Paint prices in Nigeria: what a 20 litre bucket really costs

Ask three shops what a bucket of paint costs in Lagos and you will get three answers, none of which help you budget a job. Part of that is the market. Most of it is that “a bucket of paint” covers products that behave nothing like each other.

Below are our own current prices, what sits behind the gaps, and the one calculation that tells you whether a bucket is expensive or not.

What a bucket costs

These are the current prices for 20 litre packs across our range, cheapest first.

Same volume, same bucket, and the top of the list costs about seven times the bottom. That gap is not margin. It is what is inside.

Why one 20 litre bucket costs seven times another

Paint is pigment and binder carried in water or solvent. The binder is what holds the film together once the water leaves, and it is the most expensive ingredient by a wide margin. A cheap emulsion carries less binder and more extender, which is why it goes on thin, needs more coats, and chalks off an exterior wall after a couple of rainy seasons.

Look at the spread rate column again. Acrylic Emulsion covers 6 to 8 square metres per litre. Sungard covers 18 to 20. That is not a marketing number, it is a consequence of how much solid material is left on the wall after the water evaporates. Higher solids means better hiding, fewer coats, and a film thick enough to survive weather.

Exterior products carry a further cost. They need UV stability so the colour does not fade, and they need to stay flexible enough to move with a wall that expands in the afternoon heat and contracts overnight. That chemistry is not cheap.

The number that actually matters

Comparing bucket prices is close to useless. What you want is cost per square metre, which is the bucket price divided by the area it covers. Using the conservative end of each spread rate, one coat:

The ranking changes. Sungard has a higher sticker price than Maxshield but works out cheaper per square metre, because it stretches further. If you were choosing between those two on price alone you would pick wrong.

The gap also narrows dramatically. On the bucket, the spread between cheapest and dearest is seven times. Per square metre it is under three times. Most of what looks like a huge price difference is just a difference in how far the tin goes.

A real job, costed

Take a three bedroom flat with roughly 320 square metres of internal wall, which is a fair average once you have subtracted doors and windows. Two coats, so 640 square metres of coverage needed.

With Acrylic Emulsion at 6 square metres per litre you need about 107 litres, so six 20 litre buckets. That is ₦123,000.

With Ruby Matt at 10 square metres per litre you need 64 litres, so four buckets ordered, though three and a bit gets used. Four buckets is ₦244,800.

So the cheaper paint really is cheaper here, by a wide margin, and for interior walls that stay dry it is a sensible choice. The picture inverts outside, where a cheap emulsion will not survive and you end up paying for labour twice.

That last point is the one most budgets miss. Paint is usually the smaller half of a painting job. If a cheap exterior coat means repainting in three years, the paint you saved on is dwarfed by the scaffolding, labour and disruption you pay for again.

Does buying the big bucket save money?

Not with us, and this surprises people. Our 4 litre and 20 litre packs are priced at the same rate per litre on almost everything.

Acrylic Emulsion is ₦4,100 for 4 litres and ₦20,500 for 20. Both come to ₦1,025 a litre. Maxshield is ₦25,500 and ₦127,500, both ₦6,375 a litre. Weather King is ₦7,137 a litre either way.

The one exception runs the other way. Quality Acrylic Satin is ₦3,750 a litre in the 4 litre pack and ₦3,825 in the 20, so the small tin is marginally better value.

Buy the size that matches the job. A 20 litre bucket opened for a single bedroom will skin over before you get back to it, and paint has a 12 month shelf life once it leaves us.

What to check before you pay

Ask for the spread rate in writing. Any manufacturer who will not tell you how far a litre goes is asking you to buy blind, and the number is the only way to compare two prices honestly.

Check that the product is registered. Ours carry SON registration, which matters if the paint is going on a project that will be inspected.

Ask what the price includes. Tinting to a specific shade is standard with us and does not change the price, so a quoted figure should be the figure you pay. We tint from a library of over 2,400 notations, and you can browse the full colour library before you order.

Finally, get the litres right before you get the price. Buying two buckets too many is a bigger mistake than paying slightly over the odds per litre, and it is the most common one we see.

If you tell us the wall area and the surface, we will tell you the product, the number of litres and the cost. Request a quote or message us on WhatsApp and we will work it out with you.

How much paint do I need? The calculation, and what quietly doubles it

Most people buy paint the same way: pace out the room, guess, then add a bucket for safety. The guess is usually wrong in the expensive direction, and the spare bucket sits in a store room until it is past its shelf life.

The arithmetic takes about two minutes and needs one number from the manufacturer.

The formula

Wall area divided by spread rate, multiplied by the number of coats, equals litres.

Wall area is the part people get wrong, so take it slowly. Measure the perimeter of the room, which is every wall length added together, then multiply by the ceiling height. A room 4 metres by 5 metres has a perimeter of 18 metres. At 3 metres high that is 54 square metres of wall.

Then subtract openings. A standard door is about 1.8 square metres and an average window about 1.5. Two doors and two windows takes roughly 6.6 square metres off, leaving about 47.

Do not skip the subtraction on a small room. On a bedroom with a door and two windows you can be overestimating by 15 per cent, which is most of a 4 litre tin.

Where spread rate comes from

Spread rate is how many square metres one litre covers in a single coat. It is the number that decides everything, and it varies more than people expect.

Always calculate on the lower number. The upper figure assumes a smooth, sealed, previously painted wall and an experienced hand with a roller. Fresh plaster, rough render or a heavy colour change will pull you toward the bottom of the range or below it.

Worked example

The 47 square metre bedroom from earlier, two coats, using Ruby Matt at 10 square metres per litre.

47 divided by 10 is 4.7 litres per coat. Two coats is 9.4 litres. So two 4 litre tins will not do it and you need either three 4 litre tins with some left over, or a 20 litre bucket with a lot left over.

This is the moment to check whether other rooms are getting the same colour. Three bedrooms in the same shade turns 9.4 litres into 28, and now the 20 litre bucket is the obvious buy rather than the wasteful one.

Batch your rooms by colour before you decide pack sizes. It is the single biggest saving available on a repaint, and it costs nothing.

The things that quietly double your paint

New plaster drinks paint. Bare, unsealed plaster or screed can absorb half again as much on the first coat, because it is porous and the binder soaks in instead of sitting on top. Seal it with a primer first. A primer coat is cheaper than a wasted coat of finish paint, and it makes the topcoat behave the way the spread rate says it should.

Dark to light is a three coat job. Going from a deep colour to white or cream almost never covers in two, whatever the tin says. Budget three coats or use a primer to knock the old colour back first.

Texture eats litres. Rough render, textured coatings and blockwork have more surface area than they appear to. Add 20 to 30 per cent to any calculation on a textured wall.

Spraying uses more than rolling. It is faster and gives a better finish on large exterior runs, but overspray and atomisation losses mean you should add roughly a third to your volume.

Ceilings are usually forgotten entirely. A 4 by 5 metre room has 20 square metres of ceiling, which is a meaningful share of the job.

Rough figures for a whole house

If you want a starting point before measuring, these are the internal wall areas we see most often. Treat them as a sanity check, not a quote.

• One bedroom flat, roughly 120 to 150 square metres of wall
• Two bedroom flat, roughly 200 to 250
• Three bedroom flat, roughly 300 to 350
• Four bedroom duplex, roughly 500 to 650

Take a three bedroom flat at 320 square metres, two coats, so 640 square metres of coverage. With Ruby Matt at 10 square metres per litre that is 64 litres, which means four 20 litre buckets. With Acrylic Emulsion at 6 it is 107 litres, so six buckets.

Exteriors are harder to generalise because they depend on the building footprint and how many storeys you are covering, so measure those properly rather than working from a table.

Buy slightly over, but only slightly

Add about 10 per cent for touch ups and for the paint that stays in the tray and on the roller. Do not add a whole spare bucket.

Two reasons. Paint has a 12 month shelf life, so a spare bucket is not a long term asset. And tinted colours are mixed per order, so an exact match later is more reliable if you come back to us with the same shade reference than if you rely on a part-used tin that has thickened.

If you are choosing a tinted shade, note the reference down. Our colour library lists over 2,400 notations with their values, so you can record exactly what you used and reorder it in two years without guessing.

Or let us do it

Every product page on this site has a paint calculator on it. Enter your wall area and it works out the litres for that specific product at its real spread rate, so you are not converting between numbers yourself.

If the job is bigger than a couple of rooms, send us the areas and the surfaces instead. Tell us what the walls are, whether they have been painted before, and roughly how big, and we will come back with the product, the litre count and the cost. Browse the range or get in touch.

Matt, satin or gloss: choosing the right paint finish

Finish is the decision people spend the least time on and regret the most. Colour gets argued over for weeks. Sheen gets picked at the counter in about four seconds, and it is the choice that decides whether the wall still looks acceptable after two years of children, cooking and harmattan dust.

What sheen actually is

Sheen is how much light a dried paint film bounces back instead of scattering. A matt film has a slightly broken surface that scatters light in every direction. A gloss film is smooth, so light reflects off it the way it would off glass.

That difference comes from the ratio of binder to pigment. More binder gives a smoother, harder, shinier film. More pigment and extender gives a flatter, more porous one. Everything else about how the paint behaves follows from that single fact.

Matt

Matt scatters light, so it hides things. Small dents, filler patches, roller marks and the gentle waviness of a wall that was never quite flat all disappear under a matt finish. On an older Lagos property with walls that have been patched a few times, matt is doing you a favour.

The trade is cleanability. That same broken surface holds dirt, and scrubbing a matt wall burnishes it, leaving a shiny patch where you cleaned. On a cheap matt this happens quickly.

Matt suits ceilings, bedrooms, and formal sitting rooms where nobody is putting hands on the wall. It is the wrong answer for a corridor with children in it.

In our range, Acrylic Emulsion is the economy matt at 6 to 8 square metres per litre, and Ruby Matt is the higher grade at 10 to 12. Both dry in about 3 hours. Maxshield is a matt built for exteriors, which is unusual, and covers 16 to 18 square metres per litre.

Satin

Satin sits between the two, with a soft low sheen that catches light without throwing a reflection. It is the finish most people actually want when they say they want matt.

The film is tighter than matt, so it takes a wipe without burnishing. It still hides moderate surface imperfection, though less generously than a true matt. For kitchens, corridors, children’s rooms, stairwells and anywhere that gets touched, satin is usually the right call.

It is also less forgiving to apply. Because the surface is smoother, lap marks show if you let an edge dry before rolling into it. Keep a wet edge and work in manageable sections.

Quality Acrylic Satin covers 12 to 14 square metres per litre. Ruby Satin goes further at 14 to 16 with a gloss to semi-gloss finish. Weather King Satin is the exterior version, 16 to 18 square metres per litre, with a 6 to 10 hour dry time because the film is heavier.

Gloss

Gloss gives the hardest, most washable film available and a visible shine. It belongs on woodwork, doors, frames and metal rather than on large wall areas.

The reason is unforgiving reflectivity. A gloss wall is a mirror for every imperfection underneath it. A filler patch you cannot see under matt will announce itself under gloss from across the room. Unless the substrate is genuinely flat, gloss on a wall looks worse than the cheaper finish would have.

It also shows brush marks, so it needs proper preparation and a light touch.

Choosing by room

Why exterior matt exists at all

Matt on an exterior sounds wrong given everything above, so it is worth explaining. Outside, the enemy is not fingerprints. It is ultraviolet light, rain and thermal movement.

A high sheen exterior film shows every imperfection across a large elevation, and on a wall lit by direct sun from a low angle in the morning, that is unflattering. It also highlights the joins where a render bay meets the next one.

An exterior matt gives you the UV package and the flexible binder without the reflectivity, so a big wall reads as one plane instead of a patchwork. Maxshield is built for exactly that: a matt sheen with a spread rate of 16 to 18 square metres per litre and a film designed to sit outside.

Where you want an exterior with some sheen, usually on a smaller frontage or where you want the wall to look tighter and more finished, Weather King Satin does the same job with a low gloss.

Sheen changes how colour reads

The same colour looks different at different sheens, and this catches people out constantly. A gloss film reflects more light back, so the colour reads lighter and more saturated. The identical shade in matt reads deeper and slightly duller because the surface is scattering light.

If you are painting walls in satin and woodwork in gloss and you want them to match, they will not, quite. Either accept the shift or pick the woodwork a shade deeper.

Test properly. Paint a patch at least a foot square, let it dry fully, and look at it in morning light and again under your actual bulbs at night. Wet paint is never the finished colour, and a small dab on a white wall tells you almost nothing because the surrounding white distorts it.

Our colour library lists over 2,400 notations across the NCS and RAL systems with their hex, RGB and HSL values, which is useful for narrowing a shortlist before you commit to sampling.

A few practical points

Do not mix sheens within one wall. If you patch a matt wall with satin, the repair shows in raking light even in a perfect colour match.

Higher sheen usually means better washability but worse hiding. That trade is the whole decision in one line.

Drying times differ by product, not just by sheen. Our matts and satins in the Ruby and Acrylic lines dry in about 3 hours. The exterior products, Maxshield and Weather King, take 6 to 10 hours because the film is thicker and there is more to release. Recoating too early on an exterior traps solvent and the film stays soft.

All our products carry a 12 month shelf life, so buy what the job needs rather than stockpiling.

If you are unsure, tell us the room, the traffic it gets and the state of the walls, and we will tell you the finish. Get in touch or browse the range.

Types of paint in Nigeria and what each one is for

Walk into a paint shop in Lagos and you will hear emulsion, satin, texcote, screeding, primer and undercoat used almost interchangeably. Some of those are finishes, some are products, and one of them is not paint at all. Sorting out which is which saves money before you have bought anything.

Emulsion

Emulsion is water based paint, and it is what goes on the overwhelming majority of walls in Nigeria. The binder is dispersed in water, so the paint thins with water, brushes wash out under a tap, and the smell is mild enough to sleep in the room the same night.

Within emulsion, the grades vary enormously. An economy emulsion carries less binder and more extender. It covers 6 to 8 square metres per litre, needs more coats, and is not built to be scrubbed. A better emulsion covers 10 to 12 and takes a wipe.

Emulsion is the default for interior walls and ceilings. It is the wrong product for woodwork, metal, or anywhere that needs a hard film.

Acrylic emulsion

Acrylic emulsion is emulsion where the binder is an acrylic resin rather than a cheaper vinyl. This is the distinction that matters most and the one shops explain least.

Acrylic binders stay flexible as they age instead of going brittle, and they hold up far better to UV and moisture. On an exterior wall in Lagos that flexes between afternoon heat and night cool, a brittle film cracks and lets water behind it. A flexible one moves with the wall.

Acrylic also resists alkali better, which matters on new cement render. Fresh cement is strongly alkaline and will attack a weak binder, causing the paint to soften or discolour in patches. This is why paint on new blockwork sometimes fails within months while the same product on an older wall is fine.

Our Acrylic Emulsion is the entry point at 6 to 8 square metres per litre and 3 hours to dry.

Primer

A primer is not a cheap first coat of paint. It does a different job, which is why substituting one for the other goes wrong.

Primer seals porous surfaces so the topcoat sits on the wall instead of soaking into it. It gives the finish something consistent to bond to. On bare plaster, new render or a patched wall, skipping primer means the first coat of expensive finish paint disappears into the substrate and you buy a third coat to compensate.

Prime when the surface is new plaster or screed, bare cement, previously unpainted, patchy after repairs, or when there is a strong colour change. On a sound wall that has been painted before and is in good condition, you can go straight to the topcoat.

Undercoat

Undercoat is the layer between primer and finish, and it is mostly a woodwork and metal term. Its job is to build a uniform, slightly opaque base so the gloss topcoat gives an even sheen rather than sinking in patches.

On walls you rarely need a separate undercoat. On doors and frames going into gloss, skipping it shows.

Textured coatings

Textured exterior coatings, often called texcote locally, are much thicker than paint and carry aggregate to create a surface finish. They are applied by trowel or spray rather than roller.

They hide surface defects that no paint could cover and give a durable exterior skin. They also cost considerably more per square metre, need a skilled applicator, and are difficult to change later. Repainting over texture is possible but the texture stays.

Screeding is not painting

Screeding is levelling a wall with a thin cement or gypsum layer before decorating. It is preparation, not a coating.

It is worth knowing because a lot of Nigerian repaint quotes bundle screeding and painting together, and the screeding is often the larger cost. If a wall is genuinely uneven, screeding gives a flat surface and the paint looks far better on it. If the wall is sound, screeding is money you could have spent on better paint.

A useful rule: screed when the wall is out of true or badly damaged. Do not screed to fix minor imperfection when a matt finish would hide it for a fraction of the cost.

Specialist paints

Exterior weather-resistant paints are formulated for UV and rain rather than for scrubbing. Sungard covers 18 to 20 square metres per litre and dries in 4 to 8 hours. Weather King Satin covers 16 to 18 with a 6 to 10 hour dry.

Insect repellent paint is worth mentioning because it is unusual and frequently misunderstood. Our Repello line carries an insect repellent additive in the film. It comes as a primer and as finish coats in economy matt and Ruby matt grades. It is a paint that happens to repel insects, not a substitute for treating an infestation.

Which to use where

Two mistakes worth avoiding

Painting new render too early. Cement needs time to cure and to let its alkalinity drop. Paint applied too soon can saponify, going soft and sticky in patches. Give new render as long as the builder will allow, and prime it.

Using interior emulsion outside. It is the most common false economy we see. Interior emulsion has no meaningful UV package, so the colour fades and the film chalks, leaving powder on your hand when you touch the wall. The paint saved is small against repainting a whole elevation.

Storing what is left

All our products carry a 12 month shelf life, and that clock runs from manufacture rather than from the day you open the tin.

Keep part-used containers sealed and out of direct sun. Heat thickens emulsion and can break the dispersion, which is why a bucket left in a hot store room comes back lumpy even though it was fine when you closed it. If a paint has separated into a clear layer over a solid one, stirring it back usually works. If it has gone stringy or smells sour, it has gone off and no amount of stirring recovers it.

Write the colour reference and the date on the lid before you put it away. It takes ten seconds and turns a mystery bucket into something you can actually use for a touch up.

If you are not sure which category your job falls into, describe the surface to us and we will tell you. Tell us whether it is new or previously painted, inside or outside, and roughly how big. Request a quote or look through the range.

Choosing paint colours for a Nigerian living room

Colour advice written for a house in Surrey does not transfer to a flat in Lekki. The light is different, the walls are different, and the reason a scheme fails here is usually not taste.

Start with the light

Nigerian daylight is strong, high and slightly warm. It comes from a steeper angle than northern European light and there is a lot more of it.

Two consequences. Pale, cool colours that look chilly in a magazine shot from London read as clean and comfortable here, because the light warms them up. And strong warm colours that look cosy in a European interior can tip into oppressive under our sun, because the light is already supplying the warmth.

So the usual advice about warming a room with terracotta is often backwards in Lagos. A soft cool grey or a green-leaning off white will feel calmer in a south-facing sitting room than a cream will.

Which way your windows face still matters. A north-facing room gets consistent indirect light all day and can take a warmer colour. A west-facing room takes strong orange light from about four o’clock, which will push any warm colour further warm. Look at your shortlist in that late afternoon light before deciding.

Off white is not one colour

Most Nigerian sitting rooms end up broadly neutral, and that is a sound instinct. Furniture, fabrics and art carry the colour, and the walls give them room to work.

The mistake is treating white as a single option. In our colour library there are hundreds of near-whites, and the difference between them is the whole decision.

A neutral grey-white such as NCS S 0500-N is genuinely neutral and will not fight anything in the room. A warm off white leans yellow and reads softer, which suits rooms that get less direct light. A cool off white leans blue or green and reads crisp, which suits a bright room that already has plenty of warmth coming through the windows.

Put three candidates on the wall next to each other. On their own they all look white. Side by side the differences are obvious, and you will have a clear preference within a minute.

Building a scheme

The usual proportion that works is roughly 60 per cent dominant colour, 30 per cent secondary, 10 per cent accent. In a sitting room that is walls, then upholstery and curtains, then cushions and art.

Deciding the ratio matters more than deciding the colours. Most rooms that feel wrong have three colours all fighting for the same share of attention.

Practical combinations that suit our light:

• Warm off white walls with deep green upholstery and brass or wood accents. Forgiving and works in most light.
• Soft grey walls with terracotta and cream. The grey keeps the terracotta from overheating the room.
• Deep blue-green on one wall, off white elsewhere. Gives the room a centre without darkening it.
• Sand or clay walls with white joinery and dark timber. Warm without going orange.

If you want something bolder, put it on the wall behind you rather than the one you face. A strong colour behind the sofa is a background. The same colour on the wall you look at all evening becomes the room.

Bedrooms want less contrast

A bedroom is looked at last thing at night under warm bulbs and first thing in the morning under strong daylight. That is a wide range for one colour to survive.

Lower contrast schemes handle it better. Walls and bedding within a few steps of each other, with the contrast in texture rather than colour, stay comfortable at both ends of the day.

Muted blues, soft greens, and warm greys all work. Full saturation rarely does, because a strongly saturated colour that felt calm in daylight will look heavy under a single warm bulb.

Test bedroom colours at night specifically. It is the one room where the artificial light matters more than the daylight, and almost nobody checks it.

How to test properly

Paint a patch at least 30 centimetres square. A small dab surrounded by your existing wall colour tells you nothing useful, because the eye reads colour relative to whatever is next to it.

Better still, paint two coats onto a sheet of card and move it around the room. You can hold it against the sofa, put it in the darkest corner, and look at it by the window without committing paint to the wall.

Look at it three times: morning, late afternoon, and at night under your own bulbs. Warm LED bulbs pull colours yellow. Cool white bulbs pull them blue. The bulb you own is part of the decision.

Let it dry fully. Emulsion looks different wet, and most of our interior products take about 3 hours.

Record what you use

This is the part people skip and regret. Write down the exact notation, not “the cream from the sitting room”.

We tint to order from a library of over 2,400 notations across the NCS and RAL systems, and each entry on the site lists its hex, RGB and HSL values along with the nearest alternatives. If you note the reference, you can reorder the identical shade in three years for a touch up. If you do not, you are matching by eye against a faded wall.

Keep a note of the finish too. The same colour in matt and in satin will not look the same, so a touch up in the wrong sheen shows even when the colour is right.

A note on trends

Colour trends move faster than repainting cycles. If you repaint every five years and pick this year’s colour, you spend most of that time living with something dated.

The colours that age best are the ones close to neutral with a slight temperature bias, because they read as deliberate rather than fashionable. Save the trend for the cushions, which cost far less to change.

If you want help narrowing a shortlist, browse the colour library, note two or three references and send them to us. We will tell you what they look like in the products you are considering, and mix samples before you commit to the whole house. Get in touch.