How Much to Charge to Stain Wood Furniture

Quick answer: Price furniture staining by the hour, not by size. Estimate strip, sand, stain, topcoat, and dry handling time, add materials, cover overhead, then add margin. Rates vary widely by region and shop, so build every quote from your own cost base. Start from our staining charge guide and the estimate template.

Furniture is one of the easiest jobs in the trade to underbid. A dining table looks small next to a deck, so the instinct is to quote small. Then the client mentions the existing finish is a thick, yellowed varnish, and suddenly you are eight hours into stripping before a drop of stain has touched the wood. The piece did not get bigger. The work did.

This guide is written for painters and refinishers deciding what to bill a client, not for homeowners buying the service. It covers how to build a price from the ground up, what genuinely drives the number, what belongs in the quote and what does not, and the specific traps that turn a profitable furniture job into a favour. Nothing here is a market rate, and no figure below is a recommendation. Rates differ enormously by region, by market segment, and by shop, and the only defensible price is one calculated from your own costs.

Furniture Is an Hours Job, Not a Square Foot Job

On a deck or a fence you can measure the coated area and apply a rate per square foot, because the work scales fairly predictably with area. Furniture does not behave that way. A small chair with turned legs, spindles, and carved detail can take longer than a plain tabletop with four times the surface area, because every one of those spindles has to be sanded and coated by hand.

What actually drives furniture pricing is complexity and condition, and both express themselves as hours. So the reliable method is to estimate the labour hours honestly, multiply by your own billing rate, add materials, and sanity check the resulting number against what the piece is worth to the client. Quote the client a flat project price if you like, but calculate it from a bottom up hourly build every single time.

That does not mean you quote hourly to the client. Most furniture clients want one number and a completion date. It means the number you hand them is derived from hours rather than guessed from the look of the piece.

The Bottom Up Build

Every furniture quote is the same five ingredients. Work through them in order and you will not miss anything expensive.

1. Labour hours

Break the job into its actual phases rather than estimating one lump. Strip or remove the existing finish. Sand through your grit progression. Repair, fill, and address any damage. Clean and dust off. Condition, if the species needs it. Apply stain, including wipe back. Dry time handling and turning the piece. Apply topcoat, usually multiple coats with sanding between. Final inspection, reassembly, and hardware. Estimate each phase separately and add them up. The lump sum guess is where hours vanish.

2. Your billing rate

This is your number, derived from what you need to earn per productive hour to cover your wage, your non billable time, and your business. Do not borrow it from a forum post. If you already price other work by the hour, use that rate as your starting point and adjust for the fact that furniture is fussy, detailed work that often carries higher client expectations on finish quality.

3. Materials

Stripper, sandpaper across several grits, tack cloths, conditioner, stain, topcoat, applicators, rags, gloves, and disposal. Sandpaper in particular gets underestimated because on a stripped piece you go through a lot of it. Price materials at what you actually pay, then mark them up if that is how your business works.

4. Overhead

Shop space, vehicle, insurance, tools and their replacement, dust extraction, spray equipment, software, admin time, quoting time you do not get paid for, and the space the piece occupies while it cures. Furniture cure time is real overhead, because a table taking up a bay for several days is a bay you cannot sell to anyone else.

5. Margin

Profit is not the same as your wage. It is what the business earns for carrying the risk, and it is the first thing that disappears when you price by feel. Add it deliberately, as a defined percentage, on top of a build that already pays you properly.

An Illustrative Example of the Arithmetic

The following numbers are invented purely to show the shape of the calculation. They are not market rates, not a recommendation, and not what you should charge. Substitute your own rate, your own material costs, and your own overhead recovery.

Say you scope a solid wood dining table with an existing finish that has to come off. As an example, suppose you estimate the phases like this: six hours to strip, four hours to sand through the grits, one hour for repairs and cleanup, two hours to stain and wipe back, and four hours across three topcoats with sanding between. That is seventeen hours. Multiply those seventeen hours by your own billing rate and you have the labour line. Add your materials at what they actually cost you, and that subtotal is where you start, before overhead and margin.

Now apply whatever overhead recovery your business uses, and then your target margin percentage on top. Whatever that produces is your quote. The point of the exercise is not the total. It is that seventeen hours was the finding, and the six hour strip phase was more than a third of the job. If you had eyeballed that table and quoted it as a day's work, you would have lost money before you started. Run the same exercise with your own numbers on a painting estimate template so the build is documented rather than mental.

Scope the Piece Properly Before You Quote

You cannot estimate hours from a phone description or a single photo. See the piece, or at minimum get detailed photos of every surface plus a straight answer on the existing finish. Work through a consistent checklist.

• What is the existing finish? Bare wood, oil, wax, shellac, lacquer, varnish, polyurethane, or paint. Each removes differently and at a different speed.
• Is it solid wood or veneer? Veneer is thin and unforgiving. Aggressive sanding goes straight through it, and that changes both your method and your risk.
• What species is it? Blotch prone softwoods need conditioning. Dense hardwoods take stain differently. Some species simply will not go where the client wants.
• How much detail is there? Turned legs, spindles, carvings, mouldings, and louvres multiply hand time.
• Does it come apart? Removing hardware, drawers, and doors adds time but usually saves more than it costs in finish quality.
• What condition is it in? Water rings, burns, gouges, loose joints, and old repairs are all separate work.
• What colour does the client want, and is it achievable? Going darker is usually straightforward. Going lighter than the current finish means getting all of it off.

The technique side of all this is covered in our guide on how to stain wood furniture, and the underlying product decisions in types of wood stain explained and water based vs oil based stain. Knowing the method well is what lets you estimate its duration accurately.

Stripping and Sanding Is the Dominant Cost Driver

If you take one thing from this article, take this. On a previously finished piece, removal of the old finish is routinely the largest single labour block in the job, and it is the phase with the widest variance. Two tables that look identical can differ by many hours depending on what is on them and how well it is bonded.

A thick, well adhered catalysed finish on a factory made piece is slow going. Multiple layers of old paint in the crevices of a carved piece is slower still. Meanwhile a lightly oiled piece might need only a scuff sand. You have to know which one you are looking at before you can name a price, and that is why a proper inspection is not optional.

Where you cannot fully determine the finish in advance, price the phase as a range with a clearly stated assumption, or quote the strip phase separately and price the finishing work once the piece is bare. Both are more honest than absorbing an unknown. Our guide on how to strip paint covers the removal methods, and the same variance logic applies on exterior work, which is why our deck and fence charge guides also treat prep as the swing factor.

Antiques and Valuable Pieces: Flag It, Do Not Assume

This is a professional obligation as much as a pricing point. Refinishing an antique or a collectible piece can reduce its value substantially, sometimes dramatically. Original surface, patina, and finish are often a large part of what makes such a piece worth what it is worth, and stripping them off is not reversible.

If a client brings you a piece that looks old, unusual, signed, or potentially valuable, say so before you touch it. Tell them plainly that refinishing may affect value, and suggest they get it appraised or speak to a conservator first if there is any doubt. Put that conversation in writing in your quote or in an email. It protects the client, and it protects you from a dispute that no amount of good finishing work will fix afterwards.

Some shops decline this work entirely, some price it higher to reflect the care and risk involved, and some refer it out to a specialist conservator. Any of those is a defensible position. Quietly stripping a valuable piece because the client asked and you did not want to raise it is not.

What to Include and What to Exclude

Vague quotes cause disputes. Write down what the price covers and what it does not, in the quote itself.

Pickup and delivery deserves its own line. Collecting a heavy sideboard, loading it, transporting it, and returning it is real time, real fuel, and real risk of damage in transit. If you include it silently, you are giving it away. Price it or exclude it.

Do Not Underbid Small Pieces

The small job is where furniture refinishers lose money most reliably. A single chair still requires setting up, mixing, sampling, cleaning equipment, waiting through cure times, and handling the piece. The fixed cost of doing any job at all does not shrink because the piece is small.

Most shops handle this with a minimum charge, set at whatever makes a short job worth opening the doors for. Decide yours from your own numbers, state it up front, and hold it. The alternative is a calendar full of little pieces that keep you busy and leave you no better off. The same principle applies across the trade, which is why our fence charge guide and general staining charge guide both make the same argument.

Batching helps too. If a client has six dining chairs, that is a genuinely more efficient job per chair than one chair alone, and your pricing can reflect the efficiency you actually gain rather than a discount you feel obliged to offer.

Sampling, Approval, and Change Orders

Colour disputes are the other classic furniture problem. Wood species, age, prior finish, and the stain all interact, and the cured colour on the client's piece may not match a chip, a photo, or a sample done on different timber. Always produce a sample on the actual piece, ideally on an inconspicuous area or an offcut of the same wood, and get the client to approve it before you commit.

Document the approval. A dated photo and a written confirmation is enough. Then state in your terms that a colour change after approval is chargeable, because it means stripping back and starting again, which is genuinely a second job.

The same discipline applies to scope creep generally. When a client adds a piece, adds a surface, or asks for an extra coat, price it as a change and get it agreed before you do it. Our painting estimate template gives you a structure for capturing scope in writing from the start.

Cure Time Is Occupied Space

Furniture finishing has long stretches where nothing is happening but you cannot do anything else with the space or the piece. Coats have to dry before sanding, topcoats have to cure before handling, and the piece has to reach a hardness that survives transport before it can go back. Our guide on how long stain takes to dry covers the variables, and cool or humid conditions stretch all of them.

Two consequences for pricing. First, build realistic dates into your quote, because a client expecting the piece back in three days and getting it in ten is an unhappy client regardless of the finish quality. Second, recognise that occupied shop space is an overhead cost, and a job that ties up a bay for a fortnight should carry more overhead recovery than one that clears in two days.

Insurance, Compliance, and a Necessary Disclaimer

Stripping and finishing work carries real obligations. Solvent handling, ventilation, waste disposal, and dust control all have rules attached, and stain soaked rags are a genuine spontaneous combustion hazard that has burned down workshops. Dry them flat outdoors or submerge them in water before disposal, and make sure anyone working for you knows to do the same.

Licensing, insurance, permit, and waste disposal requirements vary by jurisdiction, and it is your responsibility to know what applies where you operate. Carry appropriate liability cover, and understand what your policy says about client property in your care, custody, and control, because that is precisely what a client's furniture is while it sits in your shop.

Nothing in this article is tax, legal, or financial advice. The figures used above are illustrative arithmetic only, not market rates. Price from your own costs, your own market, and your own professional judgement, and take proper advice on the regulatory side.

Frequently asked questions

Should I charge hourly or a flat price for furniture staining?

Quote the client a flat project price, but calculate it from a bottom up hourly build every time. Furniture cost is driven by complexity and condition rather than surface area, so hours are the only reliable basis. Clients generally want one number and a date, and a flat price gives them that while your internal build keeps you profitable.

What is the biggest cost driver in a furniture staining job?

Removing the existing finish. On a previously finished piece, stripping and sanding is routinely the largest single labour block and the phase with the widest variance. A thick catalysed finish or layered old paint in carved detail can take many hours. Inspect the piece and identify the finish before you name a price.

How do I avoid underbidding a small piece?

Set and hold a minimum charge based on your own costs. Setup, sampling, cleanup, equipment cleaning, and cure time waiting do not shrink just because the piece is small, so a single chair carries most of the fixed cost of a bigger job. Batching similar pieces is a legitimate efficiency you can reflect in pricing.

Should I refinish an antique for a client?

Raise the issue before you touch it. Refinishing an antique or collectible can significantly reduce its value, because original surface and patina are often part of what makes it valuable, and the change is not reversible. Advise the client to get an appraisal or speak to a conservator, and put that conversation in writing.

What should I exclude from a furniture staining quote?

State exclusions explicitly. Structural repairs, reglueing loose joints, veneer patching, new hardware, colour changes after sample approval, and pickup and delivery are commonly priced separately. Silence on these items is what causes disputes later. Write the inclusions and exclusions into the quote itself rather than relying on a conversation.

How do I stop colour disputes with furniture clients?

Sample on the actual piece or an offcut of the same wood, let it cure, and get written approval before proceeding. Cured colour depends on species, age, and prior finish, so a chip or photo is not a reliable reference. State in your terms that a colour change after approval is chargeable, since it means stripping back and starting the job again.