How much does exterior paint touch-up cost in Philadelphia?

A half-day single-painter touch-up builds to roughly $200 to $290 of labor at the $27.60 median Philadelphia wage with a 2x to 3x burden multiplier, plus $40 to $80 of material, so $240 to $370 total. A full day of two painters on a larger scope builds to $880 to $1,325 labor plus material. These are derived from published wages, not from collected quotes.

Why is my quote higher than the wage math suggests?

The wage is what the painter is paid, not what you are billed. Payroll taxes, workers' compensation, liability insurance, the truck, fuel, ladders, office time, warranty reserve and profit all sit on top. A 2x to 3x multiplier on the $27.60 Philadelphia median gives a billed labor rate of $55.20 to $82.80 per painter-hour. Above 3x, ask what the extra covers.

Are Philadelphia painters more expensive than the national average?

Yes. The Philadelphia median painter wage is $27.60 per hour against $23.75 nationally, a gap of $3.85 per hour or 16.2%. On an eight-hour single-painter day that is $30.80 of raw wage, or $61.60 to $92.40 once a 2x to 3x burden multiplier is applied.

How much has paint itself gone up in the last year?

The BLS Producer Price Index for prepared paint read 448.296 in July 2026 against 422.049 a year earlier, up 6.2%. That is the index for what producers charge, not a retail shelf price. On a $60 material line, a 6.2% increase is about $3.70, which is why paint cost is rarely the reason a quote moved.

Is a minimum charge on a small touch-up fair?

Usually yes. A one-hour touch-up still consumes drive time, setup, ladder handling and cleanup. At a 2x to 3x multiplier on $27.60, one billed hour is $55.20 to $82.80, which does not cover a round trip. Most small residential contractors set a half-day floor. Ask for the minimum in writing, and ask what else they will do inside it.

What single question exposes a padded bid?

Ask how many painter-hours are in the price and at what billed rate. A real bid answers in seconds because the estimator built it that way. Divide the labor total by the hours and compare against $55.20 to $82.80 per hour. A rate far above that, with no stated reason like lift rental or lead-safe work, is where the padding sits.

Exterior Paint Touch-Up Cost in Philadelphia, Explained

A small exterior paint touch-up in Philadelphia builds to roughly $240 to $370 for a half-day of one painter, and $960 to $1,405 for a full day of two. That comes from the published Philadelphia median painter wage of $27.60 per hour, a burden and overhead multiplier of 2x to 3x, and a stated material allowance. Every step is shown below so you can change any input.

Key points

The Philadelphia median wage for Painters, Construction and Maintenance is $27.60/hr, against $23.75/hr nationally, a gap of $3.85/hr or 16.2%.
Billed labor is not the wage. Applying a 2x to 3x burden multiplier gives $55.20 to $82.80 per painter-hour in Philadelphia.
The BLS producer price index for prepared paint rose 6.2% in twelve months, from 422.049 to 448.296. Material is the smallest line in a touch-up, so that increase moves a $60 allowance by about $3.70.
Philadelphia has 3,360 employed painters at a 25th-to-75th percentile spread of $23.21 to $30.69, so crew composition alone swings billed labor by $14.96/hr at a 2x multiplier.
This page collects no quotes and inspects no houses. It does arithmetic on federal wage data in public.

Interior of modern light house with glass table near chairs and couch with pillows near paintings and shelves on wall near entrance to kitchen with counter with window

What are the actual wages behind a Philadelphia paint quote?

The wage is the starting point, and it is published. Below is the BLS OEWS 2025 data for Painters, Construction and Maintenance in Philadelphia, with the national and Pennsylvania figures for comparison.

Modern interior of spacious living room decorated with gray shelves purple potted flower and picture

Area	25th pct	Median	75th pct	Mean	Employed
United States	$21.46	$23.75	$29.65	$26.64	225,190
Pennsylvania	$22.89	$25.06	$29.33	$26.07	5,980
Philadelphia, PA	$23.21	$27.60	$30.69	$27.79	3,360

Philadelphia sits above both. Against the national median, the gap is $3.85 per hour, which is 16.2%. Against the Pennsylvania median, $2.54 per hour, or 10.1%. Note also that the Philadelphia spread from 25th to 75th percentile is $7.48 per hour. A crew of a lead hand near the 75th percentile and a helper near the 25th does not cost the same as two median painters, and that difference is invisible on a quote that shows only a total.

Supervision is a real cost too. First-line supervisors of construction trades in Philadelphia earn a median $46.08 per hour. On a one-day touch-up a supervisor may show up for twenty minutes, but on a multi-day job that time is inside the price. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for painters describes the duties and entry requirements behind these numbers.

Why is the billed rate double or triple the wage?

Because the wage is one line in the contractor’s cost. On top of $27.60 per hour sit payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums (high for work at height), general liability insurance, the truck and its fuel and insurance, ladders and sprayers and their replacement, the unbilled hour someone spent writing your estimate, a warranty reserve for the callback, and profit.

A room prepared for renovation with a ladder, paint supplies, and drop cloth.

The standard working assumption for small residential contractors is that the billed rate lands between 2x and 3x the paid wage. That range is an assumption, not a measured figure. BLS publishes wages; it does not publish what contractors bill. State it out loud and the whole estimate becomes something you can argue with.

Wage basis	2.0x	2.5x	3.0x
National median $23.75	$47.50	$59.38	$71.25
Philadelphia 25th pct $23.21	$46.42	$58.03	$69.63
Philadelphia median $27.60	$55.20	$69.00	$82.80
Philadelphia mean $27.79	$55.58	$69.48	$83.37
Philadelphia 75th pct $30.69	$61.38	$76.73	$92.07
Supervisor median $46.08	$92.16	$115.20	$138.24

Read across your own row. If a Philadelphia contractor quotes $70 per painter-hour, that is a 2.5x multiplier on the local median, and it is ordinary. If they quote $130 per painter-hour for a painter, not a supervisor, that is 4.7x and needs an explanation.

What does the full arithmetic look like for one job?

Here is the build-up for a common scope: touching up trim, fascia and a porch on a Philadelphia rowhouse. One painter, half a day.

Line	Value	Note
Crew size	1 painter	assumption
Hours on site	4.0	assumption
Painter-hours	1 × 4.0 = 4.0
Base wage	$27.60/hr	BLS Philadelphia median
Raw wage cost	4.0 × $27.60 = $110.40
Burden multiplier low	2.0x	assumption
Burden multiplier high	3.0x	assumption
Billed labor low	$110.40 × 2.0 = $220.80
Billed labor high	$110.40 × 3.0 = $331.20
Material allowance	$40 to $80	assumption: 1–2 gal plus caulk, primer, sundries
Total	$261 to $411

Change any line and the answer changes. If your porch is a second-floor deck and the painter is on a ladder for three of the four hours, hours go up. If the color is a custom match requiring two gallons plus a tint fee, materials go up. The frame holds; the inputs are yours.

Table 1 — Full range: what does every realistic scope cost?

Below is the sweep. Every row is painter-hours × $27.60 × burden, plus a material allowance scaled to scope. Find your row.

Scope	Crew	Hours	Painter-hrs	Raw wage	Labor @2x	Labor @3x	Material	Total range
Single trim patch	1	2	2	$55.20	$110	$166	$25	$135 – $191
Door and frame	1	3	3	$82.80	$166	$248	$35	$201 – $283
Porch, half day	1	4	4	$110.40	$221	$331	$60	$281 – $391
Front facade trim	1	6	6	$165.60	$331	$497	$80	$411 – $577
Rowhouse front, 1 day	1	8	8	$220.80	$442	$662	$110	$552 – $772
Two elevations, 1 day	2	8	16	$441.60	$883	$1,325	$180	$1,063 – $1,505
Full exterior touch-up	2	16	32	$883.20	$1,766	$2,650	$320	$2,086 – $2,970
Full exterior, prep-heavy	2	24	48	$1,324.80	$2,650	$3,974	$450	$3,100 – $4,424
Twin, all four sides	3	24	72	$1,987.20	$3,974	$5,962	$650	$4,624 – $6,612
Large home, multi-day	3	40	120	$3,312.00	$6,624	$9,936	$1,000	$7,624 – $10,936

Labor figures rounded to the dollar. Material allowances are assumptions, scaled at roughly $15 per painter-hour at small scope and tapering as coverage improves on larger jobs.

Table 2 — How much does crew composition change the answer?

Two axes here: which wage percentile your crew actually sits at, and what multiplier the contractor uses. Both are hidden inside a single quoted number. This table is for a 16 painter-hour job (two painters, one full day).

Crew wage basis	@2.0x	@2.5x	@3.0x	Spread
National median $23.75	$760	$950	$1,140	$380
Philadelphia 25th pct $23.21	$743	$928	$1,114	$371
PA statewide median $25.06	$802	$1,003	$1,203	$401
Philadelphia median $27.60	$883	$1,104	$1,325	$442
Philadelphia mean $27.79	$889	$1,112	$1,334	$445
Philadelphia 75th pct $30.69	$982	$1,228	$1,473	$491

The full span across this table is $743 to $1,473, a factor of 1.98x for the identical amount of work. The multiplier moves the number more than the wage percentile does. A Philadelphia 75th-percentile crew at 2x ($982) costs less than a national-median crew at 3x ($1,140). If two bids for the same scope differ by 50%, crew skill is rarely the reason. Overhead structure usually is.

Table 3 — Year over year, and the reverse calculation

Two things to check. First, what the paint index actually did. The BLS Producer Price Index for prepared paint moved from 422.049 in July 2025 to 448.296 in July 2026, up 6.2%. Those are index points on a 1982 = 100 base, not dollars, and they cannot be converted to a shelf price. Use them only for direction and rate.

Apply that 6.2% to the material lines above:

Scope	Material, prior year basis	+6.2%	Dollar change	Change as % of total (@2.5x labor)
Porch, half day	$56.50	$60.00	$3.50	1.2%
Rowhouse front, 1 day	$103.60	$110.00	$6.40	1.1%
Full exterior touch-up	$301.30	$320.00	$18.70	0.8%
Large home, multi-day	$941.60	$1,000.00	$58.40	0.7%

Paint inflation of 6.2% moves a full exterior touch-up by under 1%. If a contractor cites material costs as the reason a price jumped 20%, the arithmetic does not support it.

Now the reverse calculation. If you have a quote and want to know what it implies, work backwards.

Your quoted total	Minus material est.	÷ 16 painter-hrs	Implied multiplier on $27.60	Verdict
$700	$520	$32.50/hr	1.18x	Below wage-plus-burden. Ask who is actually on site.
$900	$720	$45.00/hr	1.63x	Thin. Check insurance and workers’ comp certificates.
$1,100	$920	$57.50/hr	2.08x	Ordinary.
$1,300	$1,120	$70.00/hr	2.54x	Ordinary.
$1,500	$1,320	$82.50/hr	2.99x	Top of range. Expect prep detail in writing.
$1,900	$1,720	$107.50/hr	3.89x	Needs an explanation: lift, lead-safe work, or padding.
$2,400	$2,220	$138.75/hr	5.03x	Either the scope is not what you think, or the bid is padded.

Assumes $180 material and 16 painter-hours. If the contractor states different hours, redo the division with their number. That is the point of the exercise.

Two things homeowners get wrong

Misconception one: “the painter makes what I’m billed.” No. At a 2.5x multiplier on a $1,104 sixteen-hour day, the two painters take home $441.60 of it between them in gross wages. The remaining $662 covers taxes, comp, insurance, vehicle, tools, estimating time, warranty and profit. Assuming your painter pocketed $69 an hour is why negotiations go badly.

Misconception two: “paint prices are why quotes went up.” The paint index rose 6.2% year over year. On the full exterior touch-up row, that is $18.70 on a roughly $2,400 job, or 0.8%. Labor is 85% or more of every row in the full-range table. Material is a rounding error in a touch-up. It matters on a full repaint with premium product, and even then it is the smaller half.

When is this estimate wrong?

The arithmetic is only as good as the hours input, and the hours input is where reality intrudes. This calculation cannot see:

Prep condition. Peeling, chalking or failed caulk turns a 4-hour job into a 12-hour job. Scraping and priming is the single largest hour driver on exterior work and it is invisible from the street.
Lead paint. Philadelphia rowhousing is old. Pre-1978 housing disturbed by sanding or scraping triggers federal RRP rules and certified-firm requirements, containment, and disposal. See epa.gov for the rule. That adds hours and certified-labor cost this table does not model.
Access and height. Third-floor cornice work, tight alleys with no ladder footing, or scaffold and lift rental are separate cost lines. A lift rental can exceed the labor on a small scope.
Permits and sidewalk closure. Staging on a public sidewalk in a dense block may require a permit and fee. Not in this math.
Disposal. Paint waste, scraped debris and containment plastic have a disposal cost.
Season. Exterior coatings have minimum application temperatures. A late-November Philadelphia job may need shortened windows or get postponed, and shoulder-season scheduling is priced differently than a booked-solid June.
Emergency or same-week call-out. Rush work commands a premium that no published wage captures.
Minimum charges. A one-hour row in the table above is arithmetically correct and commercially unrealistic. Nobody drives to your house for $135.
Wage data lag. The OEWS figures are the 2025 survey year, read in 2026. Wages move.

How should you read a real quote against these numbers?

Answer first: make the contractor separate labor hours from everything else, then divide.

Line items that should appear separately on any quote you sign:

Painter-hours, or crew size and days, stated explicitly
Billed labor rate, or a labor subtotal you can divide
Material allowance, with product and number of gallons
Prep scope described in verbs: scrape, sand, prime, caulk, wash
Number of coats
Access equipment (ladder, scaffold, lift) and whether rental is included
Disposal
Warranty term and what voids it

The single question that exposes a padded bid: “How many painter-hours are in this, and what is the billed hourly rate?” An estimator who built the price from hours answers in seconds. One who picked a number that felt right will deflect to “it’s a package” or “we price by the job.” Both answers are fine as pricing models but neither survives the follow-up: then how many hours do you expect to be here? Divide their labor subtotal by their hours and compare against the $55.20 to $82.80 band. Any number far outside that needs a reason attached to it, and a good contractor will have one.

Also compare bids on hours, not on totals. Two quotes at $1,100 and $1,500 look 36% apart. If the first assumes 12 hours and the second assumes 20, the second is cheaper per hour and probably includes prep the first one skipped. You will pay for that skipped prep in three years.

What to check before you sign

Ask for the painter-hours and the billed rate. Divide. Compare against $55.20 to $82.80.
Get proof of general liability and workers’ compensation. Work at height without comp coverage is your exposure, not theirs. A quote below roughly 2x the local wage is often a quote without insurance in it.
Confirm the home’s build year and, if pre-1978, ask whether the firm is EPA lead-safe certified and how surface disturbance will be contained.
Get prep written as verbs and coats written as a number. “Prep as needed” is not a scope.
Confirm the material product and gallon count, so you can see whether the allowance in the quote is real.
Ask what happens if the prep opens up worse than expected, and get the change-order rate in writing before work starts.
Ask for the minimum charge if your job is small, so a two-hour task does not arrive as a full-day invoice.

This page does not inspect houses, survey contractors or collect quotes. It applies arithmetic to published federal wage and price data, states its assumptions, and shows every step so you can substitute your own.