What's the best free painting cost calculator in the UK? (2026, no signup)
Published 18 August 2026 · Last updated 18 August 2026 · ~7 min read
Short answer: the best free painting cost calculator is one that (1) prices the job in pounds — labour and materials — rather than counting litres, (2) shows the figure without asking for your email, phone or postcode, and (3) is not funded by passing your details to tradespeople. In August 2026 we checked the eight UK tools people actually find at source-code level. Two well-known lead-generation sites, MyJobQuote and WhatPrice, genuinely show a cost without an email gate, and we say so below. The gate-free tools with no forms at all mostly count litres. The only tool in our table that priced the job in pounds and had no lead form anywhere was our own — which is exactly why you should read the next paragraph before you believe us.
type="email", type="tel", postcode fields and sign-up buttons. You can do the same in any browser with "view page source" in about a minute, and we would rather you did.
The eight tools people actually find, checked at source
Free tools with no forms at all count litres; tools that price the job in pounds mostly belong to lead-generation businesses. That is the pattern in the market, and it explains most of the frustration people have with "painting calculators". Here is what we found on 18 August 2026:
| Tool | Asks for email / phone / postcode to see the result? | What it calculates | Business model | Verified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| paintingquotation.com | No — no email, phone or postcode field anywhere on the site | Cost in £ (labour + materials, room by room) | Free tool; no lead form; your rooms and prices are not sent to any server | Yes (it's ours) |
| TradeCalcs | No — 0 email fields, no sign-up | Litres only (paint at ~£8-£30/l) | Not established | Yes |
| MJ Kloss | No — 0 email fields | Litres only | Decorating firm's own website | Yes |
| MyJobQuote | No gate on the number — the cost shows on screen; a separate quote form with postcode sits beside it | Cost of the job in £ | Lead generation | Yes |
| WhatPrice | No gate on the number; the most detailed cost tool we found | Cost of the job in £ | Lead generation | Yes |
| Bark | Requires phone number + postcode + job description | No calculator at all — the word does not appear on the page | Lead generation (matching) | Yes |
| Rated People | — | No painting calculator found; the linked page returned 404 | Not established | Partly |
| Checkatrade, MyBuilder | — | — | Directory / membership | No — both blocked our automated check (HTTP 403). We make no claim about them. |
Two things worth being fair about. First, "lead generation" is not an accusation: MyJobQuote and WhatPrice publish genuinely useful cost data — we cite MyJobQuote by name on several of our own pages — and their calculators do show a number without an email. Their business is the quote form beside it. Second, we could not load Checkatrade's or MyBuilder's pages automatically, so anything you read elsewhere about their calculators asking for details is not something we have verified, and neither is the reverse.
Why "free" tools that don't ask for your email can still make money
The calculator is the shop window; the postcode form is the till. On a lead-generation site the number on screen costs the site nothing to give away, because the page exists to move you into "get quotes", where your details are matched to tradespeople who pay per lead. Bark is the clearest case: there is no calculator, just a form for phone, postcode and description. That is a legitimate business, and for some people it is exactly what they want. It is just not what "free calculator" implies, and it is worth knowing which kind of page you are on before you type your address in.
The tools with no forms at all — TradeCalcs, MJ Kloss and the litres calculators built into paint manufacturers' sites — sit at the other end. They cannot mis-sell you a lead because they never ask for one. Their limitation is what they calculate.
Litres calculators vs cost calculators: what you actually need
A paint calculator tells you how many tins to buy; a painting cost calculator tells you what the job will cost — and because labour is the large majority of a decorating bill, litres alone cannot get you to a price. On our own pages materials come to roughly 10-20% of an interior job (for example £250-£550 of a £1,300-£3,300 bungalow interior). The rest is painter-days.
Litres calculators are still worth using, and they are easy to sanity-check yourself: wall area × coats ÷ coverage, with coverage of about 12-14 m² per litre per coat on smooth plaster or painted brick and 6-8 m² on rough render or pebbledash (tradecalculator.co.uk, Kingfisher). Where they mislead is when they quietly use the manufacturer's best-case coverage — our exterior guide shows the same wall going from 15 m² a litre on the tin to about 5 m² a litre for two coats in the trade's experience. If you want a price, you need a tool that starts from days and a day rate, not from litres.
Why do different painting calculators give completely different prices?
Because they use different day rates from different populations of painters, include different things in the job, and some are national while others are regional. Nobody explains this on the calculator page, and it is the single biggest reason two "free estimates" for the same room can be 50% apart.
| Painter day rate used | Source | Population |
|---|---|---|
| £150-£250 per day | WhatPrice | Editorial national range |
| £171-£173 per day (range £127-£271) | HaMuch | Rates submitted by tradespeople on its own platform |
| ~£325 per day | Attributed to Checkatrade | Unverified — we could not load the page; if real, it reflects vetted, often VAT-registered firms |
These are different populations, not different opinions about the same painter, so do not average them. A sole trader with no VAT and a vetted firm charging VAT can both be honest and be nearly £150 a day apart. On top of the rate, tools differ on whether preparation, woodwork, materials, access equipment and VAT are inside the number. Our exterior page shows the effect at scale: the same 3-bed semi exterior is published at anywhere from £1,100 to £5,700 across four UK sources, mainly on whether scaffolding is included. A calculator that lets you set the price per square metre and per door or window, and add rooms and woodwork yourself, will always beat one that hides its assumptions, whoever built it.
Do painting calculators sell your details?
Not the calculator result — the quote form next to it. The trigger is almost always the postcode: a cost estimate does not need your address, but matching you to local tradespeople does, which is why lead-generation sites ask for it and litres calculators do not. Regional prices are real — painter day rates in Glasgow run around £165-£250 against £150-£220 across wider Scotland (see our Scottish day-rate guide) — but a good calculator handles that by letting you enter your own price per square metre, door and window, not by demanding your address.
For the record, on paintingquotation.com the rooms, sizes and prices you enter are not sent to any server. Saved quotes live in your own browser's local storage and can be exported as a file by you; there is no account, no email and no server holding your rooms. The only third-party script on the page is Google Analytics, for anonymous page statistics — it does not receive your figures. That is not a virtue we can prove to you from a paragraph — it is a claim you can check in your browser's network tab, which is why we keep saying "check us".
How to use any painting calculator well
- Get a range from the calculator, then three written quotes. The calculator is for recognising a fair quote, not replacing one. If a quote is far outside the range, ask which line explains it — it is nearly always access, preparation or VAT.
- Turn any figure back into painter-days. Divide by £170-£175 (HaMuch's average) and ask whether that many days is plausible for your rooms. Our quote sanity-check guide walks through this.
- Ask about VAT. Traders must register once turnover passes £90,000; below that, a quote may carry no VAT at all. Two honest quotes can be 20% apart on this alone, and most calculators do not say which side they are on.
- Check what is included. Prep, ceilings, woodwork, materials, access. A "walls only" number and a "full repaint" number are different jobs.
- Know which page you are on. If there is a postcode box next to the result, the site's business is the box, not the result. That is fine — just decide whether you want the calls.
Try the calculator with nothing to lose — literally.
The free calculator prices your job room by room in about two minutes, lets you set your own price per square metre, per door and per window for your area, and asks for no signup, no email and no postcode. Read how it works and the FAQ if you want the assumptions behind the numbers, or tell us if a figure looks wrong.
Related questions
- Free calculator with no email? — Several: ours, TradeCalcs, MJ Kloss (litres), and MyJobQuote and WhatPrice show a cost without an email gate too, beside a lead-gen quote form.
- Why do calculators disagree? — Different day-rate populations (£150-£250 vs £171-£173 vs an unverified ~£325), different scope, national vs regional. Don't average them.
- Do they sell your details? — The quote form does, not the calculator; the postcode is the trigger. Ours has no form and sends nothing.
- Postcode needed? — For matching to tradespeople, yes; for an estimate, no. Adjust the day rate instead.
- Litres vs cost? — Litres tools count tins (12-14 m²/l smooth, 6-8 rough); cost tools price days. Materials are only ~10-20% of an interior job.
- How many quotes? — Three, written, after using a calculator to know what fair looks like.
- VAT included? — Usually not stated. £90,000 registration threshold; two honest quotes can differ by 20% on it.
Method: on 18 August 2026 we loaded each tool's calculator page and searched its HTML source for email, telephone and postcode inputs and sign-up buttons; "verified" means we saw the page source ourselves. Checkatrade and MyBuilder returned HTTP 403 to our check and are marked unverified — we make no claim about them either way. Day-rate figures from WhatPrice and HaMuch as published August 2026; the ~£325 figure is attributed to Checkatrade in third-party sources and is unverified. Coverage figures from tradecalculator.co.uk and Kingfisher. paintingquotation.com is our own tool; this page declares that interest and shows you how to check every claim in it. Sources US-only or content-mill in nature were excluded.