A homeowner in Northbrook called me last year after getting three estimates for painting her main floor. Two came in around $4,800. The third was $1,900.
"Why is everyone else so expensive?" she asked. "This guy seems perfectly professional."
I told her the same thing I'll tell you: the question isn't why professional painting costs what it does. The question is what's missing from that cheap quote.
She hired the $1,900 guy. Six weeks later, she called us to fix it. The total cost of her "savings"? About $7,200—the original job plus the rework. And a month of living with furniture pushed to the middle of every room.
Interior painting cost isn't arbitrary. Every line item exists because someone, somewhere, tried cutting it and paid more to fix the result. Here's where your money actually goes.
Labor: The Biggest Line Item
Labor typically represents 70-80% of a painting contractor's bid. That shocks people until they think about what the labor actually involves.
A three-bedroom interior project takes a two-person crew roughly four to five full days. That's 60-80 person-hours of skilled work. At Chicago labor rates—which run higher than national averages because our cost of living demands it—that alone accounts for the majority of your estimate.
And "skilled" matters. A professional painter isn't just someone who can hold a brush. They know how to cut a clean line where wall meets ceiling without tape. They know how to load a roller so it doesn't splatter. They know the exact pressure to apply when sanding between coats so the surface stays smooth without cutting through to bare drywall.
That expertise doesn't come cheap, and it shouldn't. You're paying for the ten thousand hours of experience and expertise that make the work look effortless.
Chicago's Labor Market
Our labor costs run 15-20% above the national average for painting contractors. Chicago's skilled trades market is competitive—good painters have options, and homeowners along the North Shore expect premium service.
The alternative is contractors who pay crews below market rate. Those crews exist, and they produce exactly the quality you'd expect from underpaid workers rushing to hit unrealistic deadlines.
Surface Preparation: Where Cheap Bids Cut First
Here's the dirty secret of low-ball painting quotes: they're not cheaper because they've found efficiencies. They're cheaper because they skip prep work.
Professional surface preparation for an average Chicago interior includes:
Sanding — Every wall gets a light scuff sand to remove texture inconsistencies and help paint adhere. High-gloss surfaces get deglossed. Previously damaged areas get feathered smooth. This alone takes a full day in a typical house.
Patching — Nail holes, drywall dings, hairline cracks, settling cracks around windows and doors. Every one needs spackling compound, drying time, and sanding smooth. In older North Shore homes with plaster walls? Add another half-day for skim-coating trouble spots.
Priming — Bare patches from sanding, stain bleed-through, color changes from dark to light—all need primer before paint touches them. Different problems need different primers. Skipping this step is the most common cause of paint failure within two years.
Caulking — Where trim meets wall, where window casing meets frame, where baseboards meet floor—these joints open and close with Chicago's temperature swings. Fresh caulk before painting seals these gaps and gives clean, professional lines.
Cleaning — Walls accumulate dust, cooking grease, and fingerprint oils that prevent paint adhesion. Wiping down every surface isn't glamorous, but paint won't bond to a dirty wall.
When a contractor skips any of these steps, they're not saving you money. They're deferring the cost—plus interest—to your next paint job or, worse, to drywall repair work when the paint fails prematurely.
Paint Quality: The Product Behind the Price
Paint is not paint. A gallon of Benjamin Moore Aura ($75-85/gallon) and a gallon of bargain-bin contractor-grade flat ($20-25/gallon) contain fundamentally different chemistry.
What Premium Paint Actually Gets You
Higher pigment density — More pigment per gallon means better coverage. Premium paint often covers in two coats where cheap paint needs three or four. The number of coats directly affects labor time and final appearance.
Better binders — 100% acrylic resins flex with temperature and humidity changes. Cheap vinyl-acrylic binders crack over time—especially in Chicago homes where walls expand and contract through our seasonal extremes.
Lower VOC formulations — Quality paints from Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams have reduced volatile organic compounds without sacrificing performance. Low-VOC paint means less smell during application and better indoor air quality after. With Chicago's long heating season keeping windows closed six months a year, VOC content actually matters here.
Durability — Premium paint resists scuffing, scrubbing, and fading longer. Sherwin-Williams Duration can handle over 1,000 scrub cycles before showing wear. Budget paint might handle 200.
A professional painter specifying Benjamin Moore Regal or Sherwin-Williams Cashmere isn't trying to pad the estimate. High-quality paint costs more per gallon but often costs less per year of performance. Over a ten-year cycle, premium paint that lasts eight to ten years is dramatically cheaper than budget paint that needs replacing every three to four.
What You're Actually Paying For (Beyond the Obvious)
Protection and Cleanup
Drop cloths covering every floor surface. Painter's tape on trim, light fixtures, and hardware. Plastic sheeting over furniture and built-ins. Covering HVAC registers so sanding dust doesn't circulate through your ductwork.
A cheap contractor throws a canvas tarp over the center of the room and goes to work. A professional protects everything because paint splatter on your hardwood floors costs more to fix than the protection cost.
Project Management
Someone has to schedule crews, coordinate material delivery, manage weather delays for exterior-adjacent work, and communicate progress. A detailed quote doesn't write itself—it takes a walkthrough, measuring, scope documentation, and a contract that specifies exactly what you're getting.
That scope of work document protects you. It spells out the number of coats, the paint brand and sheen, which surfaces are included (walls? ceilings? trim? doors?), and what prep is covered. Without a contract, you're trusting a handshake.
Trim and Ceiling Work
"Paint the bedroom" means different things to different contractors. Does it include the ceiling? The closet? The window casings? The door? Both sides of the door?
Painting trim well—cutting clean lines, avoiding brush marks on semi-gloss surfaces, properly prepping previously painted baseboards—takes more time per square foot than walls. Ceiling painting requires consistent technique to avoid lap marks and roller texture differences. These aren't extras. They're the difference between a painted room and a professionally painted room.
Insurance and Licensing
A legitimate painting contractor carries general liability insurance, workers' compensation, and proper business licensing. In Illinois, that overhead runs $8,000-15,000 per year before a single wall gets painted.
That cost gets built into every estimate. The contractor without it is cheaper—and they're also the one who disappears when someone falls off a ladder in your living room or splashes paint across your white marble countertop.
Warranty
Reputable contractors warranty their work. Ours covers labor and materials for a defined period. If paint fails due to our application within that window, we fix it at no cost.
That warranty has value. It's backed by a business that plans to exist next year. The cheapest bid usually comes from someone with no warranty, no callback guarantee, and no fixed address.
The DIY Calculation
Every homeowner considers it: "How hard can painting be? I'll just do it myself."
Here's the honest math on a professional painter vs DIY for a standard bedroom:
Supplies if you own nothing: Brushes, rollers, roller frame, extension pole, painter's tape, drop cloths, sanding blocks, spackling, caulk gun, caulk, paint tray, stir sticks. Figure $150-200 before paint.
Paint for a bedroom: Two gallons of quality paint plus a quart of trim paint. $130-180 for Benjamin Moore.
Your time: Surface prep, priming, two coats of paint, cutting in, trim work, cleanup. A bedroom takes most DIYers an entire weekend—16-20 hours.
Professional cost for the same room: $500-900 depending on condition.
If your time has value and your standards are high, professional painting is often the better investment. If you enjoy the process and have a free weekend, DIY can work—but budget for the learning curve.
The chicago painting cost guide breaks down specific pricing by room size and project type if you want detailed numbers.
Red Flags in Cheap Quotes
When you get that one bid that's dramatically lower than the others, check for these red flags:
No walkthrough performed. Any contractor bidding without seeing the actual walls is guessing. And guessing leads to surprise add-ons once work starts.
Vague scope descriptions. "Paint living room" isn't a scope of work. How many coats? Which walls? What paint? What prep? A detailed contract protects both sides.
No insurance verification. Ask for a certificate. Call the insurance company to confirm it's active. The five minutes this takes can save you from catastrophic liability.
Cash-only payment. Legitimate businesses accept checks, cards, and digital payments. Cash-only operations often aren't paying taxes, carrying insurance, or planning to stand behind their work.
Pressure to commit immediately. "This price is only good today" is a sales tactic, not a business practice. Any contractor whose pricing changes day-to-day isn't pricing based on actual costs.
If you've been burned by a low bid before, you're not alone. The 5 expensive painting mistakes article covers more cautionary tales from real Chicago homeowners.
Why Chicago Specifically Costs More
Beyond labor rates, Chicago's climate creates painting challenges that genuinely cost more to address:
Plaster walls in pre-war homes — Half the houses on the North Shore have original plaster. Plaster prep takes longer than drywall prep—it cracks differently, patches differently, and requires primers formulated for the alkalinity of old lime plaster.
Lead paint in pre-1978 homes — Federal law requires EPA RRP (Renovation, Repair, and Painting) certification for disturbing lead paint. Testing, containment, and proper disposal add $500-2,000 to projects involving older homes. Skipping this isn't just risky—it's illegal.
Humidity and temperature cycling — Products that perform well in stable climates need upgrades here. Better primers, higher-quality topcoats, and longer dry times between coats all add cost but prevent the premature failures that make Chicago paint jobs notoriously short-lived when done cheaply.
Seasonal scheduling pressure — Interior painting crews are busy year-round because Chicago's short exterior season compresses demand. When crews can only paint outside from May through October, the rest of the year sees interior demand spike.
The Real Question
"Why is interior painting so expensive?" is the wrong question. The right question is: "What does it cost to paint my home once and have it last?"
Because the most expensive painting project isn't the one with the high estimate. It's the one you pay for twice.
Ready for a number that actually reflects what your project needs? Request a free estimate. We'll walk your space, discuss scope and products, and give you a detailed quote with no surprises and no missing line items. You get what you pay for—and we make sure you know exactly what that is.