Guide · Painting costs
How much does it cost to paint a house in Wisconsin?
Published 2026 cost data for ZIP 53186 (Waukesha) puts a whole interior at $3.98 to $7.66 per square foot of floor, and exterior siding at $1.94 to $3.83 per square foot of paintable wall, before trim. Here is where those numbers come from, what moves them, and a calculator for a ballpark on your project.
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Short answer
The short answer
Painting is mostly labor, so the price follows the size of the surface and the work it needs before any paint goes on. Homewyse’s cost calculators, run for ZIP 53186 (Waukesha) with their May 2026 data, put a whole interior, meaning walls and ceilings with up to two doors and their trim in each room, at $3.98 to $7.66 per square foot of floor. Exterior siding with basic prep and two coats comes to $1.94 to $3.83 per square foot of paintable surface, with trim and washing extra. Angi’s 2026 national figures agree: $1.50 to $4 per square foot for exterior work, and an average of $4.70 per square foot of home for walls, trim and ceilings.
These are published market ranges, not our prices, and not a quote for your house. The number that counts comes from someone looking at it: how much scraping and repair it needs, how high the work goes, and exactly what is being painted. We give that as a free written estimate. Meanwhile, the calculator below turns published market figures into a ballpark for your project, and the tables after it list the rates per square foot, foot, door and patch, each with its source and date.
Written by Modern Painters LLC. Last reviewed 23 October 2026. Sources are listed at the end.
Published rates at a glance
- Whole interior: $3.98–$7.66 per sq ft of floor
- Walls only: $1.19–$2.00 per sq ft of wall
- Exterior siding: $1.94–$3.83 per sq ft of paintable surface
- Cabinet door: $100–$125 each
- Epoxy garage floor: $7.56–$12.00 per sq ft
- Fence stain: $1.23–$2.49 per sq ft of fence
Calculator
Get a ballpark for your project
Pick what you want painted and answer a few questions about it. The last step asks for your first name and phone number; the range appears as soon as you send them, and we follow up about a free written estimate. Email is optional, and so is texting.
The calculator uses only published figures from the sources cited on this page: the rates in the tables, and the same sources’ totals for set room, home, kitchen and garage sizes (Homewyse run for ZIP 53186, Angi, HomeGuide and homeyou), which the tables leave out. So its answer is a ballpark from market data, not a quote. Where the sources leave a gap it does simple arithmetic: it reads between the published home sizes and, outside them, scales in a straight line, raises the top of the siding range by 50% for each story above the first (Angi: around 50% per story), scales the room primer coat for a color change to a whole interior by floor area, uses the higher of the Waukesha rate and a siding material’s national range, and prices exterior trim by the foot. Sources sets out each step. The tables themselves are open to everyone.
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The tables below list the published rates per square foot, foot, door and patch, each with its source. For the number for your house, request a free written estimate or call (414) 345-8549.
Your ballpark range
A ballpark from published market data, not a quote. Modern Painters gives a free written estimate based on seeing your house.
What’s in this range
This range uses Homewyse’s clean-and-etch scope; we diamond-grind every slab instead, and the free written estimate prices that.
What moves it
Prep and repairs, the number of colors, ceiling height (Angi: about $1 more per sq ft for 10-foot ceilings), stairwells ($15–$30 per linear foot, HomeGuide) and how much furniture has to move.
Height and access, how much scraping and priming the siding needs, the siding material and the number of colors. Lead-safe work on a house built before 1978 is not in the range.
The number of doors and drawer fronts, their material and condition, a sprayed versus a brushed finish, and whether the cabinet interiors are painted too.
The slab’s condition and moisture, old coatings to remove, and the coating system: flake, metallic and polyaspartic floors are priced on site.
Height and style (HomeGuide: a shadow-box fence has about 50% more surface), one side or both, repairs ($15–$35 per linear foot, HomeGuide) and paint versus stain.
Interior
Interior painting rates
Homewyse rows are for ZIP 53186, from its May 2026 data. Where a second publisher prices exactly the same work, the range shown is the part both agree on; where none does, the single source is named. The whole-interior rate is per square foot of floor as a shortcut: it already includes the walls, the ceilings and up to two doors with their trim in each room.
| What is priced | Range | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Whole interior: walls and ceilings, up to 2 doors and their trim per room | $3.98–$7.66 | sq ft of floor |
| Walls only | $1.19–$2.00 | sq ft of wall |
| Ceilings | $1.27–$2.73 | sq ft of ceiling |
| Trim and baseboards | $1.53–$3.24 | linear foot |
| Interior door, both sides | $131.54–$150.00 | door |
| Drywall patch, done during a paint job | $197.20–$237.78 | patch |
| Dark-to-light color change: an added primer coat, 12×12 room | $100–$212 | 12×12 room |
| An extra coat of paint | $50–$70 | 300–400 sq ft of wall |
| High or hard-to-reach ceilings, added cost | $1–$6 | sq ft (add-on) |
| Stairwell: walls, spindles, baseboards and handrails | $15–$30 | linear foot of stairway |
| Painter’s hourly rate, per painter (small interior jobs) | $20–$50 | hour, per painter |
| Typical minimum charge for a small job | $250–$500 | job |
Labor is most of an interior bill: 70 to 85% of it according to HomeGuide, 75 to 95% according to Angi. That is why prep, ceiling height and furniture move the price more than the paint does. HomeGuide prices interior paint at $15 to $50 a gallon and furniture moving at $35 to $60 an hour, and Angi suggests moving the furniture yourself to cut the labor.
Adding ceilings and trim to a walls-only job raises the price by about 70% in Angi’s figures and doubles it in HomeGuide’s (ceilings, baseboards and trim), so check what each bid includes before you compare totals. What we include inside a home is on our interior painting page.
HomeGuide’s interior page was last updated in August 2023, the oldest source here: its door figure is used only where Homewyse’s 2026 data agrees, its hourly rate matches Angi’s for trim work (October 2026), and its stairwell figure has no second source. Angi does not say which square footage its high-ceiling add-on applies to.
Exterior
Exterior painting rates
Exterior bids are priced on paintable wall area, which is smaller than the floor area: HomeGuide maps a 2,000 sq ft home to about 1,700 sq ft of paintable surface. Homewyse’s figure for ZIP 53186 covers the siding with basic prep (up to 2 hours per 350 sq ft for removing loose paint, spot priming and caulking) and two coats. Trim, doors and washing are separate lines.
| What is priced | Range | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Siding: basic prep, two coats (trim and washing extra) | $1.94–$3.83 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Wood siding | $1.50–$3.00 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Vinyl siding | $1.50–$3.00 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Aluminum or other metal siding | $2.00–$2.50 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Stucco | $2–$4 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Brick | $2.50–$4.50 | sq ft of paintable surface |
| Exterior trim at doors and windows | $1–$4 | linear foot |
| Eaves, soffits and fascia | $3–$6 | linear foot |
| Exterior trim repaint, whole house (eaves, fascia, soffits, doors, windows) | $1,000–$2,500 | house |
| Exterior door, both sides | $163–$332 | door |
| Pressure washing before painting | $0.15–$0.33 | sq ft of siding |
| Paint stripping where the old paint has failed | $0.50–$2.00 | sq ft |
| Painter’s hourly rate, per painter (exterior work) | $25–$75 | hour, per painter |
Height adds the most after size. Angi says a two-story house can cost up to 50% more to paint than a one-story, about 50% more per story, because of the ladders and staging. Material comes next: brick and stucco are porous and take primer, metal siding needs an oil primer or a self-etching primer, and HomeGuide warns that painting vinyl siding can void some siding warranties, so check yours first.
For a sense of totals, Angi’s national average for an exterior repaint is $3,178, from 39,126 verified projects, with most homeowners paying $1,819 to $4,551; its Great Lakes average is $3,000. Those are averages over many projects, not a price for one house, and the calculator usually lands above them: per square foot, Angi’s $1.50 to $4 agrees with the Waukesha rate, but the calculator applies that rate to your home’s size and adds washing and trim as their own lines. Homewyse prices ZIP 53202 in Milwaukee about 4% above 53186. And painter wages here are close to the national level: the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the mean wage for painters in the Milwaukee–Waukesha area at $26.94 an hour in May 2025, against $26.64 nationally. Wages are not billing rates, but they suggest national ranges need little adjusting for this area.
The siding-material rows and the hourly rate are national: the overlap of Angi (October 2026) and HomeGuide (July 2025). In the pressure-washing row, the low of $0.15 is Angi’s (cost to paint trim, October 2026) and the high of $0.33 is our arithmetic: Homewyse’s $657 washing option divided by its 2,000 sq ft. Homewyse’s figures leave out sales tax, permits and the 13% to 22% it says to add if a general contractor supervises.
Prep
Why the cheapest bid usually skips prep
When one bid comes in far below the others for the same job, the difference is usually prep. Washing, scraping loose paint back to a sound edge, sanding, priming bare wood and re-caulking open joints are slow work, and they are the easiest things to leave off a bid. Homewyse says its own figures assume basic labor under favorable conditions, with limited prep, so a house that needs more lands above its low end.
Prep matters more on a house that sees a Wisconsin winter. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Handbook names moisture as the most common cause of early paint failure on wood, and a poor bond with the surface underneath as the next. Washing, scraping and priming are what make that bond, and caulk keeps water out of the joints. Our guide on why paint peels after a Wisconsin winter shows what each failure looks like.
Our exterior jobs start with a pressure wash to clean off chalk, dirt and mildew, then scraping, sanding, spot priming and caulking before any finish coat. The steps are on our exterior painting page.
What a complete exterior bid spells out
- How the house is washed
- Scraping and sanding to a sound edge
- Priming bare wood and patched spots
- Caulking at trim, corners and windows
- The product, and the number of coats
- Trim, soffits, fascia and doors: in or out
- Lead-safe work on a house built before 1978
- Cleanup, and a written warranty
Season
The short exterior season
Exterior painting here runs roughly from May to October. Standard latex needs nights of 50°F or warmer, and NOAA’s climate normals show June through August as the months that reliably deliver them, with May and October depending on the product and the forecast (when to paint a house in Wisconsin). A year’s worth of exterior work has to fit into those months, so the earlier you get estimates, the more choice of start dates you have.
None of the published rates in this guide changes with the season, and we have no source that prices one; what changes is how soon a start date is open. Rooms and cabinets inside don’t depend on overnight lows, so they can fill the colder months.
Homes built before 1978
What a house built before 1978 changes
Wisconsin’s lead-safe renovation rule, run by the Department of Health Services, covers renovation, repair and painting done for pay on homes and child care centers built before 1978. It applies when the work disturbs more than 6 square feet of painted surface in a room inside, or more than 20 square feet outside, and it requires both a certified company and a certified renovator. The department publishes a list of certified companies.
We found no current published figure for what lead-safe work practices add to a paint job, so the calculator leaves them out and says so when you tell it the house is older. Ask every bidder whether their price includes them. Full lead paint removal is a different and larger job: HomeGuide puts it at $6 to $17 per square foot and Angi at $8 to $17. Even washing needs care on an older house; the peeling guide’s section on pre-1978 homes explains why.
Cabinets
Cabinet painting rates
Cabinet painting is priced by the piece more than by the kitchen: the count of doors and drawer fronts drives it. Spraying costs more than brushing and rolling but leaves a smoother finish; HomeGuide puts sprayed work at $40 to $100 per linear foot against $30 to $70. If you are deciding whether to paint at all, our guide on refinishing or replacing kitchen cabinets covers when paint is the wrong answer.
| What is priced | Range | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet door | $100–$125 | door |
| Drawer front | $30–$110 | drawer |
| Cabinetry, by length | $30–$60 | linear foot of cabinets |
| Cabinet surface, basic brush-and-roll scope | $4.39–$9.32 | sq ft of cabinet surface |
| Laminate doors: bonding primer and specialty paint (extra over wood) | $100–$200 | kitchen (extra over wood) |
| Specialty finish: glaze, distressing or two-tone | $500–$2,000 | kitchen (add-on) |
| Cabinet repairs before painting | $120–$600 | kitchen (add-on) |
The Homewyse row is a basic brush-and-roll scope, so it is not a price for a sprayed finish. Our cabinet work is sprayed: doors and drawer fronts in a contained area, the boxes in place, as described on our cabinet painting page.
The per-door, per-drawer and per-foot rows are national: HomeGuide (February 2025) and, where it agrees, Angi (September 2026). The laminate row is our arithmetic: Angi’s paint and primer cost for laminate ($300–$600 per kitchen) minus its figure for solid wood ($200–$400), since its kitchen totals already include the paint.
Floors
Epoxy floor rates
Homewyse’s epoxy calculator for ZIP 53186 prices a two-part epoxy with cleaning, etching and crack repair at full retail material prices, which helps explain why it runs above the national guides; the range shown is where it agrees with Angi. How the slab is prepared is worth asking every bidder about; our epoxy floor page describes our prep.
| What is priced | Range | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Epoxy garage floor: two-part epoxy, clean and etch, crack repair | $7.56–$12.00 | sq ft of floor |
| Concrete resurfacing before coating, for major damage | $3–$7 | sq ft |
| Moisture testing a slab before coating | $50–$300 | floor |
Flake, metallic and polyaspartic systems are priced on site. The only installed prices we found for flake and metallic floors are for Houston, and the national polyaspartic range starts below the Waukesha epoxy figure, so neither would be a fair Wisconsin number. HomeGuide says polyaspartic cures in one to two days, against up to a week for epoxy. Moisture matters most on a basement slab, which is why the test is worth its cost there.
Resurfacing and moisture testing are national HomeGuide figures (December 2024 and November 2024).
Fences
Fence painting and staining rates
Homewyse prices a fence by the square foot of one face, for ZIP 53186: a semi-transparent stain in one coat, or paint in two. HomeGuide’s national figures are per linear foot and cover paint or stain.
| What is priced | Range | Per |
|---|---|---|
| Fence staining: semi-transparent stain, one coat | $1.23–$2.49 | sq ft of fence, per side |
| Fence painting: two coats | $1.59–$3.05 | sq ft of fence, per side |
| Fence paint or stain, 4 ft fence | $2–$7 | linear foot |
| Fence paint or stain, 6 ft privacy fence | $4–$9 | linear foot |
| Fence pressure washing before staining | $1.50–$3.00 | linear foot |
Homewyse’s Waukesha rate is per square foot of one face, so on a 6 ft fence it works out to about $7.38 to $14.94 per foot of length for stain, above HomeGuide’s national $4 to $9 per linear foot for a 6 ft fence. The calculator uses the Waukesha figure and, for a 4 or 6 ft fence, shows what HomeGuide’s would come to beside your result, counted per side, since HomeGuide takes length times height as one side and doubles it for both.
Taller fences and shadow-box styles have more surface; HomeGuide says a shadow-box fence has about 50% more to paint, and puts repairs at $15 to $35 per linear foot. How we prepare a fence, and how to choose between paint, solid stain and semi-transparent stain, is in our fence painting and staining notes.
Comparing bids
How to compare painting estimates
Put the bids side by side line by line, not total against total. Two prices for “painting the outside” can describe very different jobs: one with washing, scraping, priming, caulking and two coats on the siding, trim and doors, another with one coat on the siding. Ask each painter to put the scope in writing, including what is left out.
Ask who will do the work, too. Our painting is done by the owner and his own employees, not subcontracted day labor; we are bonded and insured; our workmanship warranty is in writing; and our estimates are free and written. Whoever you hire, those are fair things to ask for.
Questions to ask every bidder
- What prep is included, step by step?
- Which product, and how many coats?
- Are trim, doors, soffits and fascia in the price?
- Who does the work: your own employees or subcontractors?
- Are you insured, and can I see the certificate?
- For a house built before 1978: are you a certified lead-safe firm?
- What does the warranty cover, and is it in writing?
- When could you start, and how long will it take?
Common questions
How much does it cost to paint the interior of a house in Wisconsin?
For ZIP 53186 (Waukesha), Homewyse’s May 2026 data puts a whole interior, meaning walls and ceilings with up to two doors and their trim per room, at $3.98 to $7.66 per square foot of floor. Walls alone run $1.19 to $2.00 per square foot of wall. Prep, repairs, ceiling height, the number of colors and how much furniture has to move decide where in that range a house lands.
How much does it cost to paint the outside of a house?
For the siding with basic prep and two coats, Homewyse’s figure for ZIP 53186 is $1.94 to $3.83 per square foot of paintable surface; trim, doors and washing are extra. Angi says a two-story house can cost up to 50% more than a one-story, and brick and stucco cost more than wood or vinyl. Angi’s national average for an exterior repaint is $3,178.
How much does it cost to paint one room?
Homewyse prices a 12×12 room in ZIP 53186, with its walls, ceiling and up to two doors and their trim, at $601 to $1,164, and a 10×10 room at $428 to $831. Small jobs also meet a painter’s minimum charge, which HomeGuide puts at $250 to $500.
How much does it cost to paint kitchen cabinets?
Where HomeGuide and Angi agree, a cabinet door runs $100 to $125 and HomeGuide puts a drawer front at $30 to $110, so the count of doors and drawers is the place to start. Laminate doors cost a little more than wood, about $100 to $200 more per kitchen by Angi’s paint and primer figures, and a two-tone or glazed finish and repairs add to it; the cabinet table above gives each figure.
How much does an epoxy garage floor cost in Wisconsin?
Where Homewyse’s figure for ZIP 53186 (Waukesha) agrees with Angi, a two-part epoxy garage floor, with cleaning, etching and crack repair, runs $7.56 to $12.00 per square foot of floor. Flake, metallic and polyaspartic systems are priced on site. The floor rates table gives each figure with its source, and the calculator turns them into a ballpark for your garage.
Why do painting estimates vary so much?
Mostly because they describe different jobs. The amount of prep, the number of coats, whether trim and doors are included, and who does the work all change the price. Line the bids up item by item before comparing totals.
Does a house built before 1978 cost more to paint?
It can. On a home built before 1978, Wisconsin’s lead-safe rule governs work that disturbs more than 6 square feet of paint in a room or 20 square feet outside, and it calls for a certified firm and renovator. We found no current published price for that work, so ask each bidder whether their number includes it.
Is the calculator a quote?
No. It applies published market figures from the sources on this page to your answers and rounds the result, so it is a ballpark from market data. A written estimate from us is based on seeing the house, and it is free.
Why does the calculator ask for my name and phone number?
Because it is meant as the first step toward an estimate: your answers and the range come to us so we can follow up, by phone or email, and by text only if you tick the box. The rate tables on this page stay open to everyone, each rate with its source.
Sources
What this guide is based on
Cost guides and calculators: Homewyse (run for ZIP 53186 and, for comparison, 53202, with its May 2026 data), Angi, HomeGuide and homeyou, each dated in the tables. Public data and guidance: the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ lead-safe renovation pages, and the USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Handbook (chapter 15, “Finishing of Wood”, 1999 edition).
Our arithmetic, in the tables: the overlaps between sources, the pressure-washing high per square foot, and the laminate extra (Angi’s laminate paint and primer figure minus its solid-wood one). In the calculator, it reads between the published home sizes, and outside the 1,000 to 3,000 sq ft they cover it scales the nearest one in proportion to floor area, a straight line; it raises the top of the siding range by 50% for each story above the first, from Angi’s “around 50% per story”; for a siding material it uses the higher of the Waukesha rate and that material’s national range; for a color change on a whole interior it scales Homewyse’s primer coat for a 12×12 room by floor area (the floor area divided by 144); it prices exterior trim by the foot, taking the roofline as the outline of a square footprint (floor area divided by stories) and about 16 feet around each window; it multiplies HomeGuide’s per-foot fence figure by length and sides for its comparison; and it rounds each range out to the nearest $10, $50 or $100.
These are market figures, not Modern Painters’ prices; our own number for your house comes in a free written estimate. Written by Modern Painters LLC. Last reviewed 23 October 2026; we update the rates when the sources do. Corrections: hello@modernpainterswi.com.
Sources (read 23 October 2026)
- Homewyse: cost to paint a home (ZIP 53186)
- Homewyse: cost to paint rooms
- Homewyse: cost to paint a house exterior
- Homewyse: cost to epoxy coat a garage floor
- Angi: interior painting cost (Oct 14, 2026)
- Angi: cost to paint a room (Jul 8, 2026)
- Angi: exterior painting cost (Oct 20, 2026)
- Angi: cost to paint trim (Oct 1, 2026)
- Angi: kitchen cabinet painting (Sep 8, 2026)
- Angi: cost to refinish cabinets (Aug 31, 2026)
- Angi: epoxy flooring cost (Aug 3, 2026)
- HomeGuide: exterior painting cost (Jul 9, 2025)
- HomeGuide: interior painting cost (Aug 28, 2023)
- HomeGuide: kitchen cabinet painting cost (Feb 21, 2025)
- HomeGuide: garage floor coating cost (Dec 24, 2024)
- HomeGuide: concrete coating cost (Nov 25, 2024)
- HomeGuide: Houston epoxy flooring (Oct 14, 2026)
- HomeGuide: fence painting cost (Feb 4, 2026)
- homeyou: cabinet painting costs (Aug 28, 2026)
- Wisconsin DHS: lead-safe renovation questions
- BLS: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
- Forest Products Laboratory: Wood Handbook ch. 15, 1999 (PDF)
Want the number for your house?
A free written estimate is based on your actual walls, siding and prep. Tell us about the project and we’ll call or email to set a time.