The Ultimate Guide To Price

Why Are Prices So Unstable In The Paint Industry

I came to Mary’s house after she had already dealt with several painters. Her first painter used the wrong color on her garage shelves so she had to call someone else. The second painter did a good job but when she was ready to paint her exterior she could not get a hold of him anymore. When we met she was straight forward with me and said she had already had some bad experiences with contractors and that she was going to be taking multiple estimates. I told her I was sorry to hear about her bad experience and that we price our quotes competitively and at a rate that ensures the job is done properly.

“I won’t be the highest quote you get and I won’t be the lowest quote you get.” This is something I find myself saying pretty often when talking to customers. Sure enough when I followed up with Mary she had received quotes that were $2000 higher than my estimate and $3000 lower than my estimate. “How is that even possible?” she asked, wondering how complicated could pricing a house possibly be. This is a question I get all of the time and I’m going to finally attempt to answer this question in this blog.

You Are NEVER comparing apples to apples with contractors.

The answer can be summed up in one word: unprofessionalism. Unfortunately the trades are filled with unprofessional painters who are not business minded. This causes a huge fluctuation when homeowners receive estimates with prices that can have $5,000 differences like Mary experienced.

The reason the prices vary so wildly is because the average contractor simply has not taken the time to calculate time materials and overhead.

Why some estimates can be so wildly low:

The answer to this one is pretty simple and you can probably guess. You do not need a license to paint in Texas so sometimes when you're calling a person who calls themself a painter they are somebody who does not know the price of paint and does not know how long the project will take. The price for how much your home costs to paint is a total guess!

They have not thought about the time it takes to caulk all the cracks, the extra time to pressure wash, or the additional materials it will cost to use a color blocking primer if you decide to use a really light color over a dark color like what Mary did. There is the old adage “you get what you pay for” and from my experience homeowners are savvy to the fact that if something is too good to be true it probably is.

Why some estimates can be so wildly high:

From my experience there are 3 reasons why the price can be so much higher than ours. The first one is not much different than why prices can be so low. The contractor simply does not know so he overpriced so that if he does get the job he gives himself a big cushion.

The second possibility is that the contractor is overcharging because he is driving into a nicer neighborhood and thinking more about how the homeowner can afford it than thinking about how much it would actually cost. This is also something that homeowners are savvy to.

The third option is that you received your quote from a corporate company. These companies will probably do okay work, have decent customer service and will at least show up when you book the estimate. However they are overloaded with overhead with huge portions of their prices going towards national and international marketing campaigns and needing to pay big corporate salaries. In other words they can do a good job but you will be overpaying.

As a locally owned, family based company we are proud to serve the Houston, Sugar Land, Missouri City and surrounding area. Our prices are designed to make sure your house is being painted by well paid professionals at a price that ensures the job is done properly and everybody wins. We know how much labor it will take and how much paint will be needed so that we are being transparent and that you can feel confident about the investment you are making to your home.