Labour and material, separately
Painting is quoted two ways in Mumbai and the difference matters. Labour only runs ₹8 to ₹18 per square foot of wall area. Supply and apply, where the contractor provides the paint, runs ₹18 to ₹45 per square foot. If you are comparing a ₹12 quote against a ₹30 one, you may well be comparing labour against a full job.
| Scope | Rate per sq ft | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Labour only, repaint | ₹8 - ₹14 | Sanding, two finish coats |
| Labour only, fresh wall | ₹12 - ₹18 | Putty, primer, two finish coats |
| Supply and apply, economy | ₹18 - ₹28 | Distemper or economy emulsion |
| Supply and apply, premium | ₹30 - ₹45 | Premium emulsion, full putty and primer |
For a typical Mumbai 2BHK the wall area is roughly three to three and a half times the carpet area, so a 650 square foot flat has around 2,000 to 2,300 square feet to paint. At ₹25 per square foot supply and apply, that is ₹50,000 to ₹57,000.
The coats are the job
A proper interior repaint is: surface cleaned and sanded, cracks filled, one or two coats of wall putty sanded smooth between coats, one primer coat, then two finish coats. Skip the putty and the wall looks acceptable for a year and then shows every imperfection the old surface had. Skip the primer and the finish coat soaks in unevenly and you need a third.
When a quotation is unusually cheap, this is almost always what has been removed. Ask for the number of putty coats and whether a primer is included as explicit lines.
Exterior is a different trade
Exterior painting in Mumbai has to survive direct monsoon, which means an exterior-grade emulsion with a stated recoat interval, and crucially means any cracks and seepage are sorted before the paint goes on. Painting over a damp exterior wall is money spent on a problem that will reappear in the first heavy week. Exterior rates run ₹25 to ₹50 per square foot supplied and applied, plus access costs if scaffolding or rope access is needed.
You may not need to paint everything
This is worth saying plainly because it costs us work: if two walls have gone bad from a fixed leak and the rest of the flat is sound, repainting those two walls and matching the existing shade is the right job. Full-flat repaints get sold because they are easier to quote, not because they are always necessary.
Where a full repaint does make sense is when you are changing colour, when the flat has not been painted in six or more years, or when work in other trades has left the walls damaged throughout.