PAINTING OVERHEAD CALCULATOR
PAINTING OVERHEAD CALCULATOR
Edit any line. Pre-filled with an example owner-plus-three-painter residential company.
ANNUAL OVERHEAD
- $
- $
- $
- $
- $
- $
- $
- $
- $
CREW AND REVENUE
People whose hours you bill
After weather, holidays and slow season
Drive time, shop days and callbacks are not billable
Price minus labor, materials and job costs
RESULTS
- Total annual overhead
- $116,900
- $9,742 per month
- Overhead per billable crew hour
- $26.47
- Spread over 4,416 billable hours a year. Add this to burdened labor cost per hour.
- Overhead as a share of revenue
- 27.8%
- Use this as the overhead % in the markup calculator.
- Break-even revenue at 45% gross margin
- $259,778
- Sales needed before the company makes its first dollar of net profit.
Net profit before tax at this revenue: $72,100
What is overhead, and why does it decide your price?
Overhead is what it costs to keep the doors open whether or not a crew is on a job today: trucks, insurance, the office, marketing, software, and the hours the owner spends selling instead of painting. It never shows up on a single job's material list, which is why it is the number most painters leave out of a bid.
A bid priced at labor plus materials plus a round markup only works if that markup happens to cover overhead and still leave profit. This calculator turns your annual overhead into the two numbers you can actually price with: a dollar figure per billable crew hour, and a percentage of revenue for the markup calculator.
How to use the overhead calculator
- Pull last year's profit and loss statement and list every cost that did not belong to one job. Monthly bills times twelve.
- Split the owner's pay: billed painting hours are labor, the rest is overhead.
- Enter how many field painters you bill, their paid hours, and the weeks you actually work after weather and slow season.
- Set the billable share honestly. Drive time, shop mornings, warranty callbacks and rain days are paid but not billed.
- Read overhead per billable hour, then add it to the burdened hourly cost from the painting labor cost calculator before you apply profit.
Worked example: owner plus three painters
The pre-filled company carries $116,900 of annual overhead. Three painters at 40 paid hours for 46 weeks, billable 80% of the time, produce 4,416 billable hours. That puts overhead at about $26.47 per billable hour. On $420,000 of revenue it is 27.8% of sales, and at a 45% gross margin the company needs about $259,800 in sales just to break even.
Job cost or overhead? Where each expense belongs
| Expense | Where it goes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paint, primer, caulk bought for a job | Job cost | Traceable to one job, so bill it there |
| Crew wages, payroll taxes, workers' comp | Job cost (burdened labor) | Rises and falls with hours worked on the job |
| Lift or scaffold rental for one job | Job cost | Would not exist without that job |
| Trucks, fuel, maintenance | Overhead | Shared by every job |
| General liability insurance | Overhead | Covers the company, not one job |
| Owner's estimating and sales time | Overhead | Not billed to any customer |
| Marketing, website, lead fees | Overhead | Spent to win jobs, including the ones you lose |
| Sprayers, ladders, drop cloths | Overhead | Replaced on a cycle, used across jobs |
Three ways to lower overhead per hour
- Raise the billable share. Tighter scheduling and fewer callbacks spread the same overhead over more billed hours.
- Grow the crew before the office. One more field painter adds billable hours; one more office hire adds only overhead.
- Win more of what you bid. Marketing cost per job falls when the proposal closes more often. See also how to price painting jobs.
Painting overhead: common questions
What counts as overhead for a painting company?
Overhead is every cost of running the business that does not belong to one specific job: vehicles, general liability insurance, shop rent, office and owner time that is not billed, marketing, software, phones, accounting and equipment replacement. Paint, sundries bought for a job, subcontractor labor and the crew's burdened wages on that job are job costs, not overhead.
Is the owner's salary overhead?
Only the part that is not billed to jobs. If you paint on the crew three days a week, those hours are labor and belong in the job cost. The days spent estimating, selling, ordering and doing paperwork are overhead.
Should I use overhead per hour or overhead as a percentage?
Per billable hour works best when your jobs are mostly labor and similar in crew size, because overhead is really consumed by time. A percentage of revenue is simpler and fine for steady residential work. Material-heavy jobs make the percentage method overcharge overhead, so check both numbers.
How often should I recalculate overhead?
At least once a year when you set prices, and again whenever something big changes: a new truck, a new hire in the office, a shop lease, or a jump in insurance premiums.