plastering beyond minor filling, wallpaper stripping unless specified, moving heavy furniture, structural repairs found once work starts.
6. 6Number of coats and finish — how many coats of each colour, and whether it's trade emulsion or a premium brand. Colour changes (dark to light especially) often need an extra coat — say so up front.
7. 7Subtotal, VAT (if applicable), and the total — no arithmetic left to the customer.
8. 8A valid-until date — 14 to 30 days is standard; paint and sundries prices move.
9. 9Payment terms and how to accept — deposit for materials on bigger jobs, balance on completion, and one clear next step to confirm.

Most quotes that lose the job on price alone are missing the prep and coats detail — customers assume "repainting" is one uniform task, and when the finish takes longer than expected because a wall needed three coats, that's where the goodwill runs out.

How to price a decorating job before you send a number

The document is the easy half. Pricing is where the job stays profitable — or quietly turns into unpaid overtime.

Break the job into what it actually costs

List every stage separately: protection and prep (dust sheets, masking, furniture moving), making good (filling, sanding, priming bare or patched areas), painting itself by room and surface (walls, ceilings, woodwork), and clean-up and waste disposal. Itemising does two things. First, it forces you to price the parts that are easy to forget, especially prep time on an older property. Second, itemised quotes get accepted more readily — customers trust a breakdown, and if the budget's tight they can ask about trimming a line rather than rejecting the whole quote.

Three things decorators routinely forget to charge for

• Prep and making good. Filling cracks, sanding back old paintwork, and priming patched or bare new plaster (a mist coat isn't optional) can easily be a third of the total job time on an older property. Price it as its own line.
• Extra coats on colour changes. Going from a dark colour to a light one, or covering new plaster, routinely needs three coats where a like-for-like refresh needs two. Ask about the existing colour before quoting.
• Protection, masking, and clean-up. Dust sheets, masking tape and film for sockets and skirting, and clearing paint tins away at the end are real time and material costs on an occupied property.

Add a margin on top of your costs — 15–20% is typical — to cover quotes that don't convert, van and equipment costs, and the quiet weeks between jobs.

A worked example

Here's an interior redecoration — two bedrooms and a hallway, colour change from a dark existing scheme — quoted the right way:

Includes trade-quality emulsion and satinwood in customer's chosen colours. Excludes plastering beyond minor filling and moving heavy furniture. Quote valid for 21 days. 25% deposit for materials, balance on completion. To accept, reply to this email or tap Accept on the quote.

That's the whole thing — itemised, honest about coats and prep, and nothing left for the customer to assume.

Five details that get decorating quotes accepted faster

• Send it within 24 hours. Homeowners comparing decorators are often booking around their own schedule (before a house move, before Christmas) — a fast, professional quote reads as the reliable choice, not just the cheap one.
• Make it look like a document, not a text message. A branded PDF with clear room-by-room pricing does more to justify the price than a number in a WhatsApp message ever will.
• Name the finish, not just the colour. “Two coats trade emulsion, matt finish” is a specific, reassuring line that a vague “all painted” isn't — and it sets the right expectation on premium-brand jobs too.
• Make accepting effortless. A customer weighing up three quotes will pick the one that's easiest to say yes to — one tap or one reply beats print, sign, scan every time.
• Follow up once, professionally. A short “happy to answer any questions on the quote, or talk through colours and finishes” a few days later recovers jobs that simply got buried under other quotes.

The fastest way to do all of this

Building the document above from scratch — line items, prep detail, coats, VAT, a valid-until date — takes 30–45 minutes in a Word template each time. Fine for the odd job; a real cost once you're quoting several jobs a week between decorating.

This is exactly why QuoteRocket exists. You describe the job in plain English — "two bedrooms and hallway, colour change, three coats, woodwork included" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute: line items, prices you can adjust, VAT, valid-until date, the lot. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click. It's free to try, and while it started life quoting landscaping jobs, tradespeople across painting, electrical and plumbing work have been adopting it fast since.

Whatever tool you use to produce it, the principles hold: itemise prep separately from painting, price your coats honestly, be upfront about colour changes, and make saying yes effortless. Get those right and you'll win more of the jobs you quote — without quietly working the prep hours for free.

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