My very first job was painting houses making $15 per hour. I worked HARD for my $15/hour painting houses for 14 hours straight in the middle of summer.
After I finished the house, I got my check for about $800. That’s pretty awesome for 4 days of work as an 18-year old. Then I saw my boss’ check on his car seat when he took me home.
He had made about $2,000 during those 4 days.
My boss didn’t visit the house once during that time. He was there at the beginning and the end, only to collect the deposit and balance checks.
I quickly decided I wanted to be an OWNER of a painting business. Not an employee.
What did he do really? Sell the job? I could do that. Get the paint? I could do that.
Next year I started my own painting business. I went door-to-door asking people: “Hi I noticed some peeling on your house, would you like a free painting estimate”.
This got me about 1-2 leads per hour. If I got 10 leads in an afternoon, usually about half of those turned into an estimate. After doing 5 bids I would sell 2 of them.
I sold one paint job for $2,400 and another for $3,800. Suddenly I had 2 of my very own jobs to produce!
My business officially had $6,200 in revenue!
I painted the jobs myself over 9 days and made $5,100. That means I made almost triple the amount as an OWNER of a painting business, doing almost the same amount of work.
People usually don’t start their own painting company because they don’t know where to start, or HOW to start. Or they think it’s too expensive.
Here’s a checklist of exactly what I needed to start:
- A registered business – I registered mine on Colorado’s Secretary of State website
- A business name
- A website – I created mine on Weebly for free
- Business cards – I got 500 on Vista print
- Liability insurance
- Paint Sprayer
- 2 ladders – 15’ step ladder and a 24’ extension ladder
- Brushes, Rollers, Roller extension, Scraper
- Masker
- Caulking gun
- Pressure Washer
We have a more detailed article on how to do all of this for under $500 here
There were a couple things I had to learn as well:
- How to estimate painting jobs
- How to make a painting proposal
- How to setup an appointment with a customer
- How to actually paint (I learned from my boss and other painters on the job site)
- How to market my painting business
But learning this was priceless.
1 year later, I had my own painting company doing $200,000 a year in revenue. I had 2 reliable crews doing all my production for me. I BECAME my boss. And I made $120,000 that year (I made $30,000 the previous year).
When you work as an employee for a painting company the maximum you can ever make is around $20-$30 per hour. If you’re the boss of your own painting company, you can make exponential gains by hiring the right people.
Summary
It is very easy to start a painting business. Don’t let a lack of knowledge get in the way of tripling your income as a painter.
We sell a complete course on everything you’ll ever need to know on starting a painting business here: PaintingBusinessPro.com
Our entire knowledge base is made up of personal experience and trial and error. If there’s something else you’d like to read about, please comment below.
12 Comments
How about marine / industrial sandblasting painting
Hi TJ, most of our experience is in residential and commercial painting. Sorry we couldn’t provide more info!
I am trying to start my own painting busines, and I love your course. I have not made enough to buy it. But, I would really love to own it.
Hi Jimmie, we love that you love it! Thanks for your feedback!
Hi I’m a female and I love painting , I have been painting for a couple of years, private houses, offices ,homes , even garden fences etc, I am very reliable and committed and honest, I have four children , am a single mummy, and would love the opportunity, to build a business and a future for my famlie 😀
Where are you located?
I’ve been considering doing a startup painting business that primarily hires special needs individuals as well as novices looking to gain a hardy resume and gives them a chance to learn the skills needed. It would be less for personal profit and more to have a good job that gives opportunity to the people who work for me, but I myself am only experienced with painting to a small extent and have never done it commercially or as a career. Would this program you’re selling be something that would help me?
I like the idea of hiring a painting company that has learned from trial and error. That shows to me that they know what they’re doing. They have gone through the hours of correcting a mistake to know not to do it again.
https://www.marano.com.au/commercial-painting
How did you go about hiring you painters? Thats big. No one wants to work
How did you go about finding painters?
great post
After more than a decade outside of the painting business I have started to re-enter the field by doing family and friends interior jobs. As I start to grow and start to get more formal clients should I ask the clients to remove any paintings, pictures, and accessories from their walls or should I rely on my crew to be able to do so in a safe manner?