Most people want the outsides of their homes and offices to look nice. Chipped, peeling, or faded paint goes a long way to lowering any building’s curb appeal.
But for most homeowners, exterior painting is too time-consuming and detailed to take on as a DIY project. And business owners are too busy running their own shows to worry about painting the office.
Painting, in general, is more work than most people are willing to do. So most of them outsource it to get quality, long-term results without less hassle.
That’s where you come in.
Running a painting business can bring big profits your way.
Exterior painting costs between $2,100-$4,500 for the typical American home. And, at $2-$6 per square foot for commercial jobs, you’re looking at about $3,000 for every 1,500 square feet you paint.
And exterior painting is just one way that someone with painting skills can provide a valuable service. Tack on interior painting and outdoor projects to make even more cash.
It doesn’t take a hell of a lot to start a painting business. But building up to scale and hitting a comfortable cashflow takes effort.
That’s why we recommend buying an established painting business instead of starting one.
For starters, when you buy someone else’s painting company, you’ll get their crew.
Bigger crew, more jobs done in a day, more cash for the business. But that’s not the only benefit.
You’ll also score the equipment you need to take on high-paying jobs, the systems to complete them, and a business that already has name recognition and a customer base.
And buying businesses isn’t out of reach for an entrepreneur.
Buying options like seller financing make good deals a reality. You can find businesses like these on open marketplaces like BizBuySell or Loopnet. You can also use off-market tools like BizScout (a site we built to help entrepreneurs find their next business) or old-fashioned networking.
But if you’re convinced that starting a painting service is for you, follow the steps below. Along the way, we’ll show you the advantages of buying one instead.
1. Identify Your Market and Find Your Ideal Customers
The first thing to decide on is your main market or customer type.
Painting businesses break down into 2 primary specialties:
- Residential painting
- Commercial painting
Some businesses are able to handle both types of jobs as they get bigger. Residential contracts are easier to chase if you’re starting a new business. But custom commercial jobs or gigs with lots of exterior to cover bring in the most cash.
Once you’ve decided on the types of jobs you can take, get a baseline by doing some market research. Find out:
- How much do painters charge in your area?
- How many of them can you find?
Do some stealth research by using your own home as a starting point. Call up painters in your area for a quote.
But don’t stop at noting down their prices.
Listen for the details. What do they do well and not so well?
- What’s the experience of getting in touch with them like?
- Was it easy to get them on the phone?
- How far out are they booked?
- What services do they offer?
Finding these answers will tell you a lot about the competition and the market demand. There’s a hole in the market waiting for you to fill if they offer a bad customer experience. And if they’re all booked out until the end of time, you can bet that there’s demand in the market.
Speak with local commercial building owners or realtors, too. Ask them how much their last interior or exterior job totaled. This will help you gauge your own pricing.
The more research you do, the better picture you’ll have of what you want to offer in your own painting business.
And there are plenty of wide-open niches in the painting industry. Residential and commercial exteriors may be the bread and butter of most painting companies. But you don’t have to limit yourself to those options.
If you think about it, all kinds of things require painting.
For example, check out how Jacob Allen makes thousands a month providing paint striping:
Pro tip: If you’re dead set on an ultra-low-budget painting business. You can find the cash for your new business by pre-selling your first few jobs. Use the deposits from the presale to purchase your equipment. Here’s Codie Sanchez breaking down this tactic for service-based businesses
There’s just one thing.
You don’t have to go through all of the in-depth market research if you buy a painting business that’s already making money.
You’ll still want to dive into the business’s services, competition, and market demand. But a business that has a steady cashflow and a track record of profitability is less of a gamble than starting a new one in an uncertain market.
You can slot right in and start looking for ways to upgrade the business into a better fit for customers.
2. Create Your Business Plan and Get Your Business Registered
A detailed business plan outlines your market, the steps you’ll take to reach them, and the funds needed to launch and operate.
It’s also your chance to launch with confidence since your market research should reveal that there’s a demand or niche opportunity to succeed in your area with a painting business.
Include the following in your painting business plan:
- An overview of the market and opportunity
- A name for your company
- Your business structure, such as a sole proprietorship, limited liability company, or corporation
- A list of the permits and licenses you need to launch
- A solid estimate of startup costs and ongoing expenses
- A marketing plan
You’re also going to need to research and buy general liability insurance. If you plan to hire employees, workers’ comp coverage is a must, too. Include those costs in your business plan.
Buying a painting service has the advantage here. An ideal business for sale already has a business plan and all the other licenses, insurance, and coverage you need. Anything they don’t have will turn up as a red flag when you do your due diligence.
Instead of building a brand new business plan, you’ll end up looking for ways to improve the old one.
Maybe the business isn’t great at marketing itself. Or they’ve overlooked opportunities in the market. Or they need a better operations plan. All of those things are clear signs of what you can (and should) optimize.
3. Get Your Supplies
Supplies make up the biggest bulk of expenses for a new painting business. Plenty of painting supplies only get used once, so try to buy in bulk for better pricing.
If you took the no-budget approach and pre-sold your first few painting jobs, you should have plenty of cash to buy initial supplies.
The basic supplies for an interior or exterior house painting business include:
- Rollers
- Brushes of various sizes
- Sandpaper
- Paint trays
- Painting tape
- Scrapers
- Ladder
- Caulking gun
- Drop cloths
If you decide you need something more advanced, like a paint sprayer, you can rent these from your local hardware supply store for one-time jobs. You’ll need one of your own eventually, but renting’s the only option for starters on a low budget.
You’ll also need to get a work truck or van if you don’t already have one. A higher-ticket item like this might mean you’ll need to apply for a business loan.
If you specialize in something like the parking lot striper above or this road striper, you’ll need more specialized equipment.
Aside from supplies, factor in whether you’ll bring on staff when you start since their pay will influence your profit margins.
Average hourly rates vary based on experience, but expect to pay at least $18-$25. You can charge closer to $66 per hour for your services, so that leaves plenty of room for profit.
As you grow, invest in more or better equipment and in hiring your team.
For a new paint business, you can pull startup funds from personal savings, credit cards, or business loans. With such low costs, very few people need business loans to launch unless they enter the commercial space.
Most people think that financing is what will stop them from buying an existing painting business.
But buying a business opens up an additional purchasing option. You can use seller financing to negotiate a good deal with the owner. You buy the business for a small down payment, then pay them back over time through the business’s profits.
4. Set Your Pricing and Have a Plan for Job Estimations
Most painters separate paint estimates from labor costs when they quote a new job. That’s because paint costs can vary and may also depend on whether your customer wants a specific brand or mixture.
Paints can cost anywhere from $25-$125 per gallon.
Labor costs don’t vary as much. It slides based on the hourly rate or square footage rate that you set. But you can upcharge if your customer wants something custom work or has hard-to-reach areas that need painting.
The actual labor costs you can charge for painting depend on your location and the type of job:
- Commercial painting: $50-$100 per hour or $0.50-$3 per square foot
- Residential painting: $20-$100 per hour or $2-$6 per square foot
Some painters choose to charge less for interior painting than they do for exterior painting jobs. The work takes less setup and goes by faster, so you can get more of them done. What you charge here depends on how your competitors charge for interior work.
Keep your receipts in case a customer wants to see proof of what you bought and used.
Oh, and avoid these rookie mistakes:
- Under-pricing yourself and quoting low just to get the business. You’ll kick yourself when you realize that your actual hourly earnings for this gig are at or under minimum wage.
- Not accounting for your prep work time. Adding painter’s tape or filling holes in walls for a smooth finish are tedious but necessary tasks.
If you feel stumped when you start your new painting company, use software to get a leg up.
Check out PlanSwift and ClearEstimates for examples.
Figuring out what you can charge takes a lot of trial and error. Quote too high, you lose the job. Too low, you’re wasting time.
When you buy a business, you also buy its pricing and estimation tactics. The previous owner already dialed in how they estimate and charge for work. You may raise or lower prices to fit the market after buying, but you won’t need to experiment at the risk of cashflow the way a new business does.
5. Market Your Painting Business
Your business relies on professional branding to make your mark. Both offline and online marketing strategies get the word out there about your painting company.
Use some old-school methods to earn attention from your target market, like:
- Business cards
- Flyers
- Local ads
But don’t stop there. Add some modern methods into the mix to capture online demand. You’ll need to:
- Build a website that’s optimized for popular painting keywords in your area (and make sure you make it easy for people to contact or schedule with you when they get there)
- Claim your Google Business Profile and add contact info and pictures of your work
- Create social media accounts and create eye-catching content that showcases what you can do
- Get reviews on NextDoor, Google Business, and Yelp to earn street cred as a reliable painting contractor.
@pedrojosecano How #Proffesional #Painters #Roll The #Walls With An #18Inch #Roller #Nap! #LetsGo! #PaintersLifeForMe! #Fyp ♬ original sound – TRH • Lancee Lott – TRH . LanceLott Jr.
The first thing that many people will see when they search for your business online will be your Google reviews. Word of mouth and endorsements from regular people are powerful. Good reviews make it much more likely that you’ll win future business from other potential customers.
Always ask for reviews from satisfied customers. Ask for the review on-site, in a thank-you card, or using software like BirdEye.
Partnering with other businesses may also really help you snowball from your first few jobs.
Look into companies with related services that don’t compete with you, such as pressure washing companies or landscapers.
Building up your marketing engine takes a while. Most painters need to pound the pavement for a while before their reviews, site, and brand recognition take off. Buying a business cuts out a lot of that ramp-up time.
An ideal business already has some form of marketing in place.
Potential customers should already be aware of them and have an easy way to find them online. You can tap into a business that already has marketing momentum and look for ways to improve it instead of hustling for those first 5 customers.
6. Build a Crew So You’re Not Doing All the Work
So what happens if your business explodes quickly and you get more than you can handle?
It’s time to hire help, baby!
You must hire people if you want to scale and remove yourself from the day-to-day. Most painters spend all day on-site serving customers, which leaves you little or no time to grow the business.
As soon as you develop good procedures and training, hire others.
You can work with independent contractors or employees, but it’s often more flexible to choose contractors. Pay them a set hourly rate or flat fee for each job rather than promising consistent full-time employment. You can always adapt later as demand increases.
You work hard to earn your reputation, so make sure you keep it. Put in the time to train all staff on customer service and quality standards.
But what’s better than hiring and training people is having a ready-to-go staff from day 1. That’s another advantage of buying a painting service. You’ll start out with a crew and training processes. You’ll get a solid labor foundation that you can build on top of.
7. Scale Your Painting Business
Once you launch, think about ways you can earn more per customer or expand your business into new services and areas.
You might try adding additional services like:
- Wallpapering
- Pressure washing
- Window cleaning
Or you could choose to expand into the next town over with the same services and a bigger crew.
Another secret to scaling: Software.
Invest in tools that make it easier for customers to schedule painting jobs. Look for multipurpose tools that also let you follow up with them and manage your team’s logistics. Some popular options for service-based businesses include:
This is the step that most people will start when they buy a painting business. You’ve got your foundation, so all there is to do is to optimize the business. The next steps for you could be improving the operations, taking the leap with a service expansion, or making smarter marketing choices.
Grab Your Brushes and Collect That Cash
Painting doesn’t require years of training or advanced special skills, but it’s just out of reach for most people’s DIY capabilities. That makes it an awesome business to start but a better one to buy.
Starting one of these businesses can take a while to get traction. But you can do it by following the steps above. You can bypass a lot of the growing pains by buying a business that already has a place in the market.
Before you know it, you’ll be ready to scale with new contractors, offerings, or areas of service.
