← Pool plaster / resurfacing bid calculator
The number a homeowner wants is a price per square foot, or a published “$8 plaster special.” That number is usually the water surface: length × width. The plaster goes on the floor and the walls. A 16×32 rectangle with a 3.5-foot shallow end and an 8-foot deep end is 512 square feet of water and about 1,064 square feet of plaster. The pool is still “a 16×32.” The hours are not.
Open the free bid calculatorPool-route calculators price a weekly chemical stop. Concrete calculators price a slab. Epoxy calculators price a garage floor. A walk-in shower calculator prices tile. A pool replaster is a finish on a shell: the floor, the walls, the finish, the chip-out, the spa, and the tile band. Quoting all of that from a published per-square-foot number written for the water surface is how the first drain-and-chip day eats the field margin.
Pebble and glass are billed as their own material and their own hours. Full chip-out to gunite is a different job from a drain-and-overlay. A spa, steps, waterline tile, and coping are adders that get forgotten on a brochure special. On the sample rates a freeform pebble job with full chip-out, an 80-square-foot spa, four benches, 90 feet of tile, and 90 feet of coping prices about $44,058 ($34.56 per plaster square foot, $71.06 per water-surface square foot, 330.1 crew-hours). The same shop’s 16×32 white-plaster overlay prices about $7,826 ($7.36 per plaster square foot, $15.29 per water-surface square foot, 53.4 hours, walk-away $5,791). Matching the brochure job’s water-surface number on the pebble chip-out is how that job becomes a loss.
A 20×40 glass-bead rectangle with a full chip-out, a 64-square-foot spa, and 80 feet of coping is not the pebble job plus 20%. On the sample rates that pool prices about $58,722 ($35.85 per plaster square foot, 416.0 crew-hours) — more money than the pebble job, but a similar per-plaster-foot number, because the tile band and the freeform wall multiplier do not live in a published water-surface rate. An 18×36 quartz overlay with a 220-square-foot partial chip-out and 70 feet of waterline tile prices about $18,520 (112.3 hours). Treating either as a blended add-on is how the special that looked fine turns into a loss after the first drain day.
A $36/h plasterer loaded at 30% payroll burden is $46.80. Margin is a share of the price you send, not a markup on cost. The walk-away price is total cost — below that the job makes nothing before you take a dollar home. Replace every rate with your invoices before you send either number.
This is not a pool specification, a structural determination, a permit, an engineering stamp, or a recommended market price. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type. Shell, bond, finish, chip-out, tile, and whether the old plaster will hold a new coat are yours to confirm.
Charge from floor-plus-wall plaster surface (not length × width), finish, chip-out, spa, steps, waterline tile, coping, drain-and-refill, loaded labor, overhead, and a margin that is a share of price. A default 16×32 white-plaster overlay at the sample rates in this calculator prices around $7,826 — about $7.36 per plaster square foot, or $15.29 per square foot of water surface.
Homeowners count length × width. The plaster goes on the floor and the walls. Chip-out, pebble or glass finish, a spa, waterline tile, and coping do not scale with the water surface. Matching a cheaper water-surface quote written for a brochure overlay is how a pebble chip-out becomes a two-day loss.
Not in proportion. On the sample rates a freeform pebble job with full chip-out, an 80-square-foot spa, four benches, 90 feet of tile, and 90 feet of coping prices around $44,058 ($35 per plaster square foot), while a 16×32 white-plaster overlay prices around $7,826 ($7.36 per plaster square foot).