The second coat
is the expensive one.
Paint is priced by the gallon and paid for by the coat. The can is the small number. The person holding the roller is the big one, and they get paid again for every coat the can did not cover in. This page is about what a wall costs per year it looks painted, and it is written for the person paying the painter as much as the person picking the color.
Three costs that never make the shelf tag.
The labor. A gallon of wall paint goes on in an hour or two. Getting the room ready took longer than that, and so will cutting in, rolling, and cleaning up, and that is the part with a wage on it. On a contractor's job the paint is a small share of the invoice. On your own Saturday it is your Saturday. Either way the cost of a paint job is mostly coats, and the gallon price is mostly a distraction from that.
The third coat. Benjamin Moore says two coats on every line. Whether two is enough on your color is decided by the dry film per coat, which is on the data sheet: about 2 mils on Aura interior eggshell, 1.6 to 1.8 on Regal Select, 1.4 to 1.6 on ben. A deep color over a light wall, or a light color over a dark one, is where the thinner film ghosts and the painter goes back for a third pass. The third coat is not a third of a gallon. It is a whole extra round of labor on every wall in the room.
The repaint. Outside, the sun and the rain work on whatever dry film is there: 2.1 to 2.9 mils per coat on Aura low lustre, 2.3 on Regal Select, 1.3 on ben. Benjamin Moore does not print a service life in years, and we will not make one up; what it prints is the warranty term and the film. Every repaint is the whole job again, prep and ladders and labor, at a later year's prices. A paint that buys you a few more years between them is buying you the most expensive part of the job, not the cheapest.
The question is not which gallon is cheaper. It is what each wall costs per year it looks done.
Bring two quotes. We do not put prices on the site.
Get the gallon price on the paint you are being told to buy and on the one you would rather use. Enter the wall square feet and each paint's spread rate off its data sheet (Lesson 2 has the numbers for the three lines at our counter). Add the coats you expect each to need on your color, what a coat of labor costs you, and how many years you expect between repaints. Then how long you will own it.
The calculator figures gallons per coat from the spread rate, rounds up to whole cans, adds the labor per coat, and repeats the whole job every time a repaint cycle lands inside your hold. The result is what each choice costs over the hold and per year it looks painted. It does not know which paints you are comparing. It only knows arithmetic, and it runs in your browser.
What the sheets give you to start from. Interior spread rates: Aura 350 to 400 square feet a gallon, Regal Select and ben 400 to 450. Exterior low lustre: Aura and Regal Select 250 to 350, ben 350 to 475. Coats: two, per Benjamin Moore, with the third decided by the draw-down. Repaint cycle: yours. The exterior warranties are lifetime, lifetime, and 25 years, for blister, peel, and wear-through only, and none of them pays labor. Pick the cycle you would defend to a buyer.
Cost Over Time
Two gallons, one wall, your numbers.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. It runs in your browser.
Before You Price Paint
Know what is in the can.
Three short reads on paint. Written for the builder who has to answer to the money, and for the wall that gets painted twice.
Frequently Asked
Paint cost over time, answered.
Why is labor most of the cost of a paint job?
How many coats does Benjamin Moore say to apply?
How often does exterior paint need to be redone?
Is the more expensive gallon actually cheaper?
Stop By the Desk
Let’s talk it through in person.
Bring your plans or just your questions. We’ll get you squared away.
119 Cumberland St, Ashland City. The coffee’s on.