How to Estimate a Paint Job - Painting Contractors, the Estimate Form

 You can use any number of templates for your estimate. You can design your own with a template or use a spreadsheet like Excel; here are some things that are necessary for your estimate. I like to do my estimates on the PC, by typing, mostly because I have poor hand writing, and because a type written estimate looks more professional.

1) Your company logo, Use a simple easily recognized logo. The logo should be part of your permanent template. The idea of using a logo is that when you use the same logo on estimate, cards, job signs and stationery. The customer sees your logo and before reading your name, they recognize that it is your company. Big companies use logos with huge success. Using a logo also positions your company apart from many other painters, which is good.

2) The next thing should be part of the permanent template also; your address block is very important, because this is where you put all your contact information. Company name, address, phone number, email and website address. This is where your customer will look when they want to contact you to give you the job.

3) The next most prominent feature should be the customer's name and address; this feature is more for you than for the customer. Make sure that you spell everything correctly; this is as much for the customer as it is for legal purposes.

4) The date is important for a lot of reasons if the customer calls you back in the future, you can see how long ago the estimate was and if you should price the new job the same or higher. You know that we have both material and labor price changes almost every year. So a job done five years ago should not be priced the same as a job priced today.

5) The job name is as important as the date present work, for similar reasons, and that is to help you keep organized, especially if you are doing multiple estimates for the same customer. I like to give three different estimates for the same job, good, better and best. These are usually different amounts of coats, or prep, or adding or deleting items.

6) Terms -This is the payment schedule, if you fill this in ahead of time the customer is not likely to try and change this part. The industry standard for residential repaints is 1/3 down, 1/3 when half way done, and 1/3 when complete.

7) You will notice that I haven't even mentioned the actual estimate yet. This comes now. I believe that itemizing all items is best; giving a lump sum bid is likely to get you in trouble. For example, I itemize all items, room by room. So bedroom 1 will have three doors and three windows, 144 square feet of ceiling, 384 square feet wall, 48 lineal feet of baseboard, bedroom 2 etc.

8) Probably the most important part of the estimate is last, this is the customer's signature, without it, you don't have a job, and if you ever need to sue to collect your payment, the signature is all important.

Many of you already do this by there are still a lot of painter who will scribble the estimate on a piece of paper. I don't know if they are aware of how unprofessional this looks, but it seems the really successful painters all project a much professional image when they do more do a formal consistent estimate.