Three illustrated guides for running a painting business: licenses, insurance, contracts and money; the walkthrough, pricing and selling; and surfaces, prep, primers and sheens. One idea a page, each one drawn.
Real pages from all three guides. One idea a page, drawn.
The Painting Business, Selling and Running the Job, and Prep, Paint and Finish. 144 pages, one idea each.
The idea, the picture, the costly mistake and one line to remember. Read it in the van between jobs.
Phone-sized PDFs to check at the job or on the walkthrough, yours to keep. Nothing to cancel.
You know how to paint. Nobody taught you the business.
Most of the money a new painting business loses goes quietly: a price set from the wage, prep nobody priced, a room repainted because the color was never signed. Every one of them has a page, and every page names the mistake.
Where painting businesses lose money:
A drawing is easier to take in between jobs than a paragraph. That's why every page in the kit has one, and one line to keep.
Every page has the same parts, so you always know where to look. Here is Book 1, page 22, Colors and sheens: get them signed, with its lines quoted from the guide.
Get a signed color schedule, room by room and surface by surface, before any paint is mixed.
The bedroom dries and the client says it's not the gray she picked. With no signed schedule, you repaint it at your cost.
Taking a color from a phone photo or a text message. Get the maker's name, color code and sheen in writing, signed.
No signature, no mixing.
Quoted word for word from Book 1, page 22, Colors and sheens: get them signed. Every page carries these parts plus the drawing, and where a rule changes from state to state, a note that says so.
Licenses, lead-safe rules, insurance, contracts, money, taxes and safety, one idea a page. Eight parts: Starting out, Lead-safe work, Insurance and bonds, Contracts, Money, Taxes, People and Safety. Start with what one painter hour really costs.
From the first call to the final walkthrough and the next job, in the same layout.
The craft your price depends on: reading the surface, the prep, the products and the finish, surface by surface.
Total value: $95
One-time payment. No subscription. Keep the files forever.
Digital guides (PDF), in English. We email your library link right after purchase, and you can download the files again anytime. Plus sales tax where applicable.
Painting Made Simple is an independent guide for people running a painting business. It explains rules in plain words and is not legal, tax or accounting advice or lead-safe certification training. It is not affiliated with any licensing board or government agency.
You can cut a line and roll a wall; the business side is new. Book 1 lays out the setup, the license and lead-safe rules to check, the insurance and the contract, then what a painter hour really costs.
The calendar is full and the account is still thin. Measuring, prep levels, production rates, pricing a room from hours, exteriors, cabinets and options each get a page, worked with example numbers you can swap your own into.
Before you scrape a pre-1978 house, quote a kitchen by the door or hire your first painter, see what the lead rule covers, how cabinets are priced and done, and how to pay and check a crew, one page at a time.
No gimmicks. Public federal rules, product labels and paint makers' guides, drawn clearly, with the source named on the page where it matters.
The lead-safe pages follow the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule; the safety pages follow OSHA's rules; the tax pages follow IRS publications; the product, prep and finish pages follow paint makers' guides, product labels and safety data sheets. Every page was checked against its named sources before release.
Contractor licenses, deposit limits, sales tax on painting work and some lead-safe programs change from state to state. Those pages teach the shared pattern, label any state rule as an example, and point you to where yours lives. No one state's rule is passed off as the rule everywhere.
The money pages work the same example rates all the way through: a $24 wage that costs $52 a painter hour and is priced at $65. You can see where each number comes from and swap in your own. The examples are examples, not prices for your market.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by the EPA, OSHA, the U.S. Department of Labor, the IRS, any state licensing board or any paint or coatings manufacturer. The kit is not lead-safe certification training. We answer to the owner.
Use the kit for 7 days. If it isn't for you, email us and you get 100% of your money back. No fine print, no hassle.
Right after purchase we email you a link to your library, where you download all three guides as PDFs. You can come back and download them again anytime.
One-time payment of $27. No subscription, no recurring charges, and nothing to cancel. All three guides are yours to keep.
People running a residential painting business in their first few years, interiors, exteriors and cabinets, and anyone about to leave a crew and start one.
Every state. The books teach what works the same way everywhere: pricing, contracts, insurance, prep and safety. Where a rule changes by state, like a contractor license or a deposit limit, the page says so and shows you where to look up yours.
No. Book 1 explains what the EPA's lead rule covers and what it asks of a firm and its renovator, so you know what to look into. Certification comes only from an accredited training provider and the EPA or your state program.
No. Painting Made Simple is an independent guide for people running a painting business. It explains rules in plain words and is not legal, tax or accounting advice or lead-safe certification training. It is not affiliated with any licensing board or government agency. Your lawyer, accountant and insurance agent apply the rules to your business.
No. The kit is complete on its own.
At checkout there is one optional add-on, The Painting Pricing and Profit Workbook: your painter-hour cost and overhead worked out, six jobs priced step by step (a bedroom, a whole interior, an exterior, cabinets, a deck stain and a change order), and blank sheets to copy. It's $9, unticked, and you can skip it.
Both. The pages are portrait and phone-sized, so you can check one at the job, and the PDFs print if you want a page in the van.
We don't promise that, and we'd be wary of anyone who does. The guides show you how each piece works and the mistake that costs money, with the numbers worked on the kit's example rates. Which jobs you take and what you charge is still your call.
Email us within 7 days of purchase and we'll refund 100% of your money. Details on the refund policy page.
Spotted an error, or a rule that works differently in your state? Email [email protected]. A real person reads every message, and fixes go into the next version.
Every job with your own name on the van teaches you something about the business side, and the expensive lessons come with a bill. You don't need another midnight group thread or a price someone swears by. You need the page for this decision, with the idea drawn and the mistake named.