For painting subcontractors
Painting contractor software for the last trade on the schedule.
Search “painting contractor software” and you get estimating apps built for residential repaints. You are the last trade on a commercial job, absorbing eight weeks of everyone else’s slippage into a completion date that never moved, returning four times to touch up damage you did not cause, and billing against a percentage a superintendent decides by walking a corridor. SubMark is built for that job — bid to final retainage, office and field in the same system.
14-day free trial, no card needed. Sign up from here and painting is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Return trips and touch-ups priced and signed on site
- Prep, prime and finish coats as their own SOV lines
- Night and weekend hours on a dated record
What actually goes wrong on a commercial painting job.
Everyone else’s delay comes out of your float.
You are last, so eight weeks of upstream slippage lands on you and substantial completion has not moved an inch. You double the crew, you work nights, you work weekends. That acceleration is real cost and sometimes a real claim, and the only thing that makes it arguable is a dated log from each of those nights — the crew, their hours, the narrative, photos — submitted and reviewed rather than reconstructed from memory in March.
You come back four times for damage you did not cause.
A mechanical crew drags a lift down a finished corridor. The flooring installer scuffs the base. Millwork gouges a wall two days after you signed off. Every return trip is billable and almost none of them get billed. A change event with photos the day it happens, plus a T&M tag priced by the office off your own rate list and e-signed by the superintendent on site, is the difference. The honest limit: SubMark has no punch or deficiency item list to work down — what you get is a dated, photo-backed record and signed tags.
Prep is the whole bid and the hardest thing to see.
You priced paint over a level 4 finish and walked into walls that need a skim coat, or CMU that needs two coats of block filler nobody mentioned at the walkthrough. Prep is where the hours go, and it is the first thing a GC calls “part of your scope.” Keep prep on its own SOV lines, and raise the condition as a change event with photos before you prime rather than after you have absorbed it.
The color schedule changes after you buy the paint.
An ASI rewrites the finish schedule and your custom colors are not returnable. Purchase orders sitting against the job and supplier invoices coded to it in the invoices inbox show exactly what you committed and when, and a change event raised the day the ASI lands is what you argue from. Left to a verbal conversation with a PM who rotates off the job, it is your money.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things painting subs settle with the GC before mobilizing.
What is approved, where your scope stops, what has to be true before you start, and how you get at the work. Every one of them turns into a change order three weeks in if nobody writes the answer down — and the answer is worth nothing if it only lives in one PM’s inbox.
In the pack
Switch on Pre-Construction Review and these 4 questions are already the list, worded the way painting subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved color and finish schedule, and the attic stock
- Confirm the substrate prep standard and who corrects surface defects
- Confirm whose scope the caulking, patching and touch-up are
- Confirm the environmental conditions and the work window
Tick them off job by job, with your own note on each. The note is your answer — the pack ships the question and leaves the answer to you.
Pre-Construction Review is an opt-in module — it is not one of the eight switched on at setup. Turn it on in Settings and the list is already there in painting terms, with no upgrade and no setup call. Edit it once and it applies to every job; the tick and the note stay with the job it was asked on. See every module →
The painting job, prep to punch.
Prep, prime, finish coats and enamel are different crews with different production rates, and the GC sees all of it as one percentage. Here is how the work maps to what ships in SubMark.
- 01 Bid & estimate
Takeoff off the finish schedule, surface areas by substrate, coating systems, mock-up requirements and alternates.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Submittals & color schedule
Product data, VOC and fire-rating submittals, draw-downs and mock-up approval before the first gallon is ordered.
Submittals with a material library and merged PDF export
- 03 Surface prep
Patching, sanding, skim coat, block filler, and whatever the drywall and masonry trades left behind.
Daily Labor Logs with photos, Change Events for conditions you did not bid
- 04 Masking & protection
Floors, glazing, hardware, fixtures and finished work covered before anything gets sprayed.
Time Clock & Labor Logs feeding Job Costing
- 05 Prime
Primer on by substrate, around the holdout areas other trades are still working in.
Crew Scheduling across jobs, Where Workers Are
- 06 First coat
First finish coat rolled or sprayed, area by area, in whatever order access allows.
Time Clock & Labor Logs, Job Costing by cost type
- 07 Final coat
Second coat behind the trades that have finally cleared out of the space.
Daily Labor Logs, Crew Scheduling
- 08 Enamel, doors & metals
Frames, doors, railings, bollards and misc metals — slow, skilled work that prices nothing like wall area.
Purchase Orders, Invoices Inbox tying supplier cost to the job
- 09 Touch-up & punch
The walk, the return trips, and the damage caused after you were finished.
Change Events, T&M Tags priced off your rate lists
- 10 Closeout
Attic stock, final clean, final billing and the retainage.
Schedule of Values & Draw Log, Lien Waiver Tracking
Every module named above ships today; the eight below are on from day one, and the rest are a switch in Settings, not an upgrade. The full list is on the product page.
In the pack
These 7 phases load with the Painting pack the moment you pick it at setup.
They are the phase list your foremen pick from on every daily log, so the hours come back tagged to the part of the job they were spent on.
- 01 Surface Prep
- 02 Masking
- 03 Prime
- 04 First Coat
- 05 Final Coat
- 06 Enamel / Doors
- 07 Touch-Up / Punch
Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
A painting schedule of values that pays for prep.
One line called “Painting” means a superintendent decides what percentage you are at by looking down a corridor. Split it by substrate and by coat and the number stops being a conversation:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Material 25%
- Prep 15%
- Prime 15%
- Finish Coats 35%
- Punch 10%
What most commercial painting subs add
- 01 Submittals, mock-ups & color schedule
- 02 Mobilization & protection
- 03 Surface prep — drywall
- 04 Surface prep — CMU & metals
- 05 Primer — material stored-material line
- 06 Finish paint — material stored-material line
- 07 Prime — labor
- 08 First coat — labor
- 09 Final coat — labor
- 10 Doors, frames & hardware enamel
- 11 Railings & misc metals
- 12 Exterior & specialty coatings
- 13 Touch-up & punch
- 14 Final clean, attic stock & closeout
Prep and prime are roughly 30% of a commercial painting contract, and all of it happens before anything looks painted. On their own lines they are billable in the month you do them. Buried in a single “painting” line they are a percentage you have to argue for.
That longer list is an illustration, not a template — your SOV is negotiated with your GC. SubMark gives you the SOV to build, and tracks every draw, retainage amount and payment against it. It is your record of the job, not a replacement for the GC’s billing system — you submit the draw the way each GC requires and log it here.
Read next
Schedule of values for subcontractors: how to build one that bills clean
How to break out line items so prep, prime and finish coats each carry their own money — and why one “painting” line hands a superintendent the right to decide what you are owed.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
A return trip to touch up another trade’s damage is a T&M tag signed on the spot, not a favor — what belongs on the ticket and how four return trips become one change order.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
Three crews, two shifts and a corridor that only opened up this morning. SubMark schedules every painter across every job in one calendar and flags the double-booking before the shift starts.
On from day one, in every trade’s setup.
Nothing is paywalled by tier. These eight are switched on in every one of the 29 trade packs, painting included, from the moment you finish setup.
T&M Tags
Field tickets priced off your own rate lists and signed by the GC on the spot.
Change Events
The field logs a scope change with photos the day it happens, then it converts to a CO.
Draw Calendar
Every GC’s billing cutoff and submission method in one calendar, with reminders.
Submittals
Submittal packages with a material library, cover sheets and merged PDF export.
Daily Labor Logs
Weather, narrative, labor, materials and photos, with a submit-and-review workflow.
Timesheets
Weekly rollups with worker signatures and supervisor approval, plus a payroll summary export.
Where Workers Are
A live view of which workers are on which job today.
Safety
Toolbox talks, inspections, incidents, and certification and COI tracking with expiry dates.
Pick Painting at setup and SubMark loads the painting pack: the real phase list from surface prep and masking through prime, first coat, final coat, enamel and doors, and touch-up and punch; work types for prep, prime, first coat, final coat, trim and enamel, and touch-up; worker types for foremen, painters, apprentices and helpers; and a material list built around primer, interior and exterior paint, enamel, caulk, tape and spackle. Every phase name, work type and material in it is editable in Settings — including the job-type list, which is the one thing worth setting to your own kind of commercial work on day one.
The worker types are already there too — Foreman, Painter, Apprentice and Helper — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Painting subcontractors ask us these.
Is this software for residential repaint work?
No, and that is deliberate. SubMark is for commercial project work — you bid a job, sign a contract with a GC, bill against a schedule of values and wait on retainage. If your revenue comes from homeowner estimates and repaint sales, a residential estimating app fits you better. If it comes from construction contracts, this is built for you.
How do we get paid for the fourth return trip?
Capture it as work, on the day. A change event with photos of the damage and who caused it, then a T&M tag priced off your own rate list and signed by the superintendent before your painter leaves the floor. A month of signed tags bundles into one change order instead of four conversations nobody remembers. The honest limit: there is no punch or deficiency item list in SubMark to work down — what you get is the dated record and the signed tags.
Can we see what prep cost us versus finish coats?
With Area Tracking switched on in Settings, yes — it is not on by default. With it on, prep, prime, first coat, final coat and enamel hours stay distinct and you get budget versus actual per phase while there are still floors left to paint. Left off, job costing shows labor, material and sub cost for the whole job, grouped by cost type.
Is the painting pack set up for commercial work?
Yes. The painting pack starts on the commercial segment, with commercial job types (office TI, retail, healthcare, industrial, hospitality) and a commercial painter’s phases, materials and worker types: prep, masking, prime, first coat, final coat, enamel and doors, touch-up and punch. If you also take residential work, the segment and its job types are a dropdown in Settings.
We worked nights to hold the completion date. Can we capture those hours?
Yes. The time clock and daily labor logs record hours per worker, per job, per day, and each night gets its own dated log with the narrative and photos. For the recoverable part, the office prices a T&M tag off an overtime rate on your own rate list and the superintendent e-signs it on site. One thing to know: T&M hours do not feed job-costing actuals — the time clock and labor logs are what job costing reads.
Where do our draws and retainage actually get tracked?
On your side, against your own schedule of values. Each GC keeps its own portal or form and you keep submitting through it. SubMark holds the schedule of values — surface prep by substrate, primer and finish material, prime, first coat and final coat as their own labor lines, touch-up and punch — and logs every draw you submit against it, with retainage held and the payment date on each one.
Does it connect to QuickBooks?
Yes. Connect QuickBooks Online once and bills and purchases pull into job costing (hourly, if you switch auto-pull on) so material and sub costs sit against the right job; draws go across as QuickBooks invoices and POs as purchase orders, one at a time with a click; and a coverage meter shows how much of the cost pulled from QuickBooks is coded to a job.
Do my field crews cost extra?
No. Field users are free and unlimited, and so are the subs you invite into a job. You pay one company subscription: $249 a month with your first 3 office users included, then $39 a month each. The whole breakdown is on the pricing page.
See it on a painting job.
Start the trial, confirm painting on the first screen, and the pack loads your phases, checklists and worker types in your own words. Or take a 30-minute walkthrough with the person who built it, on your kind of jobs, instead of a canned demo script.
14-day free trial, no card needed. See the whole product →
$249/mo for your company, your first 3 office users included, $39/mo each after that. Field crews are free and unlimited. See what's included →
Other trades
Electrical
Gear you pay for months before you bill it, rough-in hours that disappear, and every tenant change landing on your scope.
HVAC / Mechanical
Equipment bought a year before it is billed, shop fab the GC will not pay for, and a closeout that holds your last 10% for six months.
Plumbing
First in the ground and last out of the building — with a quarter of the contract value stuck behind the finish trades.
Drywall & Framing
A third to half the contract spent on board before anything is hung, five finish passes nobody can measure, and three punch walks and a clean-up that are all on you.
Concrete
Pour days that cannot move, ready-mix invoices you reconcile weeks later, and forms that are capital cycling across placements.
Fire Sprinkler
Weeks of hydraulic engineering before you can bill a dollar, and every phase gated behind an inspection you do not schedule.
Glazing & Glass
Custom material you cannot order until you field measure, cannot return once you do, and cannot bill until a water test passes.
Roofing
A tear-off that owns the building until dry-in, rotten deck nobody bid, and a warranty package standing between you and retainage.
Low voltage
Drop counts that move with every furniture plan, cable sitting in a locked IDF for months, and a final 10% that waits on a test report.
Fire alarm
A quarter of the contract behind an acceptance test you do not schedule, retests you never bill, and device counts that move all year.
Flooring
A slab that fails its moisture test, prep bid against a flatness spec nobody hit, and a whole building’s material stored for months.
Masonry
Scaffold that is capital, grout lifts gated by an inspector, and a mock-up panel holding up the whole brick order.
Structural & Misc Steel
Two thirds of the contract is detailing, mill material and shop work, earned before a single piece is erected, and the last five percent is a handrail holding your retainage.
Wood Framing
Fourteen buildings billed as one percentage, a lumber package that is 40% of the contract before a wall goes up, and blocking you owe six other trades that nobody drew.
Excavation & Sitework
The only schedule of values on this site that opens without a single line for product you buy: your contract is production, billed against quantities somebody else surveyed.
Waterproofing
Work that is buried within a week of going in, blamed for every drop of water for the next ten years, and finished with sealants months after everyone forgot you were on the job.
Doors, Frames & Hardware
Half the contract is product you buy months early, and the last three openings out of four hundred hold your punch, your final draw and your retainage.
Demolition
A scope nobody can see until you open the wall, extra work that leaves in the dumpster before anyone prices it, and retainage held for a year after you demobilized.
Insulation
A four-day window between rough-in inspection and board that nobody protects, half the contract sitting in material you staged weeks early, and firestopping everyone assumed was yours.
EIFS / Stucco / Plaster
A schedule set by cure time that nobody believes, a weather barrier you bury on day two and get blamed for in year three, and joints drawn by somebody else that crack on your wall.
Acoustical Ceilings (ACT)
Grid that cannot start until every trade above the ceiling is finished, tile that drops in the last three weeks of a two-year job, and a finished ceiling the whole building then uses as an access hatch.
Paving & Asphalt
Material with a clock on it and a crew on the clock whether you place or not, a subgrade somebody else owns, and six months of construction traffic on the binder course you have to warrant.
Tile & Stone
A finished floor installed on somebody else’s slab, to a flatness tolerance the concrete sub was never asked to hit, with waterproofing and movement joints that belong to nobody until the warranty call comes.
Millwork & Casework
Half your contract earned in your own shop before anything reaches the site, built to a drawing of walls somebody else framed, with the furnish-and-install line drawn in a meeting you were not in.
All trades
SubMark ships a setup pack for 29 commercial trades. See the full list.