Estimating Painting Jobs – Should You Cut Your Price?

A customer that has seen what happens to people, who deal with a contractor that cuts prices, will avoid that painter's estimate. And if you are a painter that has seen some of the work that price cutters did to other customers then you would not want any potential client thinking that you are the same as a price cutter.

You know the game; a price cutter may drop the price on their estimate because of any number of reasons. The first price cutter that comes to my mind is the bidder that is so new that he or she does not know how to estimate a painting job so they guess at the price. Then there is the painter that does really poor work and has no work in their schedule, they are starving. What usually happens to the customer when they sign a paint estimate from a price cutter is that the work is poorly done, or the painter who does not know how to estimate suddenly finds themselves in the middle of the job working for nothing. When the inexperienced paint estimator finds out that they did not estimate enough money for the job, the leave the job unfinished, sticking it to the customer. Then the customer is in a real bind. They are embarrassed because they made a mistake by buying the lowest price. The client is stuck with an unfinished job, and they need a painter right away to finish the job. You know what happens next, the good painters are already booked and busy, plus the good painters do not want to deal with this bad customer, and the good painters do not want to try to make a bad job look good.

And last, the good painter will be asked by this bad customer to match the price cutter's price. This now is a lose / lose situation for everyone involved. Be smart. If you charge a fair price on your painting estimate, do a good job and do what you agreed to do then you will be helping the customer and yourself to a win / win situation.