Painting in Cape Town is priced by the square metre. Interior walls run about
R75 per square metre and exterior walls about R70 per square
metre for labour, with paint charged separately. A 180 square metre three-bedroom
house therefore sits near R12 600 in exterior labour before materials. What
moves that figure up or down is surface condition, not room count.
Painting prices per square metre in Cape Town
These are the guide rates Painting Wizards quotes to, confirmed once the area is measured.
They cover labour only. Paint is quoted separately against the measured area,
so you can see what the materials cost and choose the system yourself.
| Work | Rate per m² (labour) | Cape Town market range |
|---|---|---|
| Interior walls and ceilings | R75 | R35 – R120 |
| Exterior walls | R70 | R35 – R110 |
| Roof, tile in sound condition | R70 | R55 – R85 |
| Roof, IBR or corrugated sheeting | R80 | R65 – R100 |
| Roof, Chromadek or coated metal | R90 | R70 – R110 |
| Flat concrete roof, waterproofing system | R120 | R90 – R150 |
The market range column is what other Cape Town and national painting firms published in
September 2026. A rate well below R55 per square metre usually means one coat, no preparation,
or both.
What actually drives a painting price
- Measured area, not room count. A three-bedroom house can be 180 square
metres of wall or 320, depending on ceiling height, passages and whether there is a double
storey. Area is measured, never estimated from a description. - Surface condition. This is the line that varies most between quotes and
it is the one worth comparing. Sound paint needs washing and two coats. Flaking paint needs
stripping back. Bare plaster needs priming. Damp needs diagnosing and fixing before anything
is painted at all. - Number of coats. Two over a prepared surface is standard. A strong
colour change, or an exposed coastal elevation, usually needs three. - Access and height. Single storey off ladders is one price. A double
storey, a steep site or a block of flats needs scaffolding or rope access, and that is a
real cost line that belongs in the quote rather than appearing later.
A quote that gives you one lump figure hides all four. An itemised quote lets you see
whether a cheaper price is cheaper because the contractor is more efficient, or because the
preparation has been left out. What
to ask a painting contractor sets out the questions that separate the two.
How much does it cost to paint a three-bedroom house?
A three-bedroom Cape Town house measures roughly 180 to 320 square metres
of exterior wall. At R70 per square metre that is R12 600 to R22 400 in labour.
Paint on the smaller of those areas in two coats is 45 to 60 litres, which is three 20 litre
drums. Interior walls on the same house measure 150 to 260 square metres, or
R11 250 to R19 500 at R75.
The spread inside those figures is preparation. A sound repaint sits at the bottom of the
range. Stripping flaking paint, sealing bare plaster or treating rising damp moves a job to
the top of it. Nobody can tell which applies without seeing the walls, which is why the
measurement happens before the number and not after it.
How much paint per square metre?
This part is arithmetic rather than opinion. Coverage depends on what the paint is going
onto, because a porous surface drinks the first coat.
| Surface | Coverage per litre, one coat | Litres for 100 m², two coats | 20 L drums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smooth plaster, previously painted | 6 – 8 m² | 25 – 33 | 2 |
| Slightly textured or older plaster | 5.5 m² | 36 | 2 |
| Rough plaster or bagged brick | 4.5 m² | 44 | 3 |
| Bare plaster, never sealed | 4 m² | 50 | 3 |
A 100 square metre wall area in two coats over smooth plaster needs about 28 litres, which
is one 20 litre drum and two 5 litre tins. The same area over bare plaster needs about 50
litres. Work yours out in the paint calculator below.
Paint calculator
Paint quantity calculator
Work out the area and how much paint it needs. Coverage figures are the published manufacturer range for standard acrylic.
This gives you quantity, not price. What a job costs depends on the condition of the surfaces, how much preparation they need, access and height — none of which can be judged without seeing them. Send the quote form on this page and we will measure it properly and put a written, itemised price in front of you.
What each preparation step fixes
Preparation is the line that separates two quotes for the same house. Each step exists to
stop a specific failure.
| Preparation step | What it fixes | What happens without it |
|---|---|---|
| High-pressure wash | Chalked paint, dust, coastal salt deposit | The new coat bonds to the dirt and lifts in sheets |
| Scraping and wire-brushing | Flaking and blistered paint | Fresh paint follows the old film off the wall |
| Crack repair and filling | Hairline and settlement cracks | Cracks telegraph through and open again in one season |
| Plaster primer | Bare or newly skimmed plaster | The topcoat soaks in unevenly and burnishes when washed |
| Damp diagnosis and treatment | Rising and penetrating damp | Paint bubbles within months and the wall is repainted twice |
| Masking and sheeting | Glass, tiles, paving, planting | Overspray cleanup costs more than the masking did |
How often Cape Town exteriors need repainting
Repaint intervals in the Western Cape are driven by exposure rather than by the calendar.
Salt, ultraviolet and wind-driven rain each shorten a cycle in a different way.
| Exposure | Typical repaint cycle | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Atlantic seaboard and False Bay, sea-facing | 4 – 6 years | Salt deposit and constant wind-driven moisture |
| Cape Flats and Blaauwberg, open and windy | 5 – 7 years | Southeaster-borne sand abrading the film |
| Southern suburbs, sheltered and treed | 7 – 9 years | Shade and damp favour mould over fading |
| Winelands and Swartland, inland | 6 – 8 years | High summer ultraviolet and wide temperature swing |
South-facing and west-facing elevations reach the end of a cycle first on almost every
house. A repaint that treats only those two walls is a legitimate option and costs
proportionally less.
Why per-room quotes hide the real number
Per-room pricing is common for interior work. A room is not a unit of area. A 3 by 3.5
metre bedroom with a standard ceiling is roughly 27 square metres of wall once openings are
deducted, while an open-plan living area can be three times that. Per-room quoting works when
the rooms are genuinely similar and misleads when they are not. Ask for the area, not the
room count, and compare on the square metre.
Access, height and scaffolding
Access is a real cost line and it belongs in the quote from the start. Single-storey work
off ladders carries no access charge. A double storey, a steep site, or a complex needing
scaffold towers adds hire and erection time to the job. Boundary constraints matter too: a
wall a metre from a neighbour’s fence is slower to paint than the same wall with open ground
behind it. A quote that does not mention access on a double-storey house has either absorbed
the cost or left it out.
What a written painting quote should contain
- The measured square metres, listed per elevation or per room
- The preparation specified, step by step, not the word “prep”
- The paint system named by product and the number of coats
- Access and scaffolding priced as a separate line
- Labour and materials separated, so both can be compared
Getting a written quote
Send the form on this page with your suburb, what needs painting and roughly how big the
property is. Painting Wizards comes out, measures, and sends a written price with the
preparation, the system and the coats listed separately. Painting Wizards works across the
Cape Town metro, the
Helderberg and the
Cape Winelands. If you
already know your area, the northern
suburbs, southern
suburbs and Atlantic
Seaboard pages set out what the housing stock in each needs.