The 8 Best Paint Sprayers The Spruce Has Tested

Best Overall

Graco Magnum Project Painter Plus Paint Sprayer

$293 at Amazon $274 at Walmart $260 at Home Depot

This paint sprayer from Graco is the best option for professionals and DIYers—we found it just as effective as more expensive models. This airless paint sprayer immediately impressed us when painting a set of exterior shutters. We also used it to freshen up our garage door, which looked great even after a single coat.

We loved how smoothly and evenly it painted without sputtering, blotching, or spitting on projects of all sizes. The pressure is easily adjusted—we mostly kept it on a medium setting, but it can go as low as 500 psi or as high as 2,800 psi to adjust for paint thickness and desired control.

When using latex paint, we liked that we didn't need to thin it at all, just like our much more expensive best overall, runner-up pick. We also appreciated the inclusion of a lock on the trigger that lets you keep spraying without constantly squeezing the handle, which left our hands less sore than they would have been otherwise.

This is a stationary paint sprayer on a small stand. It has a handle for easy transport, but it was tricky to move it along with an open can of paint. Still, with an included 25-foot hose and the ability to switch to a 50-foot hose (sold separately) if desired, there aren't too many places you can't easily reach. This sprayer draws paint directly from a 1- or 5-gallon paint can, so there is no need to fill a hopper or canister.

Graco recommends this sprayer for projects requiring no more than 5 gallons of paint and for no more than 50 gallons of paint annually. That's way more than we need for our small projects, so we felt comfortable loaning it out to a co-worker, who was so impressed they went out and bought their own.

After six months of using this sprayer, it continues to impress us for all our home projects, from garage doors to shutters. The coverage and usability are perfect for jobs inside and outside the house—we actually think the quality improved from initial tests thanks to warmer weather (perfect timing for painting projects).

As with all paint sprayers, cleanup can be a chore, but we didn't find it exceptionally difficult thanks to the garden hose attachment that we used to quickly rinse out all the hoses and attachments.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 2,800 psi | Capacity: 1 to 5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 15.8 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 1}

Best Overall, Runner-Up

Graco Magnum ProX19 Paint Sprayer

$876 $773 at Amazon $749 at Home Depot $778 at Lowes

This professional-level airless paint sprayer has enough power to take on major painting projects that use up to 30 gallons of paint due to the high pressure and flow rate. During testing, we used it for a smaller project—painting wooden trays—with excellent results. We also used it to paint all the doors in our basement (six in total) and found it to be even easier to set up and use the second time.

Though this sprayer was more muscle than we needed for our projects, it performed like a champ, laying down a very smooth coat of paint each time—no thinning required. It draws paint directly from a 1- or 5-gallon bucket and comes with a 50-foot hose, although it can support up to a whopping 150 feet of hose. It also includes one standard 515 paint tip, but five other sizes are available.

We found that it's important to keep the spray head level while working without excessive tips or angles. Once we got the hang of it, it was easy to keep the paint smooth, and our finish looked professional. The pressure is easily adjusted from a low of 500 psi up to 3,000 psi. It does have a learning curve setting the pressure and selecting the right tip for your paint (we recommend watching some tutorials online).

This is a carted paint sprayer with two large wheels, which makes it much easier to position it around a room or house when tackling big projects. It's our heaviest recommendation, so we liked how easy the wheels made it to move around. There's also a handy hose adapter for flushing the hoses at the end of the project, which makes cleaning up much easier.

Graco recommends this paint sprayer for applying up to 500 gallons each year, which is enough to support professional use. After using it on a few small projects, we felt like it did a great job, but it's big and heavy enough (and gave us some trouble getting the pressure right) that we still think it's best for big projects, or to handle both big and small projects. If you need to paint smaller items like a door or a desk, our best budget pick costs hundreds of dollars less and is much easier to handle.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 3,000 psi | Capacity: 1 to 5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 51.6 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 1}

Best Budget

HomeRight Quick Finish HVLP Paint Sprayer

$50 at Amazon View on Homeright.com

If you are taking on a small painting project, such as giving furniture a makeover, painting decor or trim, or similar DIY tasks, consider this reasonably priced HVLP paint sprayer from HomeRight. We used it to paint a pair of bar stools and a set of wooden boards and found the sprayer to be so easy to use that we had it up and running within five minutes of opening the box.

After a successful test with the bar stools, we used this handy portable paint sprayer about once each month. It's so lightweight and easy to set up that we found ourselves pulling it out to paint wood furniture, rooms inside our house, an exterior wall, and various other projects. After all that use, we were impressed with how this sprayer continued working just as well as the first day we got it.

The sprayer doesn't draw paint from the can but rather has an attached 28-ounce canister filled with paint; we completed our smaller projects on one canister of paint, but we had to refill when tackling a larger project, like painting a room.

We found the refilling process to be completely painless and didn't have any trouble refilling without spilling, but the low capacity is one of the reasons this model is so affordable. It's also an HVLP sprayer, which tends to be more affordable than airless models and doesn't have the extra expense of a battery like our best portable pick. We also found ourselves having to thin latex before spraying, unlike our best overall and best runner-up pick.

The paint sprayer tended to spit for a second or so upon starting, but we quickly learned to keep the sprayer pointed to the side to avoid an uneven finish. Overall, this small paint sprayer did a great job laying down a very smooth coat of primer and then a coat of latex paint.

This sprayer does not have a pressure control—many compact HVLP sprayers lack this—but does have a flow control knob that provides some finessing of how fast the paint sprays out. We also liked that the paint tip can be set to three positions: vertical fan, horizontal fan, or round. We tried all three, and the performance was equally good in every position.

After using this for six months, it performs equally as great as it did the first day out of the box. It does an excellent job covering different types of materials, though we think it's better on a larger surface rather than for fine detail work.

_{Type: HVLP | Max Pressure: Not applicable | Capacity: 28 ounces | Assembled Weight: 3.6 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 3}

Best Airless

Graco Magnum X5 Stand Paint Sprayer

$433 $360 at Amazon $369 at Home Depot $369 at Lowes

If you're searching for a paint sprayer that lays down a smooth layer of paint and is easy to maneuver while tackling a variety of painting chores around the house, this one from Graco is worth considering. We used this airless paint sprayer to paint interior doors. While it works well on larger projects, we found that it did a good job of tackling our door transformation and was easy to use.

Like many airless paint sprayers, it draws paint directly from a 1-gallon or 5-gallon can. There is rarely any need to thin the paint before use—we sprayed interior latex paint and primer without any thinning. It's a nice upgrade over our overall best recommendation if you tackle larger projects that require up to 10 gallons of paint, but you can save about $40 by going with that model if you tend toward smaller projects like painting furniture.

While the trigger does not lock, meaning we had to keep it depressed the entire time we painted, it didn't tire out our hand, and the spray head was comfortable to hold. We did experience a bit of paint spitting during the first second or so of starting to spray, which created a couple of spots that later needed to be sanded. That continued with each project we tackled, so we recommend directing the sprayer into a bucket or other convenient location when you first start spraying.

This powerful sprayer produces pressure as high as 3,000 psi (the same as our much more expensive overall best, runner-up pick), although you can dial it down to a minimum of 500 psi. That means you can easily adjust the pressure, and thus the amount of spray, to the best rate for your needs. Go high when you want to quickly cover a large, flat surface, or slow down when you need more control. We found it very easy to adjust the pressure during our tests.

The sprayer comes with a 25-foot hose, but the sprayer can be used with hoses as long as 75 feet. It also comes with one 515 paint tip, which creates a fan of paint that's 10 inches wide. If you need a smaller paint tip, there are four others to choose from, all sold separately. However, the tips can only be used to spray a vertical fan of paint. The cleanup process was about average for a paint sprayer, but we did like the garden hose attachment, which allowed us to rinse out the hoses easily.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 3,000 psi | Capacity: 1 to 5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 19.2 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 1}

Best Portable

Titan ControlMax 1900 Pro High Efficiency Airless Sprayer

$680 $399 at Amazon $399 at Home Depot $399 at Lowes

This sturdy, airless paint sprayer is mounted on a wheeled cart with a long handle, which made it easy for us to maneuver wherever we needed it. It's designed to handle large projects, and we tested it by painting an outdoor wooden shed measuring around 11 x 11 x 12 feet. We didn't need to thin our paint and completed the entire task in under an hour.

In addition to tackling a big project in painting our shed, we also used this sprayer on some smaller tasks, including cabinets and an interior wall. We loved how easy it was to move around to different projects and how easy the cleanup process was once we figured it out. It continued to work just as well with each subsequent project.

The sprayer draws paint directly from a 1-gallon or 5-gallon paint can and comes with a 50-foot hose, which was more than adequate for our projects, although the sprayer can support up to 100 feet of hose if necessary. We had a very slight learning curve, but once we got the hang of this paint sprayer, we found that it did an excellent job, laying down a very smooth coat of paint without spitting, running, sputtering, or dripping. We liked that the nozzle can be rotated for either a vertical or a horizontal fan of paint.

The sprayer comes with a 515 spray tip but can be used with four additional sizes (sold separately). There are five settings for pressure/speed; we set it at five, according to the guidelines for our exterior latex paint, and found it to be perfect. Titan claims this sprayer produces 55 percent less overspray than similar models, and while we can't back that claim up exactly, overspray wasn't an issue for us.

While this sprayer does not have a garden hose adapter, it wasn't too hard to rinse out the hoses and paint tips. However, as with all paint sprayers, this task is somewhat time-intensive. Overall, we found this to be a comfortable and fairly easy paint sprayer to use, and we definitely liked how fast it was to paint the shed with almost professional-looking results.

We continued testing this for six months on other paint projects, and it still met expectations. The ease of use (being able to spray directly from a can or bucket) is so helpful, and clean-up is pretty easy. We love the simplicity of spraying directly from the can, the great performance, even spray, and all the included add-ons.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 1,600 psi | Capacity: 1 to 5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 40 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 2}

Best Cordless

Graco Ultra Cordless Airless Handheld Paint Sprayer

$643 at Amazon $730 at Walmart $760 at Ace Hardware

We love that this battery-powered paint sprayer allowed us to cut the cord since most paint sprayers require you to keep track of not only your paint hose but also a power cord. This one is totally handheld, like a battery-powered drill, so it's incredibly easy to set up, carry around, and maneuver while painting. We used it to complete two initial projects—painting an interior door and a desk—with fast, even results each time.

This particular paint sprayer is designed for handling small jobs, such as painting furniture, trim, doors, or cabinets, so it was very well-suited to our tests. We loved it so much that we ended up using it at least once a month on various projects around our fixer-upper, including doors, cabinets, and furniture. The size and portability made it ideal for small home projects and perfect for carrying into the yard, out to the garage, to the end of a long driveway to touch up a mailbox or fence, or anywhere else without worrying about extension cords.

The big limitation of this sprayer is battery life, but it comes with two Dewalt 20-volt batteries plus a charger, so you can have one battery in use while the other charges. Graco claims that you should be able to spray around 1 gallon of paint per battery charge. The sprayer has a canister that holds 32 ounces of paint. While we didn't need to refill it during our tests, it might be bothersome to stop midway through a larger project to top it off, although we didn't find it difficult to fill.

There's a knob that controls the motor speed and paint flow; it took some practice to get the hang of it, but we quickly discovered that setting the sprayer to a lower pace made it easier to obtain the flawless finish we desired. However, we found that the sprayer dripped slightly, starting up or when the paint canister ran low. We didn't have any issues with clogging, though.

One unusual feature of this paint sprayer that we really liked was the ability to spray at any angle, even upside-down. That made it easy to reach into every crook and cranny of our furniture without having to reposition it. Overall, we found that using this handy sprayer cut our overall painting time in half from what we would have expected it to take with a traditional paintbrush or paint roller. And it was easy to clean; we simply disassembled the canister and sprayer tip and rinsed it all in very hot water right in our kitchen sink.

After six months of use, we think this paint sprayer does a great job each time. We haven't had any issues—our projects come out evenly each time, and the nozzle never gets clogged. We compared the finishes between rolling and spraying and preferred the sprayed look on most surfaces. 

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 2,000 psi | Capacity: 32 ounces | Assembled Weight: 5 pounds | Power Source: Battery | Spray Pattern Options: 1}

Best Stationary

Wagner Control Pro 130 Tank Paint Sprayer

$260 $220 at Amazon $232 at Walmart $229 at Home Depot

Unlike many other airless paint sprayers, which draw paint directly from a can or bucket, this one has a hopper that can hold up to 1.5 gallons of paint. We used the stationary sprayer to prime and then paint several lengthy wooden beams, which was a fairly small project for this sprayer, which is ideally used for larger tasks such as painting walls or fences.

After using this sprayer to paint our garage beams, we found ourselves setting it up about once a month for a variety of smaller projects like a desk and sawhorses. In each case, we found that it did an excellent job of laying down very smooth coats of paint without any spitting, dripping, or sputtering.

We also liked that the nozzle can be turned to spray either a vertical or a horizontal fan of paint; we used both settings during our project, and it made it a lot easier to reach all sides of the beams without having to move them.

We weren't thrilled with the lack of a pressure/speed control on this sprayer; it has a set operating pressure of 1,600 psi, which was a little higher than we liked, although well-suited to spraying a wide range of paints and stains without any need to thin them. But we found the trigger easy to squeeze and the paint head very comfortable to hold. While we had to stop and add paint to the hopper halfway through our project, we found it very easy.

This sprayer comes with a 25-foot hose, which was more than sufficient for our project. However, the sprayer can support up to 50 feet of hose if taking on a very large project, such as spraying the exterior of a two-story house. It also comes with a 515-point tip, which is perfect for our latex paint, but Wagner sells four other sizes that are suited to thinner paints and stains.

Once we finished our project, it was easy to take apart the sprayer for cleaning, although, as is typical, it was a tedious task. After six months of regular use (and thorough cleaning), we feel like the time investment was worth it, as it continued working flawlessly with no change in quality or output.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 1,600 psi | Capacity: 1.5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 9.5 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 2}

Best for Large Projects

Titan ControlMax High-Efficiency Airless Paint Sprayer

$410 $340 at Amazon $340 at Lowes

This stationary airless sprayer is great for a wide range of paint jobs, including big projects such as painting rooms, house exteriors, wooden decks, or fences. We used it to paint a large chest of drawers and loved the extremely smooth, professional-looking finish that we achieved in just 10 minutes of spraying. Plus, we liked not having to thin our paint.

It's designed to decrease annoying overspray—the fine mist of paint that drifts through the air rather than settling on the surface being painted—by as much as 55 percent (similar to our best portable pick). Overspray can be a major issue when painting indoors, so we really like this feature when painting furniture, end tables, and a dressing room set without making any mess.

This sprayer has five pressure/flow settings, and the helpful instructions help you determine which is best for your particular paint and project. Once adjusted, we had no need to change the setting during our project, and we found that the speed and force of the spray were perfect for our latex paint.

The sprayer comes with a 515-point tip, which was also good for our paint, but five other sizes are available separately if you are using paint that is thicker or thinner than the typical latex. We wish it was more portable, but it comes with a 30-foot hose that lets you cover a fairly big area without moving it (and it supports hoses up to 80 feet in length for really big jobs). It draws paint directly from a 1-gallon or 5-gallon paint can.

While there is no garden hose adapter for easy cleaning of the sprayer, it wasn't too difficult to do using warm, soapy water. Still, as with most airless paint sprayers, the cleanup can be time-intensive and took us longer than the actual painting.

_{Type: Airless | Max Pressure: 1,500 psi | Capacity: 1 to 5 gallons | Assembled Weight: 23 pounds | Power Source: Electric | Spray Pattern Options: 2}