Exterior painting cost in Toronto and the GTA
Updated · Our figures come straight from our own quoting engine · Dylan, owner
A single garage door costs $700–$1,200 to repaint in the GTA on published rate cards, and a double $800–$1,500, nowhere near twice. Ours are $350 and $450. The outside face of a front door is $225 with us, against $300–$600 published for a door done as part of a bigger job.
This is the curb-appeal end of exterior work rather than a whole-house repaint: the front door, the garage doors and their surrounds, the pillars and railings on the porch. They are the parts of a house people actually look at, and they are cheap to change compared with everything around them.
Front doors
A door is priced per face, because painting the inside as well is close to a second door's worth of masking, drying and access. You cannot shut the house up while one side is wet. The figures below are for the six-panel door most GTA homes have; a double entry, a glazed door or French patio doors carry their own prices, and our quote asks which you have rather than averaging across them.
| What it covers | Published GTA range | Our quote |
|---|---|---|
| The outside face onlya front door repainted as part of a larger job | Published GTA range$300–$600 | Our quote$225 / door |
| Both facesa front door and its frame, as a visit of its own | Published GTA range$800–$1,200 | Our quote$416.25 / door |
No published GTA source states whether its door price covers one face or two, which makes door quotes unusually hard to compare. Ask, and get it in writing.
Garage doors and their trim
The thing worth knowing here is what a double door does to the price, because the intuition is wrong. It is not twice a single. Both published GTA rate cards we found put the step from single to double at a couple of hundred dollars, because what takes the time is masking off the surround, protecting the driveway and setting up to spray, not the extra square metre of door. The surround itself is a separate charge with us and is normally bundled into the door price elsewhere, so compare the pair rather than the headline.
| What it covers | Published GTA range | Our quote |
|---|---|---|
| A single garage doora single garage door | Published GTA range$700–$1,200 | Our quote$350 / door |
| A double garage doora double garage door | Published GTA range$800–$1,500 | Our quote$450 / door |
Trim in a second colour is charged on top, because a separate colour means a second cut-in along every edge rather than spraying through.
Porch pillars and railings
Railings are priced by the length of the top rail, with the posts and spindles that hang off it included. Counting spindles individually is how a porch quote becomes unreadable. Pillars are priced each, against an eight-foot reference, and taller ones scale from there because the staging does.
| What it covers | Published GTA range | Our quote |
|---|---|---|
| Railings, per linear footper linear foot of porch railing | Published GTA range$8–$15 | Our quote$10 / ln ft |
No Canadian source publishes a per-column painting rate at all, so we have not put a market figure against pillars. Ours is on the quote; there is simply nothing honest to compare it with.
What we do not do
This guide covers no whole-house exterior work. Painting the outside of a house is a spraying job with its own staging, its own weather window and its own set of risks, and it is not what this crew is set up for. If that is what you need, the ranges published for it in the GTA run several times anything on this page, and you want somebody who does it every week rather than us.
Every figure on this page is before HST, ours and the published ranges alike, which is how almost every painter in Ontario quotes. Thirteen per cent goes on at invoice time.
Questions about what this costs
How late in the year can exterior painting be done in Ontario?
It is bounded by temperature and damp rather than by the calendar. Modern exterior coatings want the surface and the air above about ten degrees while they go on and while they cure overnight, which in practice means roughly May to October here, with the shoulders depending on the week. A door or a garage door is far more forgiving than a whole house, because it is a small area that can be timed to a good day, and the door itself can often be worked on with the opening sealed.
Will my front door be unusable while you work on it?
Not for the day. The door stays on its hinges and the opening stays closed and secure between coats. We work around the way you actually use the house rather than taking the door away. What we ask is that it is not opened and shut repeatedly while a coat is going off, so if the door is the only way in and out we will plan the timing with you.
Is painting a garage door worth it against replacing it?
Almost always, if the door is mechanically sound. A repaint costs a small fraction of a replacement and changes the thing anyone actually notices, which is the colour and the finish rather than the panel style. Where replacement wins is when the door is rusting through, the panels are delaminating, or the mechanism is on its way out: paint on a failing door is money spent on the wrong problem.
What preparation does an exterior door actually need?
More than the painting takes, usually. Old coatings get scuffed back and any that are lifting come off entirely, bare spots get spot-primed, hardware comes off rather than being masked around, and the whole thing gets cleaned of the road film that everything at the front of a house collects. Skipping any of it shows within a season, because an exterior door takes sun, rain and slammed use in a way nothing indoors does.
For how the work itself is done (preparation, products and what happens on the day), see Exterior Painting.
We are a Richmond Hill crew and we work across York Region and North York. The ranges on this page cover the wider GTA, because painting costs do not stop at a municipal boundary. If you are outside where we work, though, we will tell you so rather than drive somewhere we cannot serve properly. Ask anyway if you are close; we answer honestly.
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