Exterior painting is priced by the square foot of wall, and unlike interior work the material is a minor line while access and preparation dominate.
Cost by house size
Two coats, standard prep, one color, single story.
| House | Siding area | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 ft² floor | ~1,300 ft² | $2,300–3,900 |
| 1,500 ft² | ~1,800 ft² | $3,100–5,400 |
| 2,000 ft² | ~2,300 ft² | $4,000–6,900 |
| 2,500 ft² | ~2,800 ft² | $4,800–8,400 |
| 3,000 ft² | ~3,400 ft² | $5,800–10,200 |
That is roughly $1.80–3.00 per square foot of siding, and a second story adds 25–40% for staging, ladder time and the slower pace of working at height. A third story adds more again and may need lift rental at $300–500 a day.
By siding material
| Siding | Prep required | Cost / ft² | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinyl | Wash | $1.40–2.20 | Must use vinyl-safe color |
| Aluminum | Wash, degloss chalk | $1.60–2.60 | Chalking is the whole prep |
| Fiber cement | Wash, caulk | $1.70–2.80 | Takes paint very well |
| Wood lap | Scrape, sand, prime bare | $2.20–3.60 | Prep-dominated |
| Cedar shingle | Scrape, sand | $2.60–4.20 | Enormous surface area |
| Stucco | Patch, seal | $1.90–3.20 | High paint consumption |
| Brick | Clean, masonry primer | $2.40–4.00 | One-way decision |
Wood is the expensive one and it is entirely prep. Vinyl is cheap because there is nothing to do but wash it — with one hard constraint: paint no darker than the original vinyl unless the product is a vinyl-safe formulation. Dark paint on vinyl absorbs heat and the panels warp permanently.
Brick deserves its own warning: painting brick is effectively irreversible. Stripping it later is expensive and often damages the face. It also traps moisture in a wall designed to breathe unless a genuinely vapor-permeable masonry coating is used.
Prep is half the job
| Prep item | Rate |
|---|---|
| Pressure wash | $0.15–0.30 / ft² |
| Scrape and sand loose paint | $0.40–1.10 / ft² |
| Spot prime bare wood | $0.20–0.40 / ft² |
| Caulk joints and trim | $0.15–0.35 / ft² |
| Repair rotten trim | $12–25 / linear ft |
On a wood house those lines add to $0.90–2.15 per square foot — as much as the painting.
This is where cheap bids come from, and it is the single reason exterior jobs fail early. Paint applied over chalk, over dirt, or over paint that was already letting go, peels regardless of what it cost per gallon. A cheap bid is almost always a prep bid, not a paint bid.
Materials
At 350–400 ft² per gallon on smooth siding, a 2,300 ft² house takes about 6 gallons per coat, 12 gallons for two — $480–840 in quality exterior acrylic.
Textured surfaces eat considerably more: stucco and brick can run 60–100% above smooth, which turns 12 gallons into 20.
Materials are therefore 12–20% of the invoice. As with interior work, buying the better paint is not where the money is.
Spray or brush
Spraying is 3–4 times faster on open siding and is how most exterior work is done. It uses 20–40% more paint in overspray and film build, and it needs far more masking.
The critical detail is back-rolling — following the spray with a roller to work the film into the surface. Sprayed and not back-rolled, the paint sits on top of the substrate rather than keying into it, and on wood and stucco that shortens its life materially. The full comparison covers when each makes sense.
Trim, windows and doors are brushed regardless, and on a house with a lot of them the spray advantage shrinks.
How long it should last
| Substrate | Quality acrylic, good prep |
|---|---|
| Fiber cement | 12–18 yr |
| Vinyl | 10–15 yr |
| Stucco | 8–14 yr |
| Wood, protected elevation | 8–12 yr |
| Wood, south or west elevation | 5–8 yr |
South and west elevations fail first, by years. A house repainted entirely because one elevation failed is common and avoidable — repainting the two exposed elevations at year seven and the whole house at year twelve costs less over twenty years than two full repaints.
Scheduling
Surface temperature, not air temperature, governs. Most acrylics want 50 °F and rising with no dew that night, and the west wall in late afternoon sun can be 40 °F above ambient. Getting the timing right is worth more to the finish than the brand of paint.