Paint Cost Estimator: WordPress Plugin Development

Having a commercial website can do miracles to your business. You can gain a clear edge over your competitors along with enhanced visibility to your services. And all of this can take place with a far lowered marketing effort and expense. 

While the retail industry has already leveraged the digital transformation, it’s the local service providers who are making a move in the recent years. The community of developers is lending a helping hand to such businesses and transforming them into a more organized niche.

With that in mind, our in-house WordPress development team at The Brihaspati Infotech developed a paint cost calculator plugin on WordPress specially designed for the Painting Contractors. The plugin readily converts your commercial website to an engaging portal for estimating painting costs and the materials needed to handle the task.

The following media file gives a brief go-through to our custom-designed software for painting contractors:

Need for a custom painting estimating software

Our client is a renowned painting contractor in his locality with a field experience of over two decades. On any general day, his job wants him to visit several customers, measuring every inch of the project, and carrying out a painting takeoff. And, most of this consultation is often done for a minimal amount. 

This goes without saying that the initial process not only consumes a lot of time and effort but also offers a low profit. The client was thus looking out for a way to introduce a portal that can create cost estimations right on the website. In fact, there are several pre-designed fully functional software solutions that can create an effective paint cost estimation. 

However, the painting estimating software solutions came with a huge price, and integrating them often hampers the website’s stability. With that in mind, we developed a readily integrable WordPress plugin that converts any website to a painting cost estimator portal.

Let’s get started with our custom-designed solution and the services it can offer to the painting contractors.

Our Solution: WordPress Paint Cost Estimator Plugin

Having said that the client holds a two decade-plus worth of knowledge in the business, we preferred shaping his knowledge to a full-fledged algorithm for the portal. We merged his way of creating painting take-offs and the market demands, resulting in an effective paint bid estimator.

The WordPress painting contractor software for estimating costs divides the entire process to a simpler 5-step procedure. Every step adds a new cost factor allowing the system to do the desired math.

The users can now find a real-time cost estimation for his project and the exact materials they will be needing in the job. The software creates an estimation for both cases:

• If the users carry out the project on their own
• If the project is carried out by a painting contractor

The users can compare the prices and effort needed to complete the job. This can eventually help the client to fetch contracts as well. 

The final estimation is printable and can be shared across Social media platforms helping the client with better exposure to the market.

Let’s understand it’s working in depth.

The 5-step Cost calculation with custom Painting Estimating Software

Step1: Selecting the Type of Painting Project

Contractors know that the cost and effort at applying paints tend to vary with numerous factors. One of them is the part of the house we are working on.

The WordPress painting cost estimator plugin is designed to meet every need in the business. We have included all the three painting projects a house needs:

• Interior Wall Painting
• Kitchen Cabinet Painting
• Exterior House Painting

For easy understanding, we are explaining the entire procedure with one example- Interior Wall painting.

In the above image, we can find all the three projects, where the user is interested in Inner Wall Painting. Hit the Next button and the upcoming questions will offer better clarity for the final cost estimates.

Step2: Add building details

Next in the process, comes the details of the project. The options vary for each project type. The exterior building wants the number of floors in the building. For Kitchen Cabinet projects, the option changes to the condition of the paints- if it is yet to be painted, or already painted or stained. 

Internal wall painting projects will ask you for the number of rooms to be painted. The user can add any number of rooms, as per the needs.

In the example above, the user can be seen adding 3 rooms. It is noticeable that there is a tracker at the top that progresses with the number of questions addressed.

Step3: Add specifications

This step adds further details to the project. For internal Wall painting projects, this step demands information like dimensions of the room.

In the picture above, we find 5 fields for collecting information. The user can enter the following measurements directly:

• Length of the Room
• Width of the Room
• Height of the Ceiling
• Number of Windows
• Number of Doors

The paint cost estimator software on WordPress considers all these details to calculate the approximate area that needs to be painted. The step determines the quantity of paint required to complete the task, eventually helping you to make the exact cost estimations.

It is worth noticing that the fields are followed by two action buttons namely “Repeat for Room 2” and “Repeat for Room 3”. As the user had entered 3 rooms, we had these two options to automatically feed the specifications for similar rooms. The step adds an “n” number of buttons for “n+1” number of rooms to perfect the estimations.

Step4: Add customizations

The painting contractor cost estimator plugin is ready to consider basic customizations for the project. For instance, the users can find costs for a multi-colored wall painting. All they need to do is just add the number of colors they are willing to use.

The drop-down allows the users to select any number of colors between 1 and 10. This detail again adds up to the final costs.

Step5: Additional factors

A painting contractor knows there are far more expenses than availed to the naked eyes. The WordPress paint cost estimator allows the users to select the quality of the paint brand as an added factor to the final costs. The users can select the paint quality of their choice and can avail themselves with the final estimates.

Considering all the details at each step, the plugin creates an estimation template that includes the cost of DIY projects and projects handled by the contractor.

The estimation also includes the additional tools to complete the task along with the quantity of paint and number of tape rolls.

Our experience with WordPress Plugin development

With 10+ years of professional experience in the industry, The Brihaspati Infotech has delivered several iconic solutions designed to meet custom business needs. The solutions have not only helped the clients to establish a smooth platform but have also helped them gain more customers over the time. 

In one of our previous blogs, we have discussed another Cost Calculator plugin meant for the transportation industry. The users could create an estimation for relocating. The plugin saved the client’s time and resources to create estimations if done conventionally.

Final words on WordPress Paint cost estimator

Developing paint cost calculator on WordPress wasn’t that easy as it seems. The filters are set to respond in a more dynamic pattern. But that is where an experienced agency comes into play.

If your business also is in need of a similar cost calculator plugin, you can hire WordPress experts from us directly or can contact us. Our developers can avail you with a customized version of the plugin quicker and a far reduced rate.