Stop Competing on Price for Basic Repaints
The residential interior repaint market is crowded. Every new painting contractor starts here, and the competition drives prices down. Homeowners get 3-5 estimates, pick the cheapest one, and you're left wondering why you can't break $50/hour.
The painting contractors earning $150,000-$400,000+ per year aren't fighting over $2,000 living room repaints. They're offering specialty services that most competitors can't or won't do — services that command premium prices because they require specialized skills, equipment, or knowledge. Here are the seven most profitable ones.
1. Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing
Average job: $3,500-$8,000 | Margin: 55-65%
Cabinet refinishing is the single most profitable service a painting contractor can offer. A full kitchen cabinet repaint takes 3-5 days, uses $200-$400 in materials, and commands $4,000-$8,000 depending on the kitchen size and finish quality. Compare that to a full kitchen renovation at $25,000-$50,000 — cabinet painting is a fraction of the cost for a dramatic transformation, making it an easy sell to homeowners.
The key to high-quality cabinet work: proper preparation (TSP wash, degloss, fill grain, prime with a bonding primer like BIN Shellac), spraying with a fine finish tip (311 or 411), and using cabinet-grade paint (Benjamin Moore Advance or Sherwin-Williams ProClassic). The finish quality is what separates a $3,500 job from a $7,000 job.
2. Exterior Painting with Wood Repair
Average job: $5,000-$15,000+ | Margin: 45-55%
Exterior painting alone is moderately profitable. But when you add wood repair — replacing rotted fascia, window sills, trim boards, and siding sections — the job value doubles or triples. Most exterior painting bids uncover significant wood rot, especially on homes 15+ years old.
The advantage: most painters subcontract wood repair or skip it entirely, referring the client to a carpenter. If you can do both painting and wood repair in-house, you capture the full job value and offer the client a single-contractor solution. Basic carpentry skills (measuring, cutting, installing trim) are easy to learn and dramatically increase your revenue per exterior project.
3. Commercial and Office Painting
Average job: $8,000-$50,000+ | Margin: 40-50%
Commercial painting — offices, retail spaces, restaurants, medical facilities — offers larger project values, recurring relationships, and less competition from handyman-type painters. Building owners and property managers need spaces repainted regularly (every 3-5 years), creating predictable, recurring revenue.
The trade-offs: commercial work often requires after-hours or weekend scheduling (painting an office while people are working is miserable for everyone), faster turnaround times, and sometimes specialized coatings. But the job sizes are larger, the clients are less price-sensitive (they're deducting it as a business expense), and one good commercial client can be worth $20,000-$100,000+ per year.
4. Deck and Fence Staining
Average job: $800-$3,500 | Margin: 55-65%
Deck staining is a high-margin, fast-turnover service that most painting contractors undervalue. A standard 300 sq ft deck takes 1-2 days including pressure washing and staining, uses $100-$200 in materials, and sells for $800-$2,500. Add railings, stairs, and a matching fence and you're at $2,000-$3,500.
The seasonal advantage: deck staining demand concentrates in spring and early summer, providing a revenue boost during the same season that interior painting slows down (people don't want painters inside when the weather is nice). Offering deck staining fills your schedule during what would otherwise be slower months.
5. Epoxy Garage Floor Coating
Average job: $1,500-$4,000 | Margin: 50-60%
Garage floor coatings — polyurea, polyaspartic, or epoxy systems — are a fast-growing market. Homeowners are converting garages into showrooms, workshops, and living extensions, and a professionally coated floor is the centerpiece. The materials are $200-$500 for a standard 2-car garage, the job takes 1-2 days, and you're charging $1,500-$4,000.
This service requires specialized training (surface preparation is critical — grinding or shot-blasting the concrete), but the learning curve is manageable and many coating manufacturers offer contractor training programs. Once you master the process, it's high-margin, fast-turnover work with excellent before/after photos for marketing.
6. Wallpaper Installation
Average job: $800-$3,000 | Margin: 50-60%
Wallpaper is back in a big way. Accent walls, powder rooms, dining rooms, and commercial spaces are driving demand for professional wallpaper installation. The skill is becoming rare (most painters under 40 have never hung wallpaper), which means experienced wallpaper installers command premium rates.
Average rates: $3-$8 per square foot of wallpapered surface, plus the cost of the wallpaper itself (which the client usually supplies or you can markup 20-30%). A single accent wall takes 3-5 hours and pays $400-$800 in labor alone. Full rooms pay significantly more.
When offering multiple specialty services, having a professional estimating system is essential. BlueBee App lets you maintain a service catalog with all your offerings — interior painting, cabinet refinishing, deck staining, epoxy floors — and build itemized estimates on-site from your phone. Send instantly, get approvals, and convert to invoices. Download free on the App Store.
7. HOA and Multi-Unit Painting Contracts
Average contract: $15,000-$200,000+ | Margin: 35-45%
Homeowner Associations (HOAs) and multi-unit complexes — apartments, condos, townhomes — represent some of the largest painting contracts available. An HOA with 50 townhomes that repaints exteriors on a 7-year cycle might award contracts worth $100,000-$300,000. Apartment complexes need unit turnovers painted between tenants — quick, repetitive work with steady volume.
Winning these contracts requires: a proven track record (references from similar projects), proper insurance ($2M+ liability for most HOAs), competitive pricing (these are bid jobs), and the capacity to handle the scope (multiple crews running simultaneously).
The advantage: once you win an HOA or property management client, you often retain the contract for years. They don't want to switch painters if you do good work — the switching cost is too high for them.
How to Add Specialty Services
- Start with one: Pick the service that aligns best with your current skills and market demand. Cabinet refinishing and deck staining are the easiest to add.
- Invest in training: Take manufacturer training courses (most are free). Practice on your own property or a friend's before offering to clients.
- Price confidently: Specialty services command specialty prices. Don't discount your way in — charge full rate from the start.
- Market specifically: Create separate marketing for each specialty. "Cabinet Refinishing Specialist" gets more clicks than "Painter who also does cabinets."
- Photograph everything: Before/after photos of specialty work are your most powerful marketing asset. Cabinets, decks, and epoxy floors photograph beautifully and drive social media engagement.
The Bottom Line
Basic interior repaints will always be part of a painting business, but they shouldn't be the whole business. Adding 2-3 specialty services — cabinet refinishing, exterior with wood repair, commercial, deck staining, epoxy floors, wallpaper, or HOA contracts — diversifies your revenue, increases your average job value, and positions you as a premium contractor rather than a commodity painter. The most profitable painting businesses offer what their competitors can't. Build those capabilities and price them accordingly.
