Most online quote calculators ask for one number, a square-metre figure, and hand back another. That is not how a painter prices a job. You walk it. You count doors, you look at the windows, you work out whether the second storey means a scaffold or a long day on a ladder, and you notice the prep before you notice the paint.
So we built the estimate the way you would walk the job.
The painting estimator is the first tool in the Tyso Toolkit, and it is free. It takes a paint job room by room: wall and ceiling areas, doors and frames, windows, skirtings and architraves, exterior trim. It asks about prep, because prep is where the hours hide. It asks about access, because a tight site and a high wall cost real time. Then it builds the labour, the paint and consumables, and a suggested price with GST already in it, laid out as a report you can read top to bottom.
It is built for two people. If you are a painter quoting jobs, it is a fast second pair of eyes: a structured walk-through that catches the door you forgot and shows the hours split across prep, painting and cleanup. If you are a homeowner, it is a sane ballpark before the quotes come in, so you can tell a fair number from a wild one.
One thing it will not do is pretend to be a quote. The figures are preview grade. They are honest arithmetic on the inputs you give it, and they are only as good as those inputs. A real quote still needs someone standing in the room, looking at the walls, reading the job the way a screen cannot. The tool says so, plainly, on the report.
This is the first tool, not the only one. The plan is a small kit of these, one trade at a time, each one doing a real job rather than sitting there looking clever. Painting was the natural place to start.
Go walk a job through it. It takes a few minutes, and you can email the estimate to yourself at the end.