SideWRK is a painting invoice app for painters who take jobs on the side.
This painting invoice app bills a paint job the way its Add work form asks for it: square feet, times your rate. Five jobs a year are free; after that it’s $19 a month.
Six doors and the trim around them, in a hallway and two bedrooms. Every line is further down.
Two boxes on every line: square feet and a rate
Add work on a painting job opens on two boxes, Square feet and Rate ($/sq ft). The rate starts at $3.50, the painter row of our 2026 Side-Work Rate Report, and you change it once in Shop. A new painting account also opens with three go-to jobs on the Jobs board, interior repaint, exterior repaint and a single room, each a starting price you tap to begin an estimate.
| Job | Starting price |
|---|---|
| Drywall patch & paint | $250 |
| Single room | $450 |
| Trim & doors | $700 |
| Cabinet refinish | $1,800 |
| Interior repaint | $2,200 |
| Exterior repaint | $3,800 |
| Anything else, by the square foot | $3.50/sq ft |
The $3.50 is all in, paint included. The same row of the report puts about 75% of a painting ticket on your time, so a quarter of the money buys paint, primer, caulk and tape. Divide a starting price by $3.50 and you get the size of job it assumes: the $2,200 interior repaint is about 630 square feet.
Painter
The tape line, the cut-in, the second coat going on wet.
Square feet, times your rate.
The customer approves the number on their phone before you open a can.
Trim and doors, invoiced at $700
Six interior doors painted both sides, plus the casing and baseboard around them, white semi-gloss over white. The walls are someone else’s problem this time.
| Fill, caulk and scuff-sand the trim and doors | $125 | |
| Paint doors, both sides, two coats (doors) | 6 × $50 | $300 |
| Casing and baseboard, two coats (lin ft) | 200 × $0.50 | $100 |
| Semi-gloss trim enamel (gal) | 2 × $60 | $120 |
| Caulk, wood filler, sanding sponges and tape | $55 | |
| Total the customer approves | $700 | |
| Materials cost (you), private | −$105 | |
| Est. profit | $595 |
Labor is $525 of the $700, the 75% the rate report gives painting. Two gallons covers it: six doors both sides and the trim come to roughly 340 square feet a coat if the trim runs about 6 inches wide, so about 680 at two coats, and a gallon goes about 350 square feet a coat.
Floor footage or wall footage, pick one
A painting job has two square-foot numbers in it, and they are far apart. A 12 by 12 bedroom is 144 square feet of floor. Under an 8-foot ceiling it has 384 square feet of wall, and 352 once a door and a window come off. The form takes whatever number you type, so decide which footage your rate is against and keep it the same on every line of the estimate. How to price painting jobs works the same bedroom both ways.
Inside a job, Add work has a button that opens our painting calculator as a takeoff. It works from room size or total wall area, takes 20 square feet off for each door and 12 for each window, and counts paint at 350 square feet a gallon per coat and primer at 250. Tap Add to this estimate and it drops in a labor line in square feet at the rate you set in it, plus one materials line at what the calculator figures the materials cost. That line comes in at cost, so put your markup on it before you send. The Pick sheet beside it is the shopping list.
Size a room before you tape it
A one-story exterior, invoiced at $3,800
About 1,400 square feet of lap siding on a one-story house, two coats, with the fascia, window trim and front door brushed in a second color. A few bare spots where the old paint let go.
| Wash, scrape, sand and spot-prime | $600 | |
| Caulk gaps and fill nail holes | $250 | |
| Paint siding, two coats (sq ft) | 1400 × $1 | $1,400 |
| Fascia, window trim and front door, brushed | $600 | |
| Exterior acrylic, satin (gal) | 9 × $62 | $558 |
| Exterior trim enamel (gal) | 2 × $66 | $132 |
| Bonding primer for bare wood (gal) | 2 × $40 | $80 |
| Caulk, tape, plastic and drop cloths | $180 | |
| Total the customer approves | $3,800 | |
| Materials cost (you), private | −$654 | |
| Est. profit | $3,146 |
Labor is $2,850 and materials bill at $950, the same 75 and 25. The paint, primer and sundries cost you $654. Nine gallons is two coats over 1,400 square feet at 350 a coat, with a gallon spare for siding that drinks it. A deposit on approval buys that paint with the customer’s money; you set it per estimate, and a card deposit needs Stripe connected.
Old houses, one coat, and the customer’s paint
- Houses built before 1978 may fall under the EPA’s lead-safe renovation rules when you disturb paint. The property on a painting job has a Built before 1978? field, and every painting estimate and invoice you print carries a lead-safe notice for older homes. SideWRK records the job. It doesn’t decide whether the rule covers it.
- One coat because the customer asked for one. Each piece of work takes a note that prints under it on the estimate and the invoice. The note field’s own example for a painter is a one-coat job done at the customer’s request, with a line saying coverage may vary. Write it before they approve, while it still reads as their choice.
- Paint the customer already bought goes on as a material line at $0 with its condition set to customer-supplied, and it prints as Cust-supplied next to the line.
- Rooms they might skip. Mark a line optional, the hall ceiling or the closet doors, and the customer checks it on or off when they approve. The total moves as they choose.
- A bigger total. With no license number on your profile, a painting job of $1,000 or more shows a caution on the job screen before you send it. It never blocks you. Once you add a license number, it prints on every estimate and invoice.
$19 a month, or $190 a year. Five jobs a rolling year are free and need no card. SideWRK takes no cut of what the customer pays you.
Start freeBefore the first coat
Do I have to bill painting by the square foot?
No. Square feet times a rate is how a painting line opens, at $3.50 to start. You can change the rate, price a job flat from your go-to jobs, or type any line yourself.
Can the customer choose which rooms to paint?
Yes. Mark a line optional and the customer checks it on or off on the approval page. The total updates as they choose, and what they approved is logged.
What if the homeowner already bought the paint?
Add it as a material line at $0 and set its condition to customer-supplied. It prints as Cust-supplied next to the line, so nobody wonders later whose paint went on the wall.
Can I take a deposit before I buy the paint?
Yes. You choose per estimate whether a deposit is asked for when the customer approves, and how much. With Stripe connected, they pay it by card right after they approve.
Does the estimate say whether lead-safe rules apply to the house?
No. The property record notes whether the house was built before 1978, and the printed estimate and invoice carry a lead-safe notice for older homes. SideWRK doesn’t decide whether a rule covers your job.