How Much to Charge for Texturing a Ceiling?

When you work as a contractor, you may at times have to price jobs for customers that you are not familiar with as part of your normal responsibilities. If you do not texture ceilings very often but are asked to provide a quote, you have to take several factors into consideration before coming up with a price.

Before you can come up with an accurate estimate for a ceiling texture job, you need to know the exact square footage of the ceiling. To come up with this figure, measure the length and the width of the ceiling, then multiply the two numbers together. For example, if the ceiling is 12 feet long by 10 feet wide, the square footage of that area would be 120 square feet. If you are doing multiple rooms, add up the square footage of those areas. If rooms are not simple rectangles, measure the complete area as a number of separate rectangles, do the multiplication for each, and add the square footage totals for each together.

Once you know the square footage of the ceilings, you can come up with an estimate for the labor. According to Home Wyse, the national average for ceiling texturing is between $.46 and $.62 per square foot, as of 2011. This means that you would choose a price and then multiply it by the square footage of the ceiling that you are texturing. In areas that have high labor rates, you may be able to charge closer to the $.62 per square foot.

In some cases, the customer will also expect you to provide the materials necessary for texturing the ceiling. When this happens, you will need to purchase the texturing compounds and make sure that you have enough for the job. According to Home Wyse, the cost of texturing materials varies from as low as $.12 per square foot to as much as $.16 per square foot. Compute the costs of materials the same way you did for the labor, and add the totals together for your estimate. This provides you with the necessary materials to prepare the ceiling and then texture.

When calculating a bid for a ceiling texture job, you also need to take into consideration your travel charges. The per-square-foot price that you charge could include this travel charge, or you could charge for it separately as long as you inform the customer in advance of the additional charges. Look at the size of the job and estimate how long it will take you to complete it when making the calculation. If you will be on the job for multiple days, this could require you to spend a considerable amount of money on gas and other travel expenses, depending on your distance from the job site.