Where painting contractors lose money
5 things cost painting contractors money without ever becoming a line item, and each one traces to a step you can install. Painting contractors average 18% gross margin, 13% overhead and 5% net profit at $1M to $5M of revenue. The CFOS target at that size is 22% gross margin, 12% overhead and 10% net, and the 5 points left on the table is where those mechanisms live. Figures for all 7 revenue bands are in the table below.
Painting ranks 5th of 6 in interiors and finishes on net profit, and it has leaner overhead than the 48-trade average. Here is every figure, across all 7 revenue bands.
Run On CFOS publishes the full benchmark reference: 48 trades across all 7 revenue bands, $1M to $500M and above. The 4 bands above $25M are modeled and labeled that way in every table, and no CFOS target is published for them. Run On CFOS computes net profit as gross margin minus overhead, before taxes.
Painting by revenue band
| Metric | $1M to $5M | $5M to $10M | $10M to $25M | $25M to $50MModeled | $50M to $100MModeled | $100M to $500MModeled | $500M+Modeled | CFOS target at $1M to $5M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 8% | 12% |
| Gross margin | 18% | 20% | 21% | 22% | 24% | 25% | 27% | 22% |
| Net profit | 5% | 8% | 10% | 12% | 15% | 17% | 19% | 10% |
| Metric | $1M to $5M | $5M to $10M | $10M to $25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 12% | 11% | 10% |
| Gross margin | 22% | 22.5% | 23.5% |
| Net profit | 10% | 11.5% | 13.5% |
Modeled extension of the survey curve, not reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker. That applies to the 4 bands above $10M to $25M, and no CFOS target is published for them.
Gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size. Net profit is computed, not surveyed: net profit = gross margin minus overhead. Nothing comes out for taxes, interest or other income and expense, so it is a before tax figure, on the same basis as CFMA's net income before taxes.
CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. Gross margin minus overhead leaves out interest and other income and expense, so a figure here can come in a little above or below a reported net income on the same business.
Above the $10M to $25M band the gross margin and overhead rows are a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
Run On CFOS. Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference: Painting. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/painting. CC BY 4.0.
Figures on this page were last revised 2026-08-21. Published under CC BY 4.0, which permits reuse of any figure here, including commercially, as long as the credit above travels with it. The same figures in machine-readable form: /benchmarks.json.
Trade level gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish, and Run On CFOS computes net profit from them: net profit = gross margin minus overhead, before taxes. The CFOS targets beside them are from the book CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System, published with the full reference at runoncfos.com.
- 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker, Executive Summary, Construction Financial Management Association, 2024.
- 2025 Construction Financial Benchmarker, Executive Summary, Construction Financial Management Association, 2025.
- 2025 Performance Benchmarks, Construction Companies, Jones Maresca and Company, 2025.
- Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference, Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC, 2026.
Sourcing and method: the methodology page.
Which bands are measured. The 4 bands above $10M to $25M extend the survey curve further out and have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker. How every figure was built is explained on the methodology page.
Use these numbers on your own jobs
CFOS for QuickBooks grades your own books against the painting figures above, every month. At $1M to $5M, the published average net profit is 5% before taxes and the CFOS target is 10%.
Under $10M. You see which jobs made money while they are still open, so you can fix a painting job before it closes. From $10M to $50M. The controller gets a WIP that ties to QuickBooks Online, with each project manager's cost to complete approved every month.
5 problems specific to painting
Forty gallons of factory-tinted coating stay in your shop because the designer went one shade cooler, and the supplier's answer is no. Primer goes on, every taped joint and screw pop lights up, and the fix comes out of your labor budget and not the drywall sub's. Paint went up eight percent and you barely felt it. You bid it at a buck ten a foot, the job closed months ago, and you still can't tell anyone what a foot cost you.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a painting problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Tinted material is a write-off the day it ships | Every other trade orders material to a dimension. You order material to an opinion, and the opinion belongs to a designer or an owner who's allowed to change it right up to the day you spray. Conduit and studs get returned or moved to the next job; a drum of custom-tinted urethane in somebody's brand color has one job it can ever go on, and that's it. | Software and bookkeeping alignment |
| Primer finds the drywall defects and you pay to fix them | Every other finish trade inspects the surface before it commits money to it. Your inspection tool is your own first coat, which costs labor and material to apply and can't be undone. That timing is what makes somebody else's defect yours: the proof and the liability occur in the same minute, at 6 a.m., with no written substrate acceptance anywhere in the file. | Standards and accountability |
| Your escalation clause protects the wrong 15% | Subcontract escalation language got written for steel, copper, and fuel, because that's where general contractors have lost money. No general contractor has ever offered a painter a labor escalation clause. Public work doubles the exposure: Davis-Bacon attaches at $2,000, and prevailing wage plus fringes governs essentially your entire contract value because you've no material mass to dilute it with. | Estimating system |
| You bid square feet and spend man-hours | A square foot price leaves out every single thing that affects production: cut-in ratio, ceiling height, occupied versus vacant, and spray versus brush and roll. On pre-1978 repaint it leaves out the biggest one, because EPA RRP containment and OSHA 1926.62 controls presume manual scraping, sanding, heat gun work, and spray application at up to ten times the PEL until monitoring says otherwise. The square footage doesn't change, the hours are two or three times higher, and your estimate priced one number for both conditions. | Job cost structure |
| The bid paid for two trips and you made eleven | You work on the one surface every following trade damages, and the spec line covering it reads touch up as required until final acceptance. That's an open-ended scope priced against a closed number. When the flooring installer scuffs a corridor wall, there is no way to prove which trade did it, no backcharge gets written against anyone, and the repaint comes out of your labor. | Project management |
Painting against the other 47 trades
| Metric | Painting | Interiors and finishes average | All 48 average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 13% | 13.3% | 15.1% | 1st of 48 |
| Gross margin | 18% | 19.7% | 22.1% | 44th of 48 |
| Net profit | 5% | 6.3% | 7% | 42nd of 48 |
Painting sheds 5 points of overhead between $1M to $5M and $500M+, against 5.3 for interiors and finishes as a group. Inside that group, Acoustic ceiling, Tile and stone all keep 8%, the most in the group, and Acoustic ceiling, Drywall, Interiors and 1 more all have 13% overhead, the leanest. The leanest one is this trade.
Other interiors and finishes trades
What owners ask
What overhead should a painting contractor have?
Painting shares its overhead figure with 4 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 13% at $1M to $5M and 8% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.3 points below the interiors and finishes average of 13.3%. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 12%. The CFOS target is one point leaner than your trade's industry average at your revenue.
What gross margin should a painting contractor have?
Painting shares its gross margin figure with 4 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 18% at $1M to $5M and 27% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 1.7 points below the interiors and finishes average of 19.7%. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 22%. The CFOS target recalculates at your revenue: whatever gross margin produces the net profit target once overhead is paid, never below your trade's own industry average.
What net profit should a painting contractor have?
Painting shares its net profit figure with 2 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 5% at $1M to $5M and 19% at $500M+, before taxes, gross margin minus overhead, as a percentage of revenue. That is 1.3 points below the interiors and finishes average of 6.3%. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 10%. The CFOS target recalculates at your revenue: 10 percent before taxes, or 3.5 points better than your trade's industry average, whichever is higher.
What profit margin should a small painting business have?
Owners usually mean net profit when they say profit margin, and for painting at $1M to $5M that's 5%. Gross margin is a different number, 18%, and it's what's left after job costs but before overhead. Overhead is the 13% between the two. A small painting business holding 5% net is at the published figure for its size, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10%.
Does painting get more profitable as it grows?
Overhead is the number that moves. Painting sheds 5 points between $1M to $5M and $500M+, which is in line with the 5.3 points interiors and finishes sheds as a group. Net profit starts 2 points under the 48-trade average, so the room is in the overhead line before it's anywhere else.
Where does painting rank against the other trades?
Painting ties 1 trade in interiors and finishes on net profit, all at 5%. Acoustic ceiling, Tile and stone are the most profitable at 8%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Acoustic ceiling, Drywall and Interiors. Gross margin ranks 44th of 48 and overhead ranks 1st.
That's the industry average and the CFOS target for painting at every size. Want your own books set beside them? The Financial Health Snapshot builds a CEO Report from your last twelve months, sets every figure against your trade, and walks you through it on a 60 minute call. SPM The Construction CFO (Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC) is a separate firm, and the same author leads it.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, and CONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for painting contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.