Pricing by neighborhood — Painter · Memphis, TN
| Neighborhood | Low | High | Why the price moves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midtown / Cooper-Young / Central Gardens | $42 | $70 | 1920s craftsman and shotgun homes, pre-1978 lead-paint RRP, historic Conservation District color review |
| East Memphis / Chickasaw Gardens | $40 | $65 | Mid-century premium stock; cabinet refinishing volume, designer paint specs, larger trim packages |
| Downtown / South Main | $38 | $62 | Loft condo touch-ups; building-rule scheduling, freight elevator, 12-14 ft ceilings |
| Germantown / Collierville | $38 | $60 | Suburban luxury HOA; approved-color palettes, larger square footage, Hardie and stucco |
| Bartlett / Cordova | $34 | $55 | Suburban tract repaint volume; vinyl and fiber-cement, standardized prep, fast spray work |
| Hickory Hill / Whitehaven | $32 | $50 | Older budget stock; mostly single-story, simpler access, value-grade paint specs |
| Frayser / Raleigh | $31 | $48 | Deferred-maintenance market; heavy scrape and prime hours, painted brick masonry common |
| Olive Branch MS | $33 | $52 | Suburban DeSoto County; newer stock, standardized Hardie and brick, lower HOA load |
Painter hourly rate by neighborhood in Memphis, TN. Ranges reflect typical contractor pricing including travel time, building-type access, and local labor density.
How much does a painter cost in Memphis?
Memphis painters charge $31-$52 per hour for scheduled work, with an average of $41/hr. Most jobs quote by the square foot or the project: interior walls and ceilings run $1.75-$4.00 per sq ft, exterior repaint $2.25-$4.50 per sq ft depending on siding. Neighborhood matters: Midtown, Cooper-Young, and Central Gardens craftsman repaints sit at the top because of pre-1978 lead paint, 1920s wood siding, and Historic Conservation District color review. Bartlett, Cordova, and Hickory Hill sit at the bottom.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the median hourly wage for painters in the Memphis-TN-MS-AR metro at $20.73. The gap between that and the $41/hr you pay is real and explainable, and the rest of this article walks through where every dollar goes, what licensing applies in Tennessee, and what to ask when comparing quotes.
Memphis Painter Rates by Neighborhood
Memphis is not a single painting market. A 1925 Cooper-Young shotgun with lead paint and original beadboard, a Chickasaw Gardens ranch with cabinet refinishing in the kitchen, a Frayser brick ranch with deferred-maintenance scrape work, and a South Main loft with 14 ft ceilings all need different paint, prep, and crew skills. The full per-neighborhood breakdown sits at the top of this page; this section explains the why.
The Midtown premium is era and substrate: nearly every pre-1939 craftsman, foursquare, and shotgun home has lead paint, wood siding, and detailed porch trim, which adds RRP containment, hand-scraping, and slower priming. The East Memphis and Chickasaw Gardens premium is paint spec and remodel scope, with $60-$110 per gallon designer paint and cabinet refinishing pulling crew hours up. Frayser, Raleigh, and parts of Hickory Hill sit lower because the stock is mostly 1950s-70s brick ranch with simpler trim, even though deferred-maintenance scrape hours nudge the bottom of the range above what a clean Hardie repaint would cost.
Comparable cities for cross-reference:
- Nashville painter costs — $35-$58/hr
- Atlanta painter costs — $33-$55/hr
- Charlotte painter costs — $32-$54/hr
- Dallas painter costs — $35-$58/hr
Memphis sits roughly 15-25% below large coastal metros and 5-10% below Nashville, mostly explained by Tennessee’s lighter regulatory load (no state painting license, no surety bond), a lower cost-of-living index, and a deeper labor pool across the Mid-South.
Memphis Painter Pricing by Building Type
Neighborhood is one axis. Building type often matters more: substrate (wood, Hardie, painted brick, stucco) and era determine prep hours, lead-paint protocol, and which finish system the painter specs.
| Building type | Hourly rate | Why the price moves |
|---|---|---|
| 1910-1930s craftsman or shotgun (Cooper-Young, Central Gardens, Glenview) | $50-$80 | Pre-1978 lead RRP, wood siding, porch trim, beadboard ceilings, Historic Conservation review |
| Chickasaw Gardens / East Memphis mid-century estate | $50-$75 | Designer paint, larger square footage, cabinet refinishing, Level 4-5 drywall prep |
| 1950s-70s brick ranch (Bartlett, parts of East Memphis, Whitehaven) | $40-$62 | Trim and soffit on brick; interior repaints standard, low-trim straightforward |
| Suburban tract (Germantown, Collierville, Cordova, Olive Branch, post-1990) | $38-$60 | Hardie or vinyl, HOA color palettes, standardized siding, fast spray work |
| Downtown loft or South Main condo (1900s warehouse conversion or post-2000) | $42-$72 | 12-14 ft ceilings, spray work, building-rule scheduling, freight elevator |
Pre-1978 Midtown stock deserves a callout. Memphis has thousands of 1910-1930 craftsman, foursquare, and shotgun homes in Cooper-Young, Central Gardens, Evergreen, Glenview, and Speedway Terrace. Decades of layered lead-based paint mean a $4,500 “exterior repaint” becomes $7,500-$12,000 once the painter prices RRP containment, HEPA-vac scraping, and porch beadboard and window-casing detail. If the home is pre-1978 and you have not asked about lead, you do not yet have a real quote.
What Your Billed Hour Actually Covers
The $20.73 BLS wage is take-home pay for the painter, not what the customer pays. The customer rate of $31-$52/hr covers everything the business needs to legally operate in Memphis.
Roughly: 50% labor, 12% commercial liability and bonding insurance ($1,000-$3,000/yr per crew, lower than California because Tennessee does not require a state surety bond), 11% vehicle and specialty tools (HVLP and airless sprayers, pressure washers for the spring-pollen wash-down cycle, lift rental for two-story East Memphis estates), 10% Memphis-specific licensing and overhead (Memphis or Shelby County business tax license, EPA RRP renewals, parking, dispatch), and 17% contractor profit margin. Strip any of those out and the business cannot stay open.
This is why the cheapest quote is not always the right one. A painter bidding $20/hr or a $1,000 exterior on a 2,000 sq ft house is either uninsured (your homeowner’s policy will not cover overspray on a neighbor’s car or storm-damage liability), uncertified for lead on a pre-1978 home, or skipping prep that will fail by the second Memphis humid summer.
Memphis Painter Permits, Licensing, and What They Cost
Painting is one of the lightest-permit trades anywhere, and Tennessee is lighter than most. The state does not issue a painting-contractor license, and most interior painting in Memphis needs no permit. The table below covers what actually applies.
| Item | Authority | Typical cost | Lead time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interior or exterior repaint, no color change, non-historic | None | $0 | None |
| City of Memphis residential exterior work | City of Memphis / Shelby County Business Tax (license required of contractor) | $0 to homeowner; contractor fee built in | Verified at booking |
| Pre-1978 lead-paint RRP work | EPA RRP cert + Shelby County hazmat disposal | $250-$1,000 admin + crew premium | 1-2 weeks |
| Historic Conservation District exterior color change (Cooper-Young, Central Gardens, Glenview, Speedway Terrace) | Memphis Landmarks Commission Certificate of Appropriateness | $0-$150 review fee | 3-6 weeks |
| Exterior color change in HOA (Germantown, Collierville, parts of East Memphis) | HOA architectural review board | $0-$250 review fee | 2-4 weeks |
Verify your painter’s status yourself before signing. With no state license to check, verification runs through three places: the Shelby County Business Tax office for the business license, the EPA Lead-Safe certified-firm search for RRP on any pre-1978 job, and a current Certificate of Insurance showing $1M general liability.
For larger remodels that pull in cabinet refinishing, drywall repair, or new trim, coordinate the painter against a Memphis handyman or Memphis flooring contractor on the same schedule so prep and topcoat sequence properly.
Common Painting Job Pricing in Memphis
These are typical all-in prices including labor, paint, prep, and disposal. East Memphis, Midtown, and Cooper-Young sit at the high end; Bartlett, Cordova, Hickory Hill, and Frayser at the low end. Pre-1978 homes add a 15-30% RRP premium where applicable.
| Job | Total cost | Labor hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single bedroom repaint (12x12, walls + ceiling) | $350-$850 | 5-9 | Mid-grade paint; +$125-$275 for premium line or color change |
| Whole-house interior (2,000 sq ft, walls + ceilings) | $3,000-$7,500 | 45-85 | Add $1,000-$2,500 for trim and doors |
| Kitchen cabinet refinishing (30 cabinets, on-site) | $1,800-$3,800 | 30-50 | BM Advance or Cabinet Coat; common East Memphis / Germantown remodel |
| Kitchen cabinet refinishing (in-shop spray, lacquer) | $4,000-$6,800 | 50-75 | Factory-grade finish, 1-2 week off-site turnaround |
| Exterior repaint, Hardie or fiber-cement (2,000 sq ft) | $4,000-$6,800 | 45-75 | Pressure wash, caulk, 2 coats 100% acrylic |
| Exterior repaint, wood-siding craftsman or shotgun (1,600 sq ft) | $7,000-$12,500 | 80-130 | Scrape, sand, prime, 2 coats; RRP if pre-1978 |
| Exterior repaint, painted brick (2,200 sq ft) | $5,000-$8,800 | 50-80 | Masonry primer, breathable mineral or acrylic topcoat; common in Frayser, Whitehaven, parts of East Memphis |
| Interior trim and door repaint only | $1,000-$2,500 | 20-35 | Often bundled with whole-house interior |
| Storm-damage touch-up and re-coat | $400-$1,800 | 4-12 | Common after spring thunderstorm or hail; insurance often covers |
Memphis humidity, spring pollen, and the spring-thunderstorm cycle are the failure points in the exterior repaint window. South- and west-facing walls bleach and pollen-stain 30-50% faster than north exposures, and the spring rain knocks fresh paint off any surface that was not properly primed. A quality 100% acrylic topcoat (Sherwin-Williams Duration, BM Aura Exterior, Behr Marquee) holds color 8-12 years versus 4-5 from builder-grade latex. A $2,500 exterior with thin paint and no caulk visibly fails by the second summer.
How to Get and Compare Memphis Painter Quotes
Three things separate a useful quote from a useless one in Memphis:
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Tell the painter the building era and substrate. “1922 Cooper-Young shotgun, wood siding, color change inside the Historic Conservation District, painted porch beadboard” gets a real number. “2005 Cordova tract, Hardie siding, repaint same color” gets a different real number. Generic “I want my house painted” estimates are worth almost nothing because the painter cannot price RRP, Landmarks Commission review, or scrape-and-prime hours without those facts.
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Ask for an itemized written estimate that breaks out labor hours, paint brand and product line (the SKU matters, not just the brand), prep scope, number of coats, and warranty terms. Reputable Memphis painters email itemized PDFs within 48-72 hours. If a painter quotes a single dollar figure verbally and pushes for a deposit on the spot, walk. After spring storms in East Memphis and Germantown, door-to-door painters working storm zones is a known scam pattern.
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Verify the business license, EPA RRP cert, and insurance before you book. With no state painting license to verify, the burden falls on the Shelby County Business Tax office for the business license, the EPA Lead-Safe firm search for any pre-1978 work, and a current Certificate of Insurance with $1M general liability. Ten minutes of verification rules out most contractors who later become problems.
How We Calculated These Prices
The Memphis painter hourly rate of $31-$52 starts with the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics median hourly wage for painters, construction and maintenance, in the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro: $20.73 as of May 2024. We apply a 1.5x-2.5x consumer multiplier covering business overhead, $1M general liability insurance, vehicle and sprayer costs, EPA RRP certification on pre-1978 work, employer-paid taxes, workers’ comp, and contractor profit margin, calibrated against current quotes from Memphis-area painting contractors.
Neighborhood-level adjustments reflect substrate (wood vs. Hardie vs. painted brick), pre-1978 RRP scope, Historic Conservation District review overhead, and Memphis’s humid-subtropical UV plus heavy spring pollen and thunderstorm cycle that compresses the exterior repaint window on south- and west-facing walls. The full formula lives on our methodology page.
Other Memphis Service Costs You Might Need
A painting project rarely happens in isolation. A kitchen refresh, exterior repaint, or post-storm repair usually pulls in two or three trades, and getting quotes at the same time is faster than serial calls.
- Memphis plumber costs — for faucet and fixture swaps coordinated with a kitchen or bath repaint
- Memphis handyman costs — for sub-RRP cosmetic touch-up and small color-change work
- Memphis flooring costs — sequence refinishing or new floor install with the repaint to avoid double prep
- Memphis roofer costs — for storm-damage roof and trim repair before an exterior repaint locks in
- Memphis deck builder costs — for deck and porch rebuild and stain, often coordinated with the same crew