Starter guide
How to start a painting business
Of every trade covered on this site, painting asks for the least up front: brushes, rollers, a steady hand, and somewhere to hang a portfolio of finished rooms. The hard part is pricing prep work fairly, since that’s where most of the hidden time actually goes.
The abridged version
- Sort self-employed status and a basic liability policy.
- Assemble a basic kit: brushes, rollers, drop cloths, and a ladder.
- Quote after seeing the walls, not from a per-room formula.
- Build a before-and-after portfolio from your earliest jobs.
- Keep paint, materials, and labour on separate invoice lines.
What the kit costs
Most painters are trading for a few hundred pounds, a fraction of what other trades on this site need before their first paid job.
| Kit | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Brushes, rollers, and drop cloths | £100–£400 |
| Liability cover | ~£75–£175 a year |
| Business registration | Free |
| Ladders and access equipment | £0–£500 |
| Quoting and invoicing app | Starts at £0 |
Registration and a sensible policy
General residential painting rarely needs a specific licence, but registering the business and holding liability cover is standard practice among anyone doing this for a living. Spilled paint and a scratched worktop are the kind of small claims a policy exists for.
Quote the walls you actually see
How long a room takes depends far more on prep, filling, sanding, and masking, than on the painting itself, so quote after seeing the surfaces rather than working from a fixed per-room number. Itemise paint and materials separately from labour so the original quote and the final invoice always match.
A portfolio does the convincing
A handful of sharp before-and-after shots sells harder than any written pitch, especially once you’ve got two or three rooms behind you worth showing off. Keep an online listing stocked with reviews alongside it, and referrals from satisfied homeowners tend to follow on their own.
One invoice per project, one line per material
Itemise per room or send a single fixed-price invoice for the whole project, keeping paint, materials, and labour on their own lines. Painter invoicing software keeps the original quote and the finished invoice consistent.
Room by room, sorted
ServiceInvoice keeps paint, materials, and labour itemised on every invoice, so decorating and trade clients see exactly what they’re paying for. See the painter invoicing software.
Sign up freeCommon early missteps
- Pricing a room before checking how much prep the walls need.
- Rolling paint and sundries into one vague price instead of listing them.
- Treating cover as unnecessary because the first jobs are for friends.
- Assuming one coat when the colour change clearly needs two.
- Forgetting which rooms in a multi-room job still need a second coat.
Register, cover yourself, and quote the prep you can actually see. A strong portfolio brings the next job in the door.