Guide · The market
General contractors, painting contractors, solo painters and lead platforms all answer the same search, and only one of them is right for your job. Here is how they differ, how to verify any of them, and what an established operation looks like on paper.
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Four different businesses, one word
They are licensed differently, priced differently and suited to different work, and the word on the van does not tell you which one you have. Knowing the categories is most of the decision.
Holds a state certified or registered contractor licence and pulls permits. Painting is often one line inside a larger scope. Where you land when the job is more than colour: stucco repair, wood replacement, drywall, whole-house work.
Paint is the business, not a side line. Crews, spray equipment, supplier accounts and a schedule built around weather. The right fit for a full interior or a whole exterior.
One or two people, low overhead, excellent for a room or a small repair. Limits show up on a two-storey exterior, where staging, access and the hours of preparation stop being realistic for one person.
Not a painter at all. Sells your enquiry to several companies at once, which is why the phone rings four times in an hour. Useful for volume of options, not for accountability.
The part nobody explains
There is no statewide painting licence in the sense people assume. General contracting is certified or registered at state level and the numbers are public, while painting itself is handled locally, through county and municipal registration and the ordinary business requirements.
This is why "licensed" means genuinely different things depending on who says it, and why the useful question is not are you licensed but licensed as what, and what is the number. A certified general contractor number starts with CGC. A building contractor is CBC. Roofing is CCC. Those are searchable, and so are the permits pulled under them.
For a straightforward repaint you do not need a general contractor. It matters the moment the job touches structure, stucco repair beyond patching, or anything that requires a permit, because at that point the licence decides who is legally allowed to do the work at all.
Named examples, public record
These four are certified general contractors working in Miami-Dade, all from public sources: state licence records, permit filings and their own published material. None of them is a painting company and that is exactly the point. This is the tier that handles work when painting is part of a bigger scope, and seeing the shape of it tells you what a real operation looks like on paper.
Founded 2014, based in North Bay Village, eleven to fifty people, working across Miami-Dade, Broward and West Palm Beach. Positioned at the high end: custom homes, high-standard condo renovation and class A commercial.
Founded 2018, North Miami Beach, licence CGC1526310. A small operation by headcount with a strong third-party contractor rating and a handful of permitted jobs on record. Residential and commercial, focused on detail and schedule.
Based on Biscayne Boulevard in Aventura, licence CGC1526760, active since June 2018. Design and build, curated finishes, and a practice that publishes its own work rather than buying leads.
The volume end of the same tier: roughly eighty-one permits and about four million dollars of filed work, typical ticket around fourteen thousand dollars, holding general, building and roofing licences at once.
Read the pattern rather than the names. An established operation leaves a trail: a licence number you can search, permits filed under it, an address, and work it is willing to show. Anyone can print a van.
Choosing
A single bedroom does not need a general contractor and a two-storey exterior repaint is not a weekend for one person with a ladder. Most disappointment in this trade comes from a mismatch of category rather than from bad intent.
The other thing worth knowing: when you fill in a form on a national platform, your details are typically sold to several companies simultaneously. That is why the phone starts ringing immediately and from numbers you do not recognise. It is a business model, not a coincidence, and you are entitled to ask any caller how they got your number.
Rules of thumb
Then what
The hiring guide turns all of this into a dozen things you can put to anybody who quotes, and the replies that should end a conversation early.
Keep reading
What to ask a painter Why paint fails here Painting contractors Commercial painting Miami Aventura All guides
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