The Best Interior Paints, According to Expert Testing (2024)

There's an old saying in the paint business: A bucket of paint is a bucket of compromises. It means the ingredients a manufacturer uses for a new formulation will determine that paint's performance. Substituting a new additive might increase durability, but at the expense of stain resistance. A change in pigments could affect depth of color. Different binders might improve adhesion but not smoothness. Adding or removing solvents will impact odors and off-gassing.

The best paints on the market hit the sweet spot, combining performance, appearance, ease of application and sustainability, all while keeping costs in check. That's what we at the Good Housekeeping Institute looked for in our latest interior paint report. After more than 100 hours of rigorous testing — including applying, scrubbing, analyzing and, yes, watching the paint dry — we arrived at the following list of winners for a slew of interior spaces, ranging from bedroom accent walls to statement kitchens.

When all the paint was applied, dried and put through our battery of tough tests, Behr Marquee came out on top with the best overall score. If you’re looking for an extremely well-balanced paint to handle a range of interior projects, this Home Depot-exclusive is the one to reach for.

Our testers were particularly impressed by its smooth, even finish and fast drying time. It's also highly stain resistant and can handle abrasions — whether from scuffs or a scouring pad — with the best of them. As for color variety, our design experts like that the Behr Marquee comes in more than 1,000 hues. Finally, the one-coat coverage and paint-and-primer-in-one formulation mean you’ll save on material costs and time spent wielding a roller or brush.

Want to save money without too much compromise on performance? Go for this Glidden. It costs about a half to a third as much as the majority of our top picks, but it goes on surprisingly smooth, and the built-in primer means you can probably skip that step (though if you're painting new drywall, we still recommend a primer coat).

Of course, the low cost means some trade-offs in performance. For example, the Glidden wasn't as good in our tests as others at resisting coffee and tomato stains, so it's not the best choice for a busy kitchen. But in low-traffic parts of the home — or to add a fresh splash of color to a rental apartment — Glidden Premium is an excellent option.

Spending more on the HGTV Infinity gets you some of the smoothest results of any tested paint, along with a host of other attributes, making it worth the splurge if you're painting a room that you want to show off. Our panel of consumer testers gave the paint high marks for color texture and finish quality.

The Infinity's coverage (a.k.a. "hiding power") was also exceptional in our tests, so a single coat should be ample for most projects, helping to offset the higher upfront cost of the paint.

This Clark+Kensington paint aced most of our tough tests, falling just short of the top spot in terms of overall score. It has superb resistance to staining and scrubbing, delivering stellar performance in any room in the house.

Testers found it easy to apply, with a smooth finish.Its hiding power was slightly less than that of other top-performing paints, so you might find yourself needing a second coat, especially if you’re going with a light color over a dark one. Otherwise, the Clark+Kensington is an excellent value that can keep high-traffic areas of the home looking fresh and clean for years to come.

Between the moisture, mildew and humidity, bathrooms are extremely harsh environments for interior paints. Sherwin-Williams Emerald is one of the priciest paints we tested, but our experts say it’s worth it for this room, thanks to its exceptional durability. It’s up there with the best for stain resistance, and it can handle a good scrub without losing its sheen.

Though we weren't able to test this specific claim, Sherwin-Williams says its Emerald formulation contains antimicrobial agents that inhibit the growth of mold and mildew on surfaces, another reason to consider it for bathroom paint projects. The consistency of its finish was slightly less than that of other top picks, so we recommend a second coat.

The Behr Marquee is still our top overall pick for best interior paint, but when our experts considered both value and performance, the Behr Premium Plus Paint & Primer emerged as a superb bet. It went on smooth in our tests, with few brushstrokes or roller marks, and its one-coat coverage was among the best.

The Premium Plus, another Home Depot exclusive, comes in even more colors than the Marquee (1,800, to be exact) though it was a tad less stain resistant in our tests, which is something to consider if you're painting a high-traffic area of your home. But for most basic needs, Behr Premium Plus delivers solid results and will save you $10 or more per gallon, which, if you're taking on a whole-house project, will quickly add up.

The HGTV Showcase Stain-Blocking Paint & Primer is a better value than the HGTV Infinity, and although its finish isn't quite as smooth, it slightly outperformed its pricier brand mate in our abrasion tests and was comparable at stain resistance.

One caveat with both paints: The claimed drying time of up to four hours is significantly longer than the one-hour drying time of many other brands. As for choosing the perfect hue, HGTV Home's Color Collections (including the 2023 collection of the year, Vintage Homestead) are helpful when putting together palettes.

Rust-Oleum may not be the brand you think of first when it comes to decorative finishes (as the name implies, its core business since 1921 has been protective exterior coatings). But the company is pushing inside homes with its Studio Color line and, based on our tests, making a good show of it so far.

Sold at Walmart, the value paint punches above its weight in several categories, including its ability to fend off oil and coffee stains, making it a good choice for kitchens. However, its texture and finish quality were more middling, so our experts recommend spending more on another top pick for decorative areas of the home, like the living or dining room.

Benjamin Moore is a favorite among professional painters because of its smooth, even application and fast drying time, attributes borne out in our latest tests. For people who are around paint every day, it also helps to work with materials with minimal chemical content. That's why we love this paint for homeowners and pros alike. Per its safety data sheet, Benjamin Moore's Aura had one of the lowest concentrations of hazardous materials of all tested paints, including very low volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

It also carries Benjamin Moore's Green Promise, a designation for products that meet or exceed rigorous environmental criteria regarding VOCs and emissions, including the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification. Performance-wise, the Aura proved durable in our tests, though its stain resistance was only fair.

Exceptional coverage in a single coat distinguished the Valspar from much of the pack in our tests. That’s helpful if you’re painting over a dark color or you want to finish the job as quickly as possible. The Valspar, sold exclusively at Lowe's, takes a bit longer to dry than other models, but that shouldn't be an issue if you're skipping the second coat.

Some testers found the overall texture and finish quality to be rougher than other paints, a possible downside of the remarkably opaque formulation. So if you’re looking for that perfectly smooth finish, consider another pick, or at least test the Valspar Reserve on your walls first before making a final purchase.

Determining the best paint brand and model for your project is an important first step, but there are still several things to consider in order to get perfect results (or as close to perfect as possible):

✔️ Figure out the finish: A paint’s finish affects its performance, color and appearance. The three main options are flat, semigloss and eggshell/satin:

• Flat paint has a matte finish that hides imperfections, but it's not as stain resistant and is harder to clean, making it best suited to low-traffic, decorative areas of the home, like a living room.
• Semigloss has the highest shine of these options for maximum protection against scuffs, stains and more. Use it for doors and trim, where it brings durability and can also highlight interesting detail work.
• Eggshell and satin fall in between flat and semigloss. They’re the most common finishes, ideal for kitchens, bathrooms and other high-traffic areas. Both have a bit of shine that makes them durable and stain resistant, though they can show minor imperfections. Some paint brands have one or the other in their lines, while some offer both, in which case the satin will be the shinier of the two for added durability.

✔️ Choose your color: This can be the toughest decision of all, but it doesn’t have to be. Most major brands and retailers have color-finding tools on their websites that are helpful for zeroing in on the right palette for your project. Retailers also have color-matching technologies that mean you can get close to any color you crave in just about any brand. But it's always important to test a few colors out in your home. Paint chips are fine, but our experts also recommend buying small sample jars of your favorite hues and seeing how they look under the actual light conditions of your home. Painting sections of heavy paper, rather than the wall itself, will allow you to take the samples from room to room.

✔️ Calculate the amount: To figure out how much paint you need, add up the total square footage of your walls, ceilings and other surfaces. A typical gallon of paint covers 350 to 400 square feet. Most brands and retailers have paint calculators that can help with the math. For large projects, buying five-gallon containers instead of single gallons is a great way to save cash.

✔️ Prep the surface before you paint: Remember, the best paint in the world can't make up for shoddy prep work. Create a smooth surface by scraping away cracked or peeling paint with a putty knife. Fill gouges and gaps with a combination of caulk and spackling compound. Once all surfaces are smooth, give them a good dusting, ideally with a microfiber cloth, though a plain terry cloth towel will also work, then clean the walls with soapy water. Make sure the surfaces are completely dry before applying the first coat.

Dan DiClerico has covered the residential paints and coatings industry for more than two decades. In that time, he has tested all major brands and reported on key innovations, including the rise of low-VOC paints and the emergence of formulations that combine paint and primer in one. As director of the Home Improvement & Outdoor Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute, Dan oversees all paint testing, working closely with our team of engineers and product analysts. He also manages any consumer surveys designed to capture homeowners' experiences with interior paints and other coatings. Dan is a regular at trade shows, where he keeps up with the latest industry innovations.

Dan worked closely with Nikolas Greenwald on this project. As the Lab assistant at the Good Housekeeping Institute, Nikolas works with all of our Labs to develop testing protocols and manage data collection and analysis. Before joining Good Housekeeping in 2022, Nikolas worked in the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, working on projects ranging from chemical inventory and reporting to the development of bioassays. He holds a degree in chemical engineering from Northeastern University.