Most painters charge $25 to $75 an hour or $200 to $600 a day, according to HomeGuide’s 2026 painting cost guide, though many residential painters price a job by the project instead of the clock. Those are national market ranges, not Big Easy Paintings’ prices, and a Kenner quote still depends on your house and exactly what gets painted.
Kenner homeowners ask us about hourly and daily rates more than almost anything else, usually because they’ve seen a low number online and want to know if it’s real. Below we answer the four questions Google shows most often on this topic, using federal wage data and a named cost guide, and then explain why two Kenner quotes for the same room can land far apart.
What do most painters charge hourly?
HomeGuide’s 2026 guide puts painters at $25 to $75 per hour, depending on experience, the difficulty of the project, the season, the region, and whether the work is inside or out. The same guide breaks hourly rates into productivity tiers: about $27 an hour at the low end, $36 in the middle, $47 at the high end, and $70 or more for specialty work. Murals and detailed decorative finishes can run $70 to $100 an hour or more.
Interior labor tends to sit toward the bottom of that spread and exterior work toward the top, because exterior jobs bring ladders and weather delays along with heavier surface prep. A painter who bills by the hour is selling time, so the real cost depends on how fast and how carefully that time is spent.
How does that compare with what painters earn in the Kenner area?
A painter’s bill rate and a painter’s wage are different numbers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in May 2025 the median hourly wage for construction and maintenance painters was $23.75 nationally, $22.31 in Louisiana, and $22.11 in the New Orleans-Metairie metro area, which includes Kenner. Nationally, the lowest-paid 10% earned $18.00 an hour or less and the top 10% earned $37.89 or more.
The gap between a wage of about $22 and a bill rate of $25 to $75 isn’t all profit. The bill rate has to cover payroll taxes, liability and workers’ compensation insurance, vehicles, ladders and sprayers, drop cloths and tape, supervision, estimating time, and the days lost to rain. That’s why a company crew can’t bill at the same rate a painter takes home.
How much should I pay a painter per day?
HomeGuide’s 2026 guide puts painters at $200 to $600 per day, based on an 8-hour workday. It also notes that one painter typically covers 150 to 350 square feet of paintable area per hour, so the spread in day rates follows the spread in skill and speed. A fast, careful painter at the top of the range can cost less per room than a slower one at the bottom.
Day rates make the most sense for small, open-ended work, like touching up trim around the house or painting a few doors. For anything with a clear scope, ask for a written project price. In our experience, a fixed price with a line-by-line scope is easier to compare and protects both sides from a job that drags on.
Is $25 an hour expensive for painting?
No. $25 an hour sits at the very bottom of HomeGuide’s national range and only a few dollars above the median wage painters earn in the New Orleans-Metairie area. For a business that carries insurance and supplies its own equipment, $25 an hour is a low bill rate, not a high one.
A rate that low isn’t automatically a red flag. It may be a solo painter with low overhead, or materials may be billed separately. Before you hire at any rate, ask for proof of liability insurance and a written scope that names the coats, the prep, the expected hours, and who buys the materials. A low hourly rate on a job that takes twice as long isn’t a bargain.
How much would a painter charge to paint a 12×12 room?
HomeGuide’s 2026 guide puts a 10 by 12 foot room at $300 to $800 and a 14 by 16 foot primary bedroom at $700 to $1,300, so a 12×12 room typically lands between those two ranges, depending on scope. It doesn’t give a 12×12 figure of its own, and these are national numbers.
Here’s how the labor adds up. A 12×12 room with 8-foot ceilings has about 384 square feet of wall before you subtract the door and window, and a ceiling adds another 144. At HomeGuide’s rate of 150 to 350 square feet per hour, rolling 2 coats on the walls alone takes a single painter roughly 2 to 5 hours. Then add the work that doesn’t show up in square footage:
- Moving and covering furniture, then putting the room back together
- Filling nail holes and cracks, then sanding and spot priming
- Cutting in along the ceiling and baseboards by brush
- Painting doors and trim, which take far longer per foot than walls
Small jobs also run into minimums. HomeGuide notes that most painters have a minimum project price of $250 to $500, so a single small room often costs about the same as the minimum, whatever the hourly math says. Grouping 2 or 3 rooms into one visit usually brings the per-room cost down.
Why do painting quotes in Kenner vary so much?
Most of the gap between quotes comes from scope, not the rate. One painter may price walls only with a single coat, while another includes the ceiling, trim, 2 coats, and patching. Line up what each quote covers before you compare totals.
Local conditions add their own variables. Kenner’s housing runs from older homes around the Rivertown historic district by the Mississippi to much newer construction, and each brings different prep. Humidity between the lake and the river slows drying, so exterior work has to be scheduled around frequent afternoon storms in summer. Homes built before 1978 may also need lead-safe work practices under the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule when paid work disturbs old paint, and that takes extra time and materials.
Should you pay by the hour, by the day, or by the project?
For most homeowners, a project price is the safest choice, because you know the total before work starts. Hourly and day rates shift the risk of slow work and surprise repairs onto you. If a painter insists on hourly billing, ask for a not-to-exceed number in writing.
When we quote a Kenner home, we walk the rooms and give a written scope, with 2 coats on every quote. You can see examples of that work in our client testimonials, and our painting FAQs answer common scheduling questions. If you’re weighing a weekend DIY against hiring out, our article on DIY vs. hiring a painter for your exterior lays out the tradeoffs.
Painting services in Kenner
We paint homes throughout Kenner and the rest of Jefferson Parish. Learn more about interior painting in Kenner, exterior painting in Kenner, or cabinet painting in Kenner. You can also browse our full interior painting services and exterior painting services, or see the neighborhoods we cover on our Kenner service area page.
Want a real number instead of an hourly guess? Call Big Easy Paintings at (504) 226-6252 or contact us online for a free estimate on your Kenner home.