Guest post · Quarterly Tax Calculator
Pricing a painting job as a side hustle: paint, labour, and the tax set-aside
A lot of people who run the numbers on this calculator are not painting their own walls — they are painting someone else's, for money. Pricing that job has three parts, and most first-time side-hustle painters only count two of them: the paint and the labour. The third part, the tax, arrives four times a year whether you budgeted for it or not. Here is how to price all three.
1. Work out the paint before you quote a price
Never guess the paint. Measure the room, run it through the paint calculator, and quote from the result — two coats is the default, and the calculator deducts doors and windows and tells you the exact tins to buy. A 12 ft × 12 ft room with 8 ft walls, one door and two windows needs 2 gallons of wall paint for two coats at the standard 350 sq ft per gallon coverage, plus 1 gallon if you are painting the ceiling too — the full maths is in how much paint a 12×12 room needs.
Buy the paint yourself rather than letting the client supply it: you control the brand and finish, you keep the leftover for touch-ups, and the receipt is your record of the job's material cost. Add primer to the quote when the walls are bare plaster, patched, or changing colour — one coat of primer is cheaper than a third coat of topcoat.
2. Price the labour by the hour, including the prep
The painting is the fast part. Washing, filling, sanding, masking and moving furniture is where the hours go, and a quote that only counts roller time loses money. Price it as a simple formula:
Quote = paint + supplies + (your hourly rate × total hours, prep included)
Worked example, with example rates — use your own local figures: a 12×12 room, 2 gallons of wall paint at $45 a gallon ($90), $20 of rollers, tape and filler, and 6 hours of work at $40 an hour ($240). Quote: $350. Your profit on the job is the quote minus materials and supplies — here $350 − $110 = $240 — and that profit, not the quote, is what the tax is figured on. Write the quote down with the three lines itemised: clients accept a higher number far more readily when they can see the paint, the prep and the labour separately.
3. Set aside the tax on every job — it is not optional
When a client pays you as an independent contractor, no employer withholds tax from the payment. The IRS still expects its share, four times a year, as quarterly estimated tax — and the amount is bigger than most new painters expect, because it is two taxes at once: income tax plus 15.3% self-employment tax. If you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year, quarterly payments are required, on 15 April, 15 June and 15 September, and 15 January the following year.
Worked example — a painter with $60,000 of net profit in a year (after paint, supplies and other business expenses), single filer, tax year 2026: total federal tax is $12,037.20, or $3,009.30 per quarter. That is almost exactly 20% of profit — so the practical rule is to move about 20% of each job's profit into a separate account the day you are paid and leave it there. On the $240-profit room above, that is $48 set aside. Run your own annual number on the quarterly estimated tax calculator, and read how much you should pay in quarterly taxes for the full formula behind the 20%.
Two traps to avoid: spending the tax money because the job felt profitable — the profit was $240, not $350 — and skipping a quarter because work was slow. The underpayment penalty is figured quarter by quarter, so a missed quarter costs interest even if you catch up in January.
4. What to leave behind when the job is done
- The leftover paint, labelled. The tin with the brand, colour name and code written on it — the client's next scuff is a five-minute touch-up, and it is the cheapest referral you will ever earn.
- A written receipt. Date, rooms painted, paint used, amount paid. It is your income record for the quarterly estimate, and the client's proof of the work.
- Photos. Before and after shots of every room, with the date. They are your portfolio for the next quote and your defence if a client disputes the finish later.
- The next date. Tell the client when the room can be used and when the paint is fully cured — usually a day for light use, longer before washing the walls.
Read how the calculator's default assumptions were chosen on the About page, and run the numbers for each room before you quote your next job.
Frequently asked questions
Should the client buy the paint or should I?
Buy it yourself and itemise it on the quote. You control the quality, you keep the leftover for touch-ups, and the receipt is a clean business expense. Client-supplied paint saves them nothing once you factor in the extra trip and the risk of the wrong finish.
How much of each payment should I set aside for tax?
About 20% of the profit on each job is a sound starting point for a single filer — at $60,000 of annual profit the real federal rate is $12,037.20, just over 20%. Re-run your own number once a year, and every time a big job lands, because the rate rises with income.
Do I owe quarterly tax if painting is only a side hustle?
It depends on the total you expect to owe for the year, not on whether painting is your main job. If your W-2 withholding already covers the tax on the side income, you may owe nothing extra — but if you expect to owe $1,000 or more after withholding, quarterly estimated payments are required. Withholding from your day job counts as paid evenly across the year, so increasing it is sometimes simpler than quarterly payments.
Guest post by the Quarterly Tax Calculator team. Paint quantities are estimates — always confirm coverage on the can. Tax figures are federal estimates for tax year 2026, not tax advice.