I get asked this before we even walk past the letterbox. Fair enough, because most people have been quoted three wildly different numbers for the same house and want to know which one is honest. Across Auckland in 2026, a three bedroom exterior repaint generally lands between $7,000 and $15,000, and an interior repaint of the same house between $7,000 and $12,000. The reason that the gap is so wide has almost nothing to do with paint, and everything to do with what is underneath it.
Here is how the numbers break down on the jobs we quote.
We price interior work at roughly $35 to $60 per square metre, and that figure includes preparation and two coats. A bedroom of about 30 square metres works out around $1,050 to $1,800 in labour, with paint on top.
Where a room sits in that range depends on a few things we check on the walk through. Ceiling height is the big one, because anything above standard stud means trestles or a mobile scaffold and slower cutting in. Skirtings, architraves and doors add hours that walls do not. So do dark colours over light, which often need a third coat to sit evenly.
A full interior for a standard three bedroom house usually sits between $7,000 and $12,000 once ceilings, walls and trim are all in. Two storey homes around 250 square metres run closer to $10,000 to $20,000. If you are weighing up whether the whole house needs doing at once, our guide on how often to repaint an Auckland interior sets out realistic intervals room by room.
Two houses of identical size can be thousands apart on the exterior, purely because of what they are clad in.
Weatherboard sits at the friendlier end, somewhere near $50 to $70 per square metre, though end grain, joins and old paint build-up push the prep hours up on villas and bungalows. Brick and concrete block runs higher again. Plaster and monolithic cladding is the most expensive of the lot, partly because the coating system has to hold weathertightness, and partly because cracks have to be tracked down and filled properly rather than skimmed over.
Ballpark totals we see across Auckland:
Roofs are quoted separately for good reason. Moss and lichen removal, rust treatment and fixing loose sheets or tiles all happen before a brush touches anything, and access gear is a bigger part of the bill.
Our exterior painting in Auckland quotes all of this, including the repairs, so you can see what you are paying for rather than one lump sum.
If you have three quotes and one is $4,000 cheaper, look at the preparation lines first. That is nearly always where the difference is hiding.
On an Auckland exterior, proper prep means washing down, scraping and sanding back failed coatings, treating mould and lichen, filling and caulking, replacing rotted weatherboards and spot priming bare timber. Skip it and the paint will lift inside two years. Do it well and a good exterior system in Auckland holds for five to ten years.
Common prep items and what they add:
Interiors have their own version of this. Damaged plasterboard, popped screws and cracked joints all need fixing before paint, and a patch job shows badly under low winter light. We handle that in house through our plasterboard fixings in Auckland team, which keeps the repair and the repaint on one timeline instead of two trades blaming each other.
Coastal suburbs cost a little to a lot more to keep looking good. Salt air through Devonport, Milford and the western beaches shortens the life of exterior coatings, so the system we specify there is built for it and the wash down before painting is more thorough.
Older homes bring their own line items. Pre 1980 houses frequently have lead based paint under later coats, and safe handling with HEPA sanding and dust extraction adds cost. Where asbestos containing materials are involved, we do not sand them. We work alongside certified asbestos removers instead, and that step is priced by them.
Winter work is workable here. Above 10 degrees with dry surfaces, exterior painting goes ahead, though shorter days and weather delays can stretch a programme.
Most Auckland painters sit around $45 to $70 an hour, and some jobs genuinely suit hourly work, like small patch repairs or a single feature wall.
For anything larger we quote fixed price. You know the number before we start, and the risk of us finding an extra day of prep sits with us, not you. What we do flag upfront is anything we cannot see until the scaffold is up, usually rot behind downpipes or under sills, so there are no surprise variations halfway through.
Every figure above is a range, because a quote written without seeing the house is a guess. We would rather walk through the place, measure it, check the condition of the surfaces and give you an itemised price you can compare against anyone else’s.
If you want that for your interior painting in Auckland or an exterior repaint, get in touch with our team and we will book a site visit at a time that suits.
