Bidding a paint job is easy. Selling one is not, and marketing quotes arrive the way yours do: three numbers for what sounds like the same job, with nothing explaining the gap. The band below is what you hold those numbers against. It is a band, not a quote.
Run the free tool ↓Tap three buttons: what you need, how competitive your market is, and whether the company is an owner with a ladder, a few crews, or more than one branch. The band updates as you tap, and there is no email wall.
Prefer a full page? Open the What Should You Pay? tool here.
Three questions, and each one lands oddly in this trade.
Nothing asks about the season you are aiming at, which matters more in painting than most trades, or about paid search. The generic version covers how the band is assembled.
You do this for a living. A homeowner collects three numbers for the same rooms and has no way to tell what separates them, because most of the distance between them is prep that is invisible the day the job is finished.
Read a proposal the same way. A quote near the band with scope written out is the healthy case, and scope here is countable: how many pages, written by whom, whether cabinet refinishing gets a page or a bullet, and whether the estimate form asks what you would ask standing in the room.
A number far under the band is not a discount, it is a smaller scope nobody described: a template that will never gain a page, or a shared lead feed that puts you in a bidding line you paid to stand in.
Then read the fixed red flag list under the result. The lock-in line bites hardest, because a twelve month contract signed in March takes your whole exterior season with it. To grade the site you already have, run the website report card for painters.
Two invented companies, to show the shape of the output. Neither one is real, and neither number is a bid.
Say a residential repaint company in a mid-size city that runs three crews in summer and one in winter. They tap a new website, mid-size city, growing with multiple staff. The tool shows $5,500 to $14,500 one-time. At the floor of that band you get a fast site with an estimate form that qualifies. The top is once interiors, exteriors, cabinets and decks each have a page and your prep is written down.
Imagine a cabinet refinishing specialist in a major metro, an owner plus a small shop crew. They tap SEO / Local SEO, major metro, solo or small local. The tool shows $2,900 to $6,700 a month. The metro button is doing all of that on its own, honestly enough: a cabinet buyer weighs you against refacing and a kitchen remodel, so the pages you must beat were funded by a different industry.
Neither band promises a result, and neither one knows how many months a year you can paint outside.
The band is worth something only next to a list of what it buys. In painting the valuable work is the least photogenic: the product is prep, and a wall painted well looks like nothing at all.
Timing is part of the budget too. Exterior pages have to be written and indexed months ahead of the season they are meant for, which in practice means paying for them while the crews are working inside. The argument in full sits on the painting marketing page.
Our own published numbers, for comparison. Custom website builds run $3,500 to $12,000+ one-time. Ongoing SEO or local SEO runs $1,500 to $3,500 a month for most businesses, and $3,500 to $7,500 a month in competitive metros or multi-location work. An estimate form that genuinely qualifies a paint job is a custom tool: calculators from $600, most workhorse tools $1,500 to $4,000, Tool Care $75 a month per tool. Month to month, and you own the site, the content, and the accounts.
We publish no fee for Google Ads management. Ad managers bill it flat or as a percentage of ad spend, and a percentage charges you most in July, when your crews are booked anyway. We quote flat after a free consult. See also what a website costs and what SEO costs. Orlando based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008.
Because the tool prices marketing, not paint work, and three broad buttons cannot see a specialty. Cabinets behave like a separate business: that buyer compares you to refacing and a kitchen remodel, not to another painter. If refinishing carries your margin, read toward the top of the band.
Almost always automation, or a shared lead feed dressed as marketing. The red flag list under your result calls that band out for a reason. In painting it stings twice: a shared lead sends one house to several painters, so you bid against the people you were trying to avoid.
Sooner than is comfortable. Search work compounds over months, so the page a homeowner finds in June was written back in January, and building during the slow stretch costs you no booked jobs at all. Paid search is the exception, since it starts the day you switch it on.
No. Three broad answers cannot price a project, and a good one can sit outside the band. A real number needs scope: how many pages, which work types get their own, and what the estimate form has to collect. That conversation is free. Call or text (407) 694-2055.
Yes. Nothing you tap leaves the page, none of it is stored, and no form stands between you and the result. It is one of more than 50 free tools published at kellywm.com/tools, no email wall. A real number takes a short conversation about scope.
What Should You Pay?: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for painting contractors · AI Visibility Checker for Painters · Website Report Card for Painters · Google Business Profile Audit for Painters · Review Response Writer for Painters · All free tools
Send over the marketing proposal you are weighing and I will mark up what it leaves out, the way you would mark up a bid that skipped the prep. Or take the free concept mockup of your homepage first.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.