Pricing
How much does limewash cost?
$50 a gallon, or $45 a gallon in the five-gallon pail, shipped free anywhere in the United States. That is our price. Everyone else’s is below, because you came here to compare and we would rather you did it on our page than someone else’s.
Price per gallon, September 2026
| Per gallon | Shipping | Colour | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The White House Blend™ | $50 — or $45 in the pail | Free, nationwide | Hand-tinted to yours |
| Romabio Classico | ~$64.26 | Often in-store pickup | Fixed deck |
| Portola Lime Wash | $60–$80 | Charged | Designer palette |
Competitor prices checked September 2026 — Romabio from the four-gallon bucket at Home Depot, Portola from published retail. Prices move and vary by stockist. Compare delivered prices, not shelf prices.
What a room actually costs
At two coats — which is what we recommend on nearly every interior — plan on about 140 square feet per gallon. Measure the walls, not the floor.
| Project | Wall area | You need | Material cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| A feature wall | ~140 sq ft | 1 gallon | $50 |
| A small bedroom | ~280 sq ft | 2 gallons | $100 |
| A large living room | ~420 sq ft | 3 gallons | $150 |
| An open-plan main floor | ~700 sq ft | 5 gallons | $225 |
Shipping included in every figure. Porous substrates — new plaster, unsealed brick, lime render — can push you 20 to 30% over these numbers. If you are going over something thirsty, size up.
Two objections worth answering
“That is more than a gallon of paint”
It is, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. A builder-grade latex is $30 a gallon and limewash is not competing with it.
What limewash replaces is paint plus a decorative finish. If you priced a hand-applied decorative wall treatment from a finisher, you would not be comparing it to a $30 tin — you would be comparing it to several dollars a square foot in labour alone. One gallon at $50 does a feature wall.
And lime cures harder over time rather than degrading. It does not sit on a repaint cycle the way latex does.
“I can collect Romabio from Home Depot today”
You can, and on a Saturday afternoon mid-project that is worth something. It is the one thing we cannot offer.
What it costs: about $19 more per gallon, a colour from a deck instead of the one you wanted, and shipping that is usually charged or pickup-only. On a five-gallon job that is roughly $95.
If your project can wait three business days, you are paying ninety-five dollars not to wait three business days.
Why ours costs less
Not because there is less lime in it.
Romabio and Portola price to support a retail chain. Before a tin reaches you it has paid a distributor and a retailer, and both take a margin. That is the honest cost of being able to drive somewhere and pick it up.
We sell direct, from the people who make it. There is no chain to pay. You are skipping three markups, not buying a thinner product.
It also means the tinting is ours to do. A colour deck is a manufacturer’s best guess at shades most people will accept. Every pail we ship is mixed by hand to the colour you asked for — from a photograph, a fabric swatch, or a wall you already have.
Common questions
How much does limewash cost per gallon?
Checked September 2026: Romabio Classico works out to roughly $64 a gallon bought as a four-gallon bucket at Home Depot, and Portola Lime Wash is commonly quoted between $60 and $80 a gallon. The White House Blend is $50 a gallon, or $45 a gallon in the five-gallon pail, with free shipping anywhere in the United States. Retail prices move, so check before relying on any figure.
How much limewash do I need for a room?
Plan on about 140 square feet per gallon at two coats, which is what we recommend on nearly every interior. A small bedroom is usually two gallons, a large living room three, an open-plan main floor about five. Measure the walls, not the floor — that is the mistake that leaves people a gallon short.
What does it cost to limewash a room?
In material, less than most people expect. A small bedroom at two coats is about two gallons — $100 of The White House Blend, shipped free. A large living room is around three gallons, $150. An open-plan main floor is roughly five gallons, which is the $225 pail and works out at $45 a gallon. The cost that varies is labour, if you are hiring it out.
Is limewash cheaper than paint?
Per gallon, no — limewash costs more than a builder-grade latex. Per finished room it is closer than it looks, because limewash is one material doing the work of paint plus a decorative finish, and because a properly applied lime finish does not need repainting on the cycle that latex does. The real comparison is not against a $30 gallon of wall paint, it is against what a decorative finish would have cost you applied.
Why does limewash cost more from some brands?
Mostly distribution, not chemistry. Romabio and Portola price to support a retail chain — a distributor and a retailer both take a margin before the tin reaches you, which is the real cost of being able to collect it from a store today. We sell direct from the people who make it, so there is no chain to pay. You are not buying less lime, you are skipping the markups.
Does the price include shipping?
Ours does, at every size, anywhere in the United States, including the five-gallon pail. That is not universal — competitor limewash is frequently either shipped at cost or offered as in-store pickup only, which on a heavy pail is a real number. When you compare prices, compare delivered prices.
Is there a discount for buying more?
Yes, and it is built into the sizes rather than hidden behind a code. A single gallon is $50. The five-gallon pail is $225, which is $45 a gallon — about 30% below Romabio's shelf price. If your project needs four gallons or more, the pail is the cheapest lime you will find from anyone selling a comparable material.
The short version
$50 a gallon. $225 for the five-gallon pail — $45 a gallon. Free shipping at every size, anywhere in the United States. Tinted by hand to your colour, shipped within three business days, with the full application course and a lifetime warranty on the material for interior work.
Made by the company that applies these finishes for a living. Romabio and Portola are manufacturers — they have never troweled anyone’s wall.
The real difference between limewash and paint
It is not the look. It is what you are breathing for the next ten years.
Paint is pigment suspended in a synthetic binder, and that binder has to stay liquid in the tin and then harden on your wall. The chemistry that makes that possible is the chemistry that leaves the wall afterwards — into the room.
“Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors.”
US Environmental Protection Agency — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
The EPA names the sources plainly — “paints, varnishes and wax all contain organic solvents”, alongside paint strippers and other solvents. And the spike during the work itself is not a rounding error:
“During and for several hours immediately after certain activities, such as paint stripping, levels may be 1,000 times background outdoor levels.”
EPA — VOCs’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
What that exposure is associated with, again in the EPA’s own words: “eye, nose and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination and nausea; damage to liver, kidney and central nervous system” — and that “some organics can cause cancer in animals, some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.”
Read it yourself
We would rather you checked than took our word for it. These are the primary sources, not somebody’s summary of them.
- EPA — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air QualityThe ten-times figure, the source list, the 1,000× spike and the health effects.
- EPA — Technical Overview of Volatile Organic CompoundsHow VOCs are defined and regulated — and why “low-VOC” on a tin is a narrower claim than it sounds.
- Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dynamics and Health ImplicationsPeer-reviewed, open access. Water-based does not mean VOC-free, and this is the work that shows why.
- Yearlong study of indoor VOC variabilityPeer-reviewed. How indoor VOC exposure behaves across a whole year, not just on painting day.
Limewash has none of it
High-calcium lime, mineral pigment, purified aggregates, water. No synthetic binder, because lime does not need one — it hardens by reacting with the air, not by a solvent leaving the film.
Nothing in the tin has to evaporate out of your wall, so there is nothing to off-gas. This is not a reformulated low-VOC version of a solvent product. It is a material that never had solvents in it to begin with.
Two ways to get it out of your house
Do a room yourself. The White House Blend™ is $50 a gallon, $225 for the five-gallon pail, shipped free anywhere in the United States and tinted by hand to your colour — with the full application course included and a lifetime warranty on the material for interior work.
Or do the whole house. The Zero VOC Home Program measures the VOC levels in your home, transitions every painted wall and ceiling to zero-VOC limewash, then measures again — so you see the difference rather than take it on faith. From $85 a month.
Who we are
Thirty seconds, then stay for the podcast.
I’m Ben Lynch. I started LimeWash Pros after reading what the EPA had published about the air inside ordinary American houses — and realizing the walls were the problem.
Meet LimeWash Pros
Who we are, what lime does that paint cannot, and why the air inside your house is the reason we do this.
The podcast
11:33From Setback to Limewash Success: Meet Ben Lynch
Why I walked away from conventional paint, what I found in the research on VOCs, and how that turned into LimeWash Pros.
12:10How Modern Paint is Killing You
The VOCs in ordinary latex paint don’t stop off-gassing when the wall dries. What that does to the air in your house.
9:43The Carcinogen On Your Walls
Benzene is a known human carcinogen and it is in the paint on every surface of your home. What the research says.