From the walkthrough to the final coat, on your phone

The walkthrough is where the job gets priced

Most painting jobs start the same way. You walk the house with the owner; they point at walls, you look at ceilings, trim, the water stain in the hall and the peeling soffit out front. Workeey gives that walk somewhere to go: make the client and the job while you're standing in the living room, write notes as you go, and photograph every room and problem spot so you're not guessing on Sunday night.

Then measure what you price by. Some painters quote by the room, some by the square foot of wall, some by the day. Workeey prices a quick estimate from your own rates, whatever they are, and you adjust the lines before anything leaves your phone. The free plan includes 23 quick estimates a month, and the estimate stays inside the job with the photos and notes, so the number and the walls it covers never get separated.

• Client, address and job made during the walkthrough
• Photos of every room and problem spot, saved to the job
• Notes on colors, sheen and what the owner asked for
• Quick estimates priced from your own rates

Quoting by the room or by the square foot

A room quote is easy to explain: main bedroom, walls and ceiling, two coats, trim extra. A square-foot quote is easier to defend on a big open plan. Either way the lines should say what's included, because the argument at the end of a paint job is almost always about something the client assumed was in it — closet interiors, door faces, the ceiling over the stairwell. Our free painting estimate template lays out both ways if you want to see one.

Send the estimate as a quote PDF from your phone while you're still in the driveway. If you take a deposit before ordering paint, the deposit percent can print on the quote; Workeey doesn't collect it, so take it the way you always have. There's no online signature either: the client says yes to you, by text or in person. When they do, the estimate is already sitting on the job, ready to become the invoice later.

• Room-by-room or square-foot lines
• A quote PDF sent from your phone
• The deposit percent can print on the quote
• The client says yes to you, not to a portal

Prep days, paint days and the weather

A three-bedroom repaint is not one appointment. There's a prep day of scraping, patching, caulking and masking, then the coats, then the touch-up walk with the owner. Put each day on the schedule as a time slot, so you can see the whole week and what's left of it, and so you don't promise next Tuesday to someone else. When an exterior stalls because rain is coming or the siding won't be dry by morning, slide those days later and the rest of the week stays readable.

Small interior jobs — an accent wall, a ceiling after a leak, a rental turnover — fill the gaps exterior weather leaves. One tap from any job opens the drive there, and on a day with several small stops Workeey puts them in the best order.

• Prep, coats and touch-ups as days on the schedule
• Rain coming? Slide the exterior job later
• Small interior jobs fill the gaps
• One tap opens the drive to the next house

Paint and materials on the bill

Paint is a real part of the price, and clients notice when it's missing or vague. Put materials on their own lines — gallons of wall paint, the stain-blocking primer, caulk, tape, plastic — at the price you charge, with your markup in it if that's how you work. Labor goes on its own lines by room, square foot or day, the same way you quoted it, so the invoice reads like the estimate the client already agreed to.

When the last coat is dry, one tap turns the estimate or the finished job into an invoice, with the client, the lines, the tax and the photos carried over. Change anything that changed on site: the extra closet they asked for halfway through, the second coat on a ceiling that wasn't in the quote. The invoice is numbered for you and emailed from the app with a pay link; our painting invoice template shows the same layout on paper.

• Paint, primer and supplies as their own lines
• Labor billed the way you quoted it
• One tap from estimate or job to invoice
• Add-ons from the job before you send

Getting the final payment

Connect your own Stripe and the client pays the emailed invoice by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or US bank, right from the pay link; on a big exterior job, bank payment is the one many homeowners pick. A small processing fee applies to online payments. The payment marks the invoice paid and the receipt emails itself. If the client paid by check at the final walk, mark it paid and tap Send receipt; a free painting receipt template is there if you'd rather hand one over.

Some clients take their time with the last payment. Switch on reminder texts for that invoice and Workeey texts the pay link on a schedule until it's paid, eight texts at most. Texts need a saved account, not guest mode; the free plan includes 10 a month, Pro has 30 and Premium has no cap. If you'd rather your bank do the checking, connect it, and a payment that matches an invoice marks it paid.

One painter, one phone, a cleaner week

Workeey is built for the painter who runs the business on their own: there are no crew accounts, no timesheets and no job costing reports. It keeps every client, job, photo and invoice in one place. Use the assistant when typing is a pain — say the Garcia exterior moves to next Monday, or ask it to start an estimate for two bedrooms and a hallway — and it prepares the change for you to check and apply.

When a client calls back in four years about the deck, their file has the colors, the sheen and what you charged. Workeey runs in any phone's browser, iPhone included, and as an Android app. The free plan has no end date. Google Calendar and QuickBooks sync are on Pro, $5 a month (pricing). Doing drywall patches and odd jobs too? See handyman software.

• Built for one painter, with no crew accounts
• An assistant that prepares estimates and jobs for you
• Every client's past jobs, colors and prices on file
• Free plan, or Pro at $5 a month for syncing

More for painters: pages and free templates

• Invoicing for painters — prep, coats and the balance after a deposit
• How to price painting jobs — a guide to setting your prices
• How to start a painting business — a step-by-step guide to going out on your own
• Best apps for painting contractors — the apps for this trade compared
• Painting invoice template — free, with a filled-in sample
• Painting estimate template — a free quote sample
• Painting receipt template — a free paid-in-full sample
• Painting business name ideas — a free name generator for your trade
• Free invoice template — every field a trade invoice needs
• Free estimate template — copy it, price it, send it
• Free receipt template — a paid-in-full receipt to copy
• Work order template — the job written down before you bill it
• Late payment reminder templates — texts, emails and a letter to copy and send
• All free templates and tools