Premium VS Cheap Paint

It seems like anything you buy today has at least 3 choices for the same product, all with different prices. It would appear that a gallon of paint is no different, right? Most paint manufacturers have products that range from $15 to $75 per gallon. They appear to be similar, so why would anyone pay a seemingly exorbitant price for a premium paint?

With paint, it always comes down to the chemistry and the quality of the ingredients. The old adage "you get what you pay for" is generally applicable. All marketing aside, the price of paint correlates directly to the price of the raw ingredients. The better the materials, the higher the price. Every paint manufacturer offers higher and lower quality paints to compete at each price point.

The quality of the paint itself isn't always immediately visible between a cheap paint and a premium paint. Within a year, you'll begin to notice that a premium paint will hold it's color better and resist scuffing. Ultimately, it might mean the difference of painting your house every 3-4 years versus every 5-7 years.

The main ingredients common to all residential paint are pigment, binder (or resin), extenders, solvent, and additives. Pigment is the raw material that gives a paint its color. Titanium dioxide, iron oxides, calcium carbonate, and carbon black are typically used. The binder or resin is used to hold the pigments together and allows the paint to adhere to the substrate. Acrylic, alkyd, or epoxy polymers are most common. Extenders are larger pigment particles that are added to improve the bond. Clay, silica, and zinc oxide can be added in varying quantities to accomplish this. The solvent is the liquid or "vehicle" used to apply the paint. When it dries, you are essentially with a combination of pigment and binder. Solvents can be water or petroleum-based. Additives are used to change the behavior of the paint (it's consistency in liquid form, anti-bacterial properties, drying time, etc..).

All of these ingredients vary in quality and cost. Manufacturers must sacrifice the quality of these ingredients to produce a less expensive paint. The result is less performance. Better pigments and binders are more expensive, but they are the key components to a long-lasting paint job.

When selecting a painting contractor, it is important to know whether your contractor is using a premium or a cheap paint. For most paint jobs, materials amount to 15 or 25% of the total job cost. Over the course of 10-12 years, three $10,000 paint jobs with cheap paint are less of a bargain than two $12,000 paint jobs with premium paint.