Best software for painting contractors

Two bedrooms become three, the ceiling joins the quote, and the customer asks whether you can refresh the cabinet doors while you’re there. Our pick is Jobber Grow: keep those choices on the quote, the paint days on one job and the labour and materials in its cost record.

Core works for one painter handling a straightforward quote–schedule–invoice day. Connect adds team time/expense tracking and automated reminders. Grow is the step we’d take when selectable scope and job costing matter together.

Book the walkthrough before the paint days

Offer an assessment booking for the estimate visit. The customer chooses an available time; Jobber creates a request and an assessment. New assessment-booking forms require your approval by default, with a setting to change that. Use the request questions to gather rooms, surfaces, access and photos ahead of the visit. An Area question can collect length × width and the unit you use.

Requests and online booking are on Core and higher. A defined job booking is a different path: it creates a one-off job for a service already on your menu. Keep whole-house work on the assessment path until you’ve scoped it. Jobber’s booking guide and request-form settings cover those choices.

One accepted project, several visits

After approval, build one one-off painting job with the dates it needs. Use a continuous date range or select individual dates with gaps. Jobber supports up to 20 visits in one creation flow, with more visits added afterward. Each visit can have its own time, assigned team members and internal instructions.

Visit in our example project	Put in the visit instructions
Preparation	Rooms in scope, furniture/access arrangements and preparation still to finish
Painting	Surfaces ready, agreed colour reference and the work assigned to each painter
Touch-ups and walkthrough	Remaining items, finish photos and the customer’s handoff

Assign the actual people for each date and leave the next painter a useful handoff. Job-level instructions carry across the visits; edit an individual visit for its day’s work. Follow Jobber’s one-off job setup and visit controls, or use our multi-day scheduling comparison for a fuller example.

Quote the surfaces, with extras the customer can choose

Save service items for the work you actually sell: walls by room or measured area, exterior siding, trim, ceilings and doors. Write the preparation, surfaces and access assumptions into the description. Jobber’s products and services list saves those names, descriptions and unit prices for reuse.

On Grow or Plus, keep the base painting scope mandatory and offer separately selectable trim, ceilings, cabinet doors or a colour consultation. In client hub, the customer selects the extras and the total adjusts. Once you convert the approved quote to a job, selected extras become normal job items; unselected ones disappear. The optional-items guide documents that handoff, including percentage deposits adjusting to the selected total. Our estimate-options comparison covers the wider quote choices.

Worked example: rooms, options and a materials deposit

Illustrative inputs, before tax and with no discount: these are example service prices and a deposit percentage for showing the workflow.

Scope	Calculation	Amount
Wall painting in two rooms	2 × $800	$1,600 base
Trim, optional	Fixed item	$300
Ceilings, optional	Fixed item	$400
Cabinet doors, optional	6 × $50	$300
Colour consultation, optional	Fixed item	$100
Everything selected	$1,600 + $300 + $400 + $300 + $100	$2,700
Example deposit	25% × $2,700	$675
Remaining balance	$2,700 − $675	$2,025

Give each extra its own description. “Cabinet doors” should say which doors and the agreed scope, so the selected quote becomes a usable work list.

Take the deposit, then keep additions on the same job

On the quote, choose Add Deposit or Payment Schedule → Collect a deposit only, then a fixed amount or a percentage. Enable Jobber Payments for the customer to pay online through client hub. Core and higher cover the basic quote/deposit workflow; the deposit isn’t a reason on its own to buy Grow.

When the deposited quote becomes a job and you generate its invoice, the linked deposit is applied to that invoice. Jobber’s deposit instructions explain collection, recording and invoice application. Keep the $675 example deposit attached to the work rather than charging the full $2,700 again at the finish.

When the customer adds another room

Handle the added scope as a quote revision and fresh approval. Edit the surfaces, quantities and price, return the quote to Awaiting Response and resend it. Editing an approved quote can remove its signature while leaving the status Approved; the previous signed version is kept as a PDF/internal note. Jobber’s approval guide explains that sequence.

After the new approval, copy the agreed changes into the existing job’s line items and visit instructions. Keep that room addition on the same painting job instead of converting the revised quote into another job. Add or move the required visits using the one-off job controls. The crew should see the latest agreed work, not reconstruct it from a text thread.

Keep labour and paint in the job cost record

Grow and Plus include job costing. Set each painter’s hourly labour cost in Manage Team before the hours are recorded, then have each person log their time against the job. Jobber calculates labour from those timesheets and hourly costs, alongside line-item costs and job expenses.

Choose one place for the paint cost: product line-item costs or job expenses. If the paint receipt is already represented by product costs, don’t count it again as an expense. Likewise, keep labour out of service-item costs when the same hours are already being counted through timesheets.

For a one-off painting job, the cost view covers its full duration. While the work is in progress, Jobber shows costs so far; completed jobs show profit percentage. Costs stay internal, with access controlled by job-costing permissions. Those details come from Jobber’s job-costing guide.

What the completed example job shows

Using the same illustrative $2,700 job:

Recorded input	Calculation	Cost
Labour	2 painters × 6 hours/day × 3 days = 36 hours; 36 × $30 hourly cost	$1,080
Paint/material costs, counted once	Example recorded costs	$450
Other job expenses	Separate from the paint above	$60
Total recorded costs	$1,080 + $450 + $60	$1,590
Recorded job profit	$2,700 − $1,590	$1,110
Job margin	$1,110 ÷ $2,700 × 100	41.1%

Use the finished record to see whether preparation, extra surfaces or material spend moved the result. Our job-costing comparison covers the labour/material workflow in more detail.

What we’d buy for a painting team

Grow is our pick for scope choices plus job costing. Choose Connect when ordinary quotes, reminders and team time/expense tracking are enough. Core keeps one painter’s base workflow together.

Painting workflow	Jobber tier
Assessment requests/booking, standard quotes, deposits and multiple job visits	Core and higher, within the plan’s user allowance
Internal progress and before/after notes/photos	Core and higher
Team time/expense tracking and automated client reminders	Connect and higher
Optional trim/ceiling/cabinet quote items and job costing	Grow and Plus
Dedicated Crew scheduling and Crew time tracking	Plus; distinct from assigning people to individual visits
Automated review requests	Marketing Suite add-on on Core/Connect/Grow; included on Plus

The current pricing matrix supplies those plan gates. Core is a one-user plan; count office logins as well as painters for the team plans.

Standard USD prices, checked October 30, 2026

Promotions excluded. Annual figures are per month billed annually.

Plan	Included-user bundles	Standard monthly prices	Per month billed annually
Core	1 only	$49	$29
Connect	1 / 5 / 10 / 15	$139 / $199 / $299 / $399	$99 / $149 / $229 / $299
Grow	1 / 5 / 10 / 15	$199 / $299 / $399 / $499	$149 / $229 / $299 / $399

Connect and Grow publish $29/month per added user. Monthly totals below choose the lowest published bundle-plus-seat combination. Annual extra-seat rates aren’t published, so annual totals use covering bundles.

Total logins	Connect monthly	Grow monthly	Connect per month billed annually	Grow per month billed annually
1	$139	$199	$99	$149
2	$168	$228	$149	$229
3	$197	$257	$149	$229
4	$199	$286	$149	$229
5	$199	$299	$149	$229
6	$228	$328	$229	$299

For three logins, monthly Grow is $257: its one-user $199 bundle plus two $29 seats. At five logins, take the $299/month five-user Grow bundle. A solo painter who only needs the base workflow can start with Core at $49/month.

Finish with the photo record and the review

Take matching before and after photos, and add progress notes by room or exterior surface. Use the visit’s camera button in the app so the next painter can see the handoff. Notes start internal; select saved attachments for the customer-facing email rather than sending the whole internal record. Jobber’s mobile notes and attachments guide documents that capture and sharing workflow.

For Reviews, choose When a job closes and close the painting job after the final walkthrough and touch-ups. A deposit or an individual paint-day visit should leave the project open. Jobber limits requests to one per client every six months; its Reviews settings cover the trigger and repeat guard.

Marketing Suite is $99/month as an add-on on Core, Connect or Grow and is included on Plus, checked October 30, 2026. It includes Reviews, bills monthly even with an annual base plan and isn’t available during the trial. See the Marketing Suite subscription rules.

Start the next painting job with one agreed scope, give each day a clear handoff, and finish with a cost record worth using on the next estimate. That’s where Grow earns its place in our shortlist.

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