Mural price calculator: build a quote from your own costs

The calculator above builds a mural quote from figures you supply. Enter the area of the wall (the paint calculator gives it to you), your own rate per square foot or square metre, then the fixed costs of this particular job: design fee, materials, days of equipment hire and the daily hire charge, travel. Finish with a contingency and the share of the total you want as a deposit. It works in dollars or your own currency, because the arithmetic does not care which.

How the quote is built

Only one line grows with the size of the wall: your labour, area times rate. Everything else is a fixed cost of the job, paid whether the wall is large or small. The calculator adds them up, puts a cushion on top for what goes wrong, then works backwards to the cost per unit of area.

1. Labour = area × your rate.
2. Equipment = hire days × day rate.
3. Subtotal = labour + design fee + materials + equipment + travel.
4. Contingency = subtotal × the contingency percentage.
5. Total = subtotal + contingency.
6. Effective rate = total ÷ area, and deposit = total × the deposit percentage.

A worked example with the starting figures

The defaults describe a 200 square foot wall, a rate of 25 per square foot, a design fee of 400, materials at 300, two days of equipment hire at 250 a day, 100 for travel, a 10% contingency and a 50% deposit.

Look at the effective rate. The rate typed in was 25 per square foot, but the wall costs 34.65 per square foot once everything else is counted, almost 40% more. That gap is the best argument against quoting a bare square-foot figure over the phone, and on a smaller wall it grows.

Your figures, not ours

The defaults make the arithmetic visible; they do not suggest what a mural is worth. Going rates differ by country, city, wall, client and painter, and a single number printed here would mislead more readers than it helped. Replace every one.

• Your rate: start from the day rate you need to earn, then estimate how much finished area you can paint in a day on a wall like this, with a design like this. Day rate ÷ daily area gives a rate per square foot or square metre. A loose abstract field goes faster than a portrait.
• Design fee: sketches, a mock-up on a photograph of the wall, and a stated number of revision rounds.
• Materials: take the quantities from the mural paint calculator, price them with your supplier, then add primer, rollers, brushes, tape, drop sheets, spray cans and any clear coat.
• Equipment: lift or scaffold tower, delivery and collection, and spare days for weather.
• Travel: fuel or tickets, lodging and meals on a job away from home.
• Contingency: a wall that turns out to need more preparation, a week of rain.
• Deposit: a matter of agreement with the client. If it covers materials and hire, you never pay for a client's wall out of your own pocket.

What the calculator leaves out

It measures cost, not value. A wall painted with residents, a festival wall and a brand's wall on a shopping street can cost the same to paint and still be priced differently, and the tool has no opinion on that. It also leaves out several lines that belong in many quotes:

• tax, such as VAT or sales tax, depending on how you are registered;
• insurance, permits, pavement licences and any traffic management;
• assistants, unless you have built them into your rate;
• usage rights if the client wants the image for advertising or merchandise;
• maintenance visits to clean off tags or touch up faded colour.

Fold these into the nearest field or add them to the total by hand. Access is often one of the largest costs on a tall wall, which is why how a large mural gets made spends a whole section on lifts.

Turning the figures into a written quote

A client who sees only a total will haggle over the total. A client who sees the lines can see where the money goes, and can choose to drop a clear coat rather than question your rate. Commissioners face the same budget from the other side, and the guide to commissioning public art in a small town lists the lines they most often forget. A clear quote states:

1. What is painted: the wall, its area and the approved design.
2. What is included: surface preparation, primer, revision rounds, any protective coat.
3. Who arranges what: the owner's consent, permits, the lift, water and power on site.
4. How weather is handled: spare days included, and what happens beyond them.
5. The payment schedule: deposit, any stage payment, balance on completion.
6. Credit, photographs and rights to reproduce the image.
7. How long the quote stays valid, since paint and hire costs move.

Send it with a photograph of the wall and the design mocked up on it. It is easier to agree a number when both sides are looking at the same picture, and once the design is signed off the mural grid calculator will scale it up to the wall.

Questions

How much should I charge per square foot for a mural?

We do not publish a going rate, because it varies too much by place, wall and painter to be useful. Work it out from the day rate you need and the area you can finish in a day. Then put the whole job through the calculator and quote from the effective rate, not the rate you started with.

Why is the effective rate higher than the rate I entered?

Because it includes the design fee, materials, equipment, travel and contingency spread across the wall. In the example a rate of 25 per square foot becomes 34.65 once those are counted. The smaller the wall, the bigger the difference.

Can I use the calculator in euros or square metres?

Yes. Enter the area in square metres and your rate per square metre, and type every cost in your own currency. The arithmetic is identical as long as the area and the rate use the same unit.

How big should a mural deposit be?

That is for you and the client to agree. A sensible floor is a deposit that covers materials and equipment hire before work begins. The default of 50% is a placeholder, so change it to the share in your contract.