Interior painting in Calgary — what it actually costs in 2026

The honest range for residential interior painting in Calgary right now is $3.50 to $6.00 per square foot of floor area. That number assumes standard 8-foot ceilings, walls only, with two coats of mid-tier acrylic latex (think Benjamin Moore Regal, Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint, or Cloverdale Horizon). For a typical 1,400 sqft Calgary bungalow that's $4,900 to $8,400, before GST.

The variance inside that range is real. A painter doing your spare bedroom on a Thursday afternoon between bigger jobs can charge near the low end. A booked-out two-person crew quoting a whole-house refresh with cut-ins around vaulted ceilings is going to land at the high end. Both are fair quotes for different scopes.

Most Calgary painters won't roll a crew for a single room unless the homeowner is flexible on timing. Expect a minimum-job charge of $400 to $600 even for a small bedroom — paint costs nothing relative to mobilization. Per-room ranges, walls only, two coats, normal prep:

• Bedroom (10x12, ~120 sqft floor): $450–$750
• Living room (14x18, ~250 sqft floor): $900–$1,500
• Bathroom (5x8, ~40 sqft floor): $350–$550 (small but lots of cut-in)
• Hallway and staircase (combined): $700–$1,200 (height premium)
• Kitchen walls only, not cabinets: $600–$1,000

Trim, doors, and ceilings are separate line items. Add roughly 30–40% to the wall price if you also want trim and doors in the same room. Ceilings are another 15–25% on top.

"Prep" is the single biggest swing factor in any interior quote. The painter walks your house and silently does math on how many hours of labour your walls need before a brush touches them. There are roughly four prep tiers in Calgary contractor pricing:

• New drywall, never painted. Skim coat as needed, prime, paint. About 15% cheaper than the typical rate.
• Good condition, just refresh. Wipe walls, fill nail holes, sand light. Baseline rate.
• Needs prep. Patching, sanding, removing old wallpaper, dealing with crayon or kitchen grease. Adds ~25% to labour.
• Major repair. Water damage, peeling, drywall replacement, popcorn ceiling removal. Adds 55%+ and usually pushes the project into a multi-day job.

If a quote is suspiciously cheap, the prep line is where corners get cut. Skipped priming on a stain, no caulking on baseboard gaps, single-coat applications on medium-coverage colours. The bill is lower, the result is shorter-lived.

Paint cost is a small slice of the project (5–10%) but it controls how long the job lasts. Three rough tiers Calgary painters use:

• Builder grade ($40–$55/gallon). CIL Smart, Behr Premium Plus. Fine for closets, rentals, repaints over fresh walls. Re-coat every 4–6 years.
• Mid-tier ($60–$85/gallon). Benjamin Moore Regal, Cloverdale Horizon, Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint. The Calgary contractor default. Re-coat every 7–10 years.
• Premium ($90–$120/gallon). Benjamin Moore Aura, Sherwin-Williams Emerald. Excellent for high-traffic, kitchens, bathrooms, dark or saturated colours. Re-coat every 10–15 years.

For a 1,400 sqft home an upgrade from builder grade to mid-tier costs about $200 extra in materials. The labour to apply it is the same. Almost always worth the $200.

Quotes from different painters can look very different even at the same per-sqft rate, because the line items below are sometimes folded in and sometimes not:

• Furniture moving and floor protection ($100–$300)
• Colour consultation if you can't pick ($75–$200 hourly)
• Caulking gaps in old baseboards before painting ($150–$400)
• Patching popped drywall screws across a ceiling ($200–$500)
• Lift rental for vaulted ceilings or two-storey foyers ($150–$400/day)
• GST on the whole bill (5%, often quoted pre-tax)

When you compare quotes, ask each painter to itemize the same scope. A $4,200 quote with everything included can be the same price as a $3,800 quote that adds $600 in "site prep" on the final invoice.