How Much Should a Painter Charge Per Hour in BC?

A painting contractor in BC has to charge well above the wage they pay, because the hourly rate also has to cover the van, ladders and sprayers, WorkSafeBC, unbilled quoting time and the owner's own pay. In our example below (an owner and one painter in the Okanagan, round 2026 numbers), break-even is about $70 per painter hour, or about $77 to $80 with 10% to 15% added on top for profit.

That number is an example, not a market rate. Your own costs will be different, so the rest of this page shows how to build your rate from your own numbers, then check it against the sales your business needs each month.

Why painting rates are easy to get wrong

Painting has a low cost to start, so there is always someone quoting less. That pushes a lot of painters to set their rate by the cheapest quote they have heard, not by their own costs. Prep work is the other trap: filling, sanding, caulking, masking and moving furniture can take as long as the painting, and it is the part that gets squeezed when a quote is tight. Exterior work stops in the rain and the cold, so the spring and summer months have to carry the year.

Step 1: Add up your monthly overhead

For a small painting company, the usual costs are:

• Van or truck: payments, fuel, repairs and ICBC

• Equipment: ladders and planks, an airless sprayer, drop sheets, brushes, rollers and trays, and a fund to repair and replace them

• Fall protection and access: harnesses and ladder gear for exterior and high work. WorkSafeBC requires fall protection where a worker could fall 3 m (10 ft) or more, and sometimes lower.

• Liability insurance and WorkSafeBC coverage. Painting or wallpapering (classification unit 721041) has a 2026 base rate of $2.35 per $100 of assessable payroll, compared with an average of $1.55 across all BC industries. Check your own unit on worksafebc.com.

• A business licence for each municipality you work in (check with each city), and storage for paint, ladders and equipment

• Phone, quoting, office and bookkeeping

Step 2: Count your painter's full cost, not just their wage

A painter at $28 an hour costs you more than $28. Add vacation pay, the employer share of CPP and EI, and WorkSafeBC at the painting rate. In the example below that adds about 15% on top of wages (an estimate). Paid hours spent loading, driving to the paint store and cleaning up are real costs too.

Step 3: Set the pay you actually need, for the whole year

Decide what you need to earn in a year before personal tax. If you're a sole proprietor, your income tax and both halves of CPP come out of that number. If your exterior season is short, the pay you set has to carry you through the quieter winter months.

Step 4: Count your real billable hours

A full-time painter might be paid for about 1,700 hours a year, but bill for less once rain days, setup, store runs and touch-ups are taken out. The owner bills even fewer hours on the tools, because quoting, colour consults, ordering and chasing payments all take time.

Step 5: Work out the rate, then turn it into a job price

Rate = (yearly overhead + your pay + painter cost) ÷ total billable painter hours. Add something on top for profit. Then estimate how many painter hours a job really takes, prep included, multiply by your rate, and add paint and supplies (with the PST you paid on them).

Example: an owner and one painter in the Okanagan

This is an example only, with round 2026 numbers. Your own costs will be different.

• Your pay: $78,000 a year ($6,500 a month)

• One painter at $28 an hour, paid about 1,700 hours ($47,600 in wages): about $54,700 a year once vacation pay, employer CPP and EI and WorkSafeBC are added (an estimate)

• Overhead: van, fuel and repairs $1,500, insurance, licences and WorkSafeBC $500, storage $300, phone, quoting and office $400, ladders, sprayer and other equipment $500. That is $3,200 a month, or $38,400 a year.

• Total to cover: about $171,100 a year

• Billable hours: about 1,450 for the painter and 1,000 for the owner on the tools, or 2,450 painter hours

• Break-even: about $70 per painter hour

• Adding 10% to 15% on top for profit: about $77 to $80 per painter hour

• A three-bedroom interior repaint that takes about 40 painter hours, prep included, costs about $2,790 in labour and overhead at break-even. Add paint and supplies at an example $700 and that job costs you about $3,490 before you make a dollar.

Now look at it from the sales side. Say about 50% of each sale is left after paint, supplies and your painter's wages. Your overhead and your own pay come to $9,700 a month, so this company needs about $19,400 in sales a month to break even, averaged over the whole year. With an average job of $4,000, that's about five jobs a month. A $22,000 month leaves about $1,300 after your pay. If prep runs long on a few jobs and that 50% slips to 45%, the same $22,000 month leaves about $200.

The season makes it tighter. If most of your work comes in 9 months, the same yearly costs mean about $25,900 in sales for each month you're working, not $19,400.

Try it with your own numbers in the calculator below. It is loaded with this example. Change any number to match your company and it shows the monthly sales you need, the number of jobs that takes, and what happens if your margin slips by 5 points.