When looking for house painters in Cleveland, you certainly don’t want to pay more than you have to. If you get 4 or 5 painting quotes, chances are one will be significantly less than the others. Typically, we are the second or third highest price, as we try to offer the best value; not necessarily the cheapest price. You can view our pricing page to get a good idea of our painting prices. So why are some prices so low?
One obvious reason is “you get what you pay for”. This means they could be cutting some corners, so then they can lower their costs. One way to do this is to use inferior products. Most people would assume this only means inferior paints, but it can also mean inferior primers and caulks. Everyone knows the prep work is the most important part of any good paint job, but very few customers ask about these types of materials being used. If the primer or caulk doesn’t last, you will have to repaint, which is why it’s important to make sure you have quality products the first time. Speaking of prep work, that’s another area where corners can be cut. Companies without a long warranty, or someone not looking to build a lasting company, may not be too concerned with how long the paint lasts.
There are ways to have dramatically lower costs without necessarily cutting corners. There are many house painters in Cleveland that run a smaller business and paint everyday with one or two helpers. They can offer lower prices for a few reasons. They most likely have lower overhead costs, but we’ll go into detail on that in a minute. Another reason they can offer lower prices is because they are making money on their own labor instead of having to pay multiple employees. So instead of needing to make a fair profit, they can instead not make ‘profit’ per se, but make money by eliminating much of their labor costs.
One common problem homeowners experience when hiring someone who is the estimator and painter is it can take a long time for the project to be completed. That problem can raise the issue of reliability. There is a lot that goes into running a successful painting company, like meeting with prospective clients to provide quotes, processing payroll and other accounting tasks, as well as answering the phone and providing customer service. While working on your project, the owner or painter may have to leave to complete a few estimates or other administrative tasks. They also may have more than one project going on at a time, so they may not work on your project consistently day after day until it is complete.
Now, going back to the thought of lower overhead costs, every company should strive to keep overhead as low as possible to offer the best prices. As low as possible, but not lower. If your house painter is not fully insured or providing a long-term warranty, they can lower overhead costs significantly, but as the homeowner, you are taking on a lot of risk with that. For example, if your contractor is not properly insured, and one of his employees falls off a ladder and hurts himself, they could sue you to pay for his medical expenses and possibly workers compensation, or anything else they could think of. Is that a risk you want to take?
Another significant way to save on overhead costs, is to pay their painters as 1099 contractors, instead of employees, which they are. This is VERY common in the painting industry, and is not only unethical, it is illegal. There are specific criteria the IRS sets for when someone can be treated as a contractor, and someone that paints for the same painting company day after day is an employee. Not paying the appropriate taxes or paying into the social security and medicare system can save a LOT, but it puts the people working for them in a bad spot, as those taxes will have to be paid eventually.
As a homeowner in the Cleveland area, it is important to consider multiple house painters, for your interior painting or exterior painting project, and compare them “apples to apples” style. It is possible to get a great experience from an inexpensive house painter in Cleveland, but unfortunately, there are many, many horror stories of painters taking forever on projects and promising things they can’t deliver. If you are looking for a well established company that offers a lot more than just putting paint on your house (such as our industry leading warranties), please consider getting a free, no obligation estimate from us by clicking the link below or giving us a call!
