Painting estimating software for commercial painting contractors. Paintable surface area measured by substrate and room, coats and prep read from the finish schedule, and gallons calculated at real spread rates — so the estimate matches what the crew actually has to cover.
A painting bid starts as an area measurement and immediately stops being one. The same 1,000 square feet of surface can be one coat of flat latex over new drywall, or three coats of epoxy over block with a fill coat, or two coats over previously painted plaster that needs washing, patching and spot priming first. The area is identical; the cost is not close. Painting estimating software has to carry substrate, system, coat count and preparation alongside the number, or it is producing an area report rather than an estimate.
BidcoreAI measures paintable surface area by room and substrate, reading the finish schedule to determine what system goes where. Walls, ceilings, doors and frames, trim, exposed structure, ductwork and railings are each measured on their own terms — doors and frames counted by leaf and side rather than converted into a nominal square footage that no painter thinks in.
Coats and preparation come from the specification and the finish schedule rather than an assumption. Surface preparation is treated as scope in its own right: washing, sanding, patching, filling block, spot priming, removing failed coatings. On a repaint or a renovation this frequently exceeds the cost of the paint and the application combined, and it is the item most often left out when a bid is put together quickly.
Gallons are calculated at manufacturer spread rates by product and substrate, not at a single rule-of-thumb coverage figure. Porous block, primed drywall and smooth metal absorb differently, and a bid that assumes 400 square feet per gallon everywhere will be short on exactly the surfaces that are slowest to paint. Access is priced too — ladders, lifts and scaffold — along with masking, protection and the containment a renovation in an occupied building demands.
Floor plans, reflected ceiling plans, interior elevations, door schedules and the finish schedule.
Measured by room and substrate, with openings deducted at a threshold you set.
Ceilings and exposed structure measured separately because they are slower to paint.
Counted by leaf and side, which is how painters price them, not converted to area.
Its own scope, and on renovation work often the largest part of the bid.
Coats and products from the finish schedule, with gallons at real spread rates.
How the crew reaches the surface, and what has to be covered to keep working.
Substrate, system and access carried per surface — not applied as one rate at the end.
Rooms and surfaces measured across the plan set with substrate identified from the wall types and finish schedule.
The finish schedule is parsed to map system, colour and coat count to each room and surface automatically.
Opening deductions set by size threshold per scope, since painting and drywall treat a small opening differently.
Gallons calculated per product and substrate at manufacturer spread rates rather than a single coverage assumption.
Washing, patching, block filling and spot priming quantified as their own lines with their own productivity.
Doors counted by leaf and side from the door schedule, with shop-primed and field-finished separated.
Ladder, lift and scaffold requirements driven by ceiling height rather than remembered at the end of the estimate.
Spray, roll and brush application, occupied buildings and night work each carry their own rate.
Colour counts tracked by area, because a job with 14 accent colours costs more to cut in than one with two.
Epoxy, urethane, intumescent and high-performance systems carried with their own prep and recoat windows.
Gallons by product and colour, rounded to order units for a supplier quote.
Room-by-room surface schedules and priced estimates exported with sheet references intact.
Division 09 painting sections plus the coatings that get bid with them.
Offices, schools, hospitals, hotels and industrial repaints — where the finish schedule is longer than the floor plan.
Schedule first, then surfaces, then the preparation that decides whether the job makes money.
Substrate and prep stop being adjectives and become line items.
On renovation work prep routinely exceeds application. Quantifying it separately is what turns a repaint bid from optimism into a plan.
Spread rates by substrate mean the material order reflects porous block and smooth drywall differently — as the field already does.
Leaf-and-side counts match how painters think and how subcontract quotes are written, instead of a square footage nobody uses.
Ceiling height driving lift and scaffold requirements catches the atrium and the warehouse before they catch you.
Fourteen accent colours is a cutting-in cost and a mobilisation cost. Counting colours makes that difference explicit.
Reading the finish schedule directly is what stops a corridor being priced as flat latex when the specification called for epoxy.
Because the finish schedule is the estimate, and most tools never open it.
System, coats and colour mapped per room and surface automatically, with the schedule reference on every line.
Washing, patching, block filler and spot priming measured and priced separately at their own productivity.
Gallons by product and substrate, not one coverage figure applied to every surface in the building.
Lifts and scaffold driven by measured ceiling height rather than added as an afterthought.
Measure and price from anywhere, with the marked-up set available on a tablet in the field.
Painting packages can be measured for you through professional takeoff services.
Send the plans and the finish schedule and have the package measured for you: surface area by room and substrate, coats and systems mapped from the schedule, preparation quantified separately, and gallons calculated at real spread rates.
One platform, one cost database, one set of drawings — whichever scope you are pricing today.
Compare the surface areas, the gallons and the preparation hours against the job you last painted.
