How much does it cost to repair a small hole in drywall?

A single small patch is roughly 2 to 3 billable hours for one installer, including the return trip to sand and finish. At the national median wage of $28.33/hr and a 2.5x burden multiplier, that is $70.83 billed per hour, so $142 to $212 in labor plus about $15 in compound, tape and a scrap of board. Call it $160 to $230. Most contractors will not send a truck for that, so a minimum call-out of $200 to $350 is common and is a scheduling charge, not a materials charge.

Why is my drywall quote so much higher than the hourly wage suggests?

Because the $28.33/hr median from the BLS wage survey is what the worker receives, not what you are billed. On top of it sit payroll taxes, workers' compensation, liability insurance, the truck, fuel, tools, unbilled office and estimating time, warranty reserve and profit. The usual working assumption for a small residential contractor is 2 to 3 times the wage, giving a billed rate of $56.66 to $84.99 per hour at the median. A quote inside that band is not padded, it is normal.

Is drywall getting more expensive in 2026?

Materials are not. The BLS Producer Price Index for gypsum products stood at 481.644 in July 2026 against 483.409 a year earlier, a fall of 0.4 percent over twelve months. Insulation materials rose 0.8 percent, from 285.333 to 287.742. Both moves are small. If your quote is materially higher than one you received a year ago, the increase is coming from labor, scheduling or scope, not from the board itself. Index levels are index points, not dollars, and cannot be converted into a price per sheet.

How many hours should a 4 by 8 foot drywall patch take?

Roughly 8 to 12 crew-hours spread over two or three visits, because taping compound has to dry between coats. That is one installer for a day plus return trips, or two workers for half a day plus returns. At $70.83 billed per hour, 10 hours is $708 in labor. Add about $60 in board, tape, compound and screws and you are near $770. Anything quoted above $1,200 for a flat, accessible wall patch needs an explanation on the page.

Should a drywall quote itemise labor and materials separately?

Yes, and the single question that exposes a padded bid is: how many crew-hours is this, and at what billed rate? A contractor working from real production numbers answers immediately. Ask for hours, billed rate, crew size, material allowance, disposal and any minimum call-out as separate lines. If the whole job comes back as one number with no hours behind it, you cannot compare it to a second bid and you cannot check it against the $28.33/hr wage floor.

Drywall Repair Cost: Where the Money Actually Goes

A single small drywall patch runs about $160 to $230 once you build it up from the federal wage. A 4 by 8 foot section lands near $700 to $900. A full room of new board and finish is closer to $2,000 to $3,500. Those numbers come from one wage figure, $28.33 per hour, multiplied out with the crew size, hours and burden shown line by line below.

Key points

The national median wage for Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installers is $28.33/hr in the 2025 BLS OEWS survey, with a 25th percentile of $22.81 and a 75th of $35.69.
That wage is not your price. Applying the standard 2x to 3x burden and overhead multiplier gives a billed labor rate of $56.66 to $84.99 per hour at the median wage.
Gypsum product prices fell 0.4 percent over the twelve months to July 2026, so a bigger quote than last year is coming from labor or scope, not board.
The gap between a 25th-percentile crew and a 75th-percentile crew is $12.88/hr in wage, which becomes $32.20/hr in billed rate at a 2.5x multiplier, or about $322 across a ten-hour job.
Every figure below is arithmetic on published federal wage data. This site does not survey contractors, collect quotes or inspect properties.

Close-up of partially tiled wall in a construction area, showcasing incomplete renovation work.

What is the actual hourly wage for drywall work?

$28.33 an hour at the national median. Here is the full wage distribution from the 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, covering 83,080 employed installers nationally. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook describes the occupation and its entry requirements.

A textured red brick wall with an electric meter box, captured outdoors in Poland.

Role	Wage measure	Hourly wage
Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installer (SOC 47-2081)	25th percentile	$22.81
Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installer	Median	$28.33
Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installer	Mean	$30.58
Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installer	75th percentile	$35.69
First-Line Supervisor, Construction Trades	Median	$38.42

Two things to notice. The mean sits above the median, which means the top of the distribution is stretched further from the middle than the bottom is. And the supervisor median of $38.42 is $10.09 above the installer median, so any job where a foreman is on site rather than just checking in carries a real premium.

Why is the price so much higher than the wage?

Because you are not buying an hour of someone’s time, you are buying an hour of a business’s time. The wage is one input into the billed rate. On top of it sit payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums, general liability insurance, the truck and its fuel, tools and blades and blades again, the unbilled hours spent estimating your job, a reserve against callbacks, and profit.

Two men discussing and pointing at an interior wall during a renovation project.

The working assumption used throughout this article is a multiplier of 2 to 3 times the wage, with 2.5x as the middle case. That is an assumption, not a measured figure. It is not published by the BLS and it is not derived from any survey. It is the range small residential contractors commonly work within. If your contractor tells you their multiplier is different, believe them over this page, and then check the arithmetic still works.

Here is what that assumption does to each wage level.

Wage percentile	Wage	Billed at 2.0x	Billed at 2.5x	Billed at 3.0x
25th	$22.81	$45.62	$57.03	$68.43
Median	$28.33	$56.66	$70.83	$84.99
Mean	$30.58	$61.16	$76.45	$91.74
75th	$35.69	$71.38	$89.23	$107.07
Supervisor	$38.42	$76.84	$96.05	$115.26

The spread across that table is wide. A 25th-percentile installer billed at 2.0x costs $45.62 an hour. A 75th-percentile installer billed at 3.0x costs $107.07. That is a factor of 2.35 between two quotes that are both defensible. This is the single biggest reason two honest bids for the same job differ by more than you expect.

What does each job size actually cost?

Below is the full sweep, from a nail pop to a whole room. Find your row.

Method, applied identically to every row: crew-hours × billed rate + material allowance. The billed rate is $70.83, which is the national median wage of $28.33 multiplied by 2.5. Material allowances are stated as assumptions, since the BLS publishes a price index for gypsum products but not a dollar price, and an index level cannot be turned into dollars.

Job	Crew-hours	Labor at $70.83/hr	Material allowance	Total
Nail pop or screw pop, single	1.5	$106	$5	$111
Small hole, under 6 inches	2.5	$177	$15	$192
Two or three small holes, one room	4	$283	$25	$308
Doorknob hole plus corner bead damage	5	$354	$30	$384
Patch, 2 ft by 2 ft	6	$425	$35	$460
Patch, 4 ft by 4 ft	8	$567	$45	$612
Patch, 4 ft by 8 ft, one sheet	10	$708	$60	$768
Ceiling patch, 4 ft by 8 ft	14	$991	$70	$1,061
Water-damaged wall, 8 ft by 8 ft	18	$1,275	$120	$1,395
Half a room reboarded, 200 sq ft	24	$1,700	$200	$1,900
Full room reboarded, 400 sq ft	34	$2,408	$380	$2,788
Full room plus ceiling, 550 sq ft	46	$3,258	$520	$3,778

Ceiling work carries about 40 percent more hours than the same area of wall. You are working overhead, every sheet needs support while it is fastened, and the finish shows every flaw because light rakes across it. That is why the 4 by 8 ceiling row is $1,061 against $768 for the same area of wall.

The hours in this table are the assumption doing the most work. They include return visits, because taping compound has to dry between coats and no one finishes a three-coat joint in a single visit. If a contractor tells you a one-sheet patch is a four-hour job, they are either skipping a coat or planning to come back and not counting the trip.

How much does the crew’s skill level change the price?

Two axes move at once here: which wage percentile the crew sits at, and which multiplier the contractor runs. This table takes the one-sheet patch at 10 crew-hours plus a $60 material allowance and varies both.

Crew wage level	At 2.0x	At 2.5x	At 3.0x
25th percentile, $22.81	$516	$630	$744
Median, $28.33	$627	$768	$910
Mean, $30.58	$672	$825	$977
75th percentile, $35.69	$774	$952	$1,131
Supervisor rate, $38.42	$828	$1,021	$1,213

The same physical job spans $516 to $1,213 depending on nothing more than who shows up and how the business is structured. That is a 2.35x spread, and it is why a low bid is not automatically a bargain and a high bid is not automatically a rip-off.

The supervisor row matters for one specific case. If your repair involves a structural question, a fire-rated assembly, or a ceiling that has to match an existing texture across a large visible area, a foreman is on site and you are paying somewhere in that bottom row.

What is the metro spread on drywall labor?

This is where an honest article has to stop. The wage data supplied here is the national figure only: median $28.33, 25th percentile $22.81, 75th percentile $35.69, across 83,080 workers. There is no metro breakdown in this dataset, so there is no Dallas figure and no Los Angeles figure to compare.

What the national distribution does tell you is the size of the spread you should expect. The 25th to 75th percentile band is $22.81 to $35.69, a difference of $12.88 an hour in wage. Multiply that by 2.5 and it becomes $32.20 an hour in billed rate. Across a ten-hour job that is $322. Across a 34-hour room that is $1,095.

Some of that spread is geography and some of it is experience within the same market. The national data cannot separate the two. Anyone who tells you exactly what drywall labor costs in your specific city, without citing a metro-level wage series, is guessing and presenting the guess as a fact.

Are drywall materials getting more expensive?

No. Gypsum products fell over the last twelve months. Insulation rose slightly. Both moves are small enough that they cannot explain a meaningfully higher quote.

Material series	July 2025	July 2026	Twelve-month change
Gypsum products (PPI WPU137)	483.409	481.644	−0.4%
Insulation materials (PPI WPU1392)	285.333	287.742	+0.8%

These are index points on a 1982 = 100 base, taken from the BLS Producer Price Index. They are not dollars and they cannot be converted into dollars. An index of 481.644 does not mean a sheet costs $481.64, and no arithmetic on this page turns it into a price.

What the index is good for is direction. Applied to the material allowances used above, a 0.4 percent fall on a $60 allowance is 24 cents. On the $520 allowance for a full room with ceiling it is $2.08. Material movement over the past year is a rounding error against the labor line. If a contractor cites rising board prices as the reason a quote is up 15 percent from last year, that reason does not survive contact with the index.

Reverse the calculation: what does a quote imply?

Turn the arithmetic around. If you have a number in hand, divide out the material allowance and the billed rate and see how many hours the contractor is charging you for. Then ask whether the job is really that big.

This table takes a one-sheet patch, assumes a $60 material allowance and the median $70.83 billed rate, and works backwards from the quote to the implied hours.

Quote you received	Less materials	Implied crew-hours	Verdict against a 10-hour job
$400	$340	4.8	Likely skipping a coat or a return trip
$550	$490	6.9	Tight but possible with a fast finisher
$700	$640	9.0	In range
$770	$710	10.0	On the median assumption exactly
$950	$890	12.6	Reasonable if access or texture matching is hard
$1,200	$1,140	16.1	Needs an explanation written on the quote
$1,600	$1,540	21.7	Either a much bigger scope than described, or padded

You can run this on any quote. Subtract a sensible material allowance, divide by a billed rate you have chosen and can defend, and look at the hours. Then ask the contractor how many hours they have in it. If their answer and your arithmetic land in the same neighbourhood, the bid is honest even if it is not the cheapest. If they will not give you an hours figure at all, that is the finding.

Two things homeowners get wrong

Misconception one: the multiplier is greed. It is not. Take the median wage of $28.33 billed at 2.5x, which is $70.83. The worker gets $28.33. The remaining $42.50 covers the employer’s share of payroll taxes, workers’ compensation for a trade that works on stilts and ladders, liability cover, the vehicle, tools, the hours spent driving to your house to quote a job that may go to someone else, and the reserve against a joint that cracks in six months. What is left as profit is a fraction of that $42.50, not the whole of it. A contractor billing at 2.0x, or $56.66, is running thin.

Misconception two: a small hole should be cheap. The material for a six-inch hole is a scrap of board and a few dollars of compound. The cost is entirely time and trips. Three coats of compound with drying between them means two or three visits, and each visit carries drive time you are paying for whether it is itemised or not. That is why the table above puts a small hole at $192 while the material allowance is $15. The board is 8 percent of the cost. This is also why contractors set minimum call-outs of $200 to $350, and why bundling every patch in the house into one visit is the single most effective thing you can do to lower the bill.

When is this estimate wrong?

The arithmetic above sees wages, hours and a material allowance. It does not see any of the following, and each can move the total well outside the ranges given.

Permits and inspection. Structural work, or drywall tied to a fire-rated assembly between a garage and a living space, may require a permit and an inspection. The fee and the wait are jurisdiction-specific and are not in any wage series.

Disposal. Old board is heavy and bulky. A room’s worth may need a dumpster or dump fees. In a house built before 1978, lead-safe work practices apply and the crew must be certified under the EPA’s rules, which changes both who can do the job and what the visit costs. Start at epa.gov if your house predates 1978.

Asbestos in old joint compound. Joint compound manufactured before the late 1970s may contain asbestos. Testing and abatement are a separate trade with separate pricing and are not remotely covered by a drywall wage.

Cause not yet fixed. A water-damaged ceiling repaired before the leak is found gets repaired twice. Plumbing or roofing work is not in this calculation.

Access. A twelve-foot stairwell wall, a vaulted ceiling, or a room you cannot get a sheet of board into without cutting it means scaffolding, extra hands and more hours than the table shows. High ceilings can add half again to the hours for identical square footage.

Texture matching. Matching an existing knockdown, orange peel or popcorn ceiling across a visible plane is skilled work and is where the 75th-percentile wage of $35.69 earns its keep. A patch that is structurally perfect but visibly different is a failed repair.

Season and emergency call-out. Compound dries slower in cold, humid conditions, which stretches the return-visit schedule. Same-day or after-hours work carries a premium that no wage table predicts.

Paint. Nothing in this article includes priming or painting. Ask explicitly whether the quote finishes at level 4 or 5 ready for paint, or includes paint.

How do you read a real quote against these numbers?

Ask for these as separate lines, and treat a refusal as information.

Crew-hours, and how many separate visits they are spread across
Billed labor rate per hour
Crew size and whether a supervisor is on site
Material allowance as its own figure
Disposal and dump fees
Minimum call-out, if one applies
Whether the price ends at level 4 finish, level 5 finish, primed, or painted

The one question that exposes a padded bid: “How many crew-hours is this, and what is your billed rate?” A contractor working from real production numbers answers in one breath, because that is how they built the price. A contractor who picked a number they thought you would accept has to invent the hours on the spot, and the invented hours rarely divide cleanly back into the total. Do that division yourself with the reverse table above.

A second useful question: “Is the material allowance a pass-through or a fixed figure?” Given that gypsum products moved −0.4 percent over the past year, there is no case for a material contingency of any size on a small repair.

What to check before you sign

Confirm the scope in writing, down to which walls and whether the ceiling is included. Confirm the finish level and whether paint is in or out. Confirm how many visits and roughly when, because the drying schedule is the reason a small job takes a week of calendar time. Confirm who hauls the debris. Confirm the hours and rate, then divide them yourself and see whether they multiply back to the total on the page.

Then compare against the tables here. If your quote sits between the 2.0x and 3.0x rows for a plausible crew and a plausible hour count, it is a normal price. If it sits far above, the excess should be explained by something in the “when this estimate is wrong” list, in writing, before you sign. If it sits far below, ask which coat is being skipped.

Every number on this page is arithmetic performed on published federal wage and price data, with the assumptions stated where they are made. No contractors were surveyed, no quotes were collected, and no property was inspected.