How much does a gallon of paint cover?
Interior wall paint spans a wide band by tier, from contractor-grade flats at the low end to premium self-priming lines several times that. We do not publish a figure because paint pricing moves constantly and varies by retailer, region and promotion — the manufacturer or retailer is the only current source.
Why the tin price is the wrong thing to optimise
What is worth knowing is how little the tin price matters to the total. Materials are about 15% of a professional job, so choosing a premium paint over a mid-range one moves the whole project by a low single-digit percentage. On a DIY job the ratio flips and the paint is most of your spend, which is exactly when buying the better product is easiest to justify.
The cheaper tin also often costs more in practice. A paint with lower solids may need three coats where a better one needs two, and a third coat is a third of your weekend plus another tin — so the "saving" reverses.
Tinting affects price too. Deep and accent bases carry more colourant and generally cost more than a white or pastel base of the same product line, which is why the same paint can quote differently for two colours.
For a current price, check the manufacturer's own site or your local retailer. If you are comparing products rather than prices, the number that actually predicts performance is the spread rate on the technical data sheet, not the shelf price.
How we sourced this
This answer is composed from our knowledge base, which holds only what a regulator, a standards body or a manufacturer supports. The sources behind it are listed below with the date we accessed each one. If a claim on this page has no source under it, that is a bug — tell us and we will fix it.
Where a figure is product-specific — coverage, dry time, recoat time, temperature limits — we point you at the manufacturer's technical data sheet rather than printing a general number as though it were a specification. That distinction is the most common error in this trade, and it is the one that costs people a repaint.
Common mistakes
- Optimising the tin price on a professional job, where materials are a small share of the total.
- Buying the cheapest paint and needing three coats instead of two, which costs more in time and tins.
- Expecting the same price across colours — deep and accent bases carry more colourant.
- Comparing products on shelf price rather than on the spread rate in the data sheet.
Related questions
Sources
- Aggregated third-party cost surveys. US painting cost ranges (accessed 2026-08-17).
- Sherwin-Williams. Product technical data sheets (accessed 2026-08-17).
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