How to get premium paint colours for less

You found the colour. A Farrow & Ball blue, or a Little Greene green, and the tin is £32 for 2.5 litres. A small room needs three of them. That price buys the name on the lid as much as the paint inside.

A dupe gives you that colour in a trade paint, matched on the Natural Colour System, for up to 40% less. The saving comes from a handful of specific places, and a few habits help you keep all of it.

What the premium price buys you

The pigment and resin in a £60 tin are not five times better than the paint in a £20 trade tin. Trade paints are what decorators use every day, on jobs where the finish has to survive years of hands and scuffs. You pay the premium for the brand: the showroom it sits in and the name on the lid.

You cannot copyright a colour. A shade is a measurable value, and any mixer can reproduce it. That is what makes a dupe possible.

What a dupe is

Every colour has an NCS value, the notation decorators and mixers use to pin down a shade. DupeCoat reads the NCS value of a premium colour, finds the trade paint that matches it, and scores how close the two are. You can search a colour or brand and see the match in a few seconds.

The tin on the shelf changes. The colour on your wall does not. For the detail on how the matching works, read how DupeCoat works.

Skip the “dark tones primer” upsell

Buy a deep colour, a navy or a forest green, and the brand will often tell you to buy a dark-tones primer first, at £40 or more, so the colour does not look patchy. On a sound, previously painted wall you will not need it. A high-opacity trade paint such as Johnstone’s Trade Covaplus covers a dark shade in two coats on its own. Skip the extra tin and keep the £40.

Stop buying six tester pots

You can go through five or six designer testers before you settle, at around £5.50 each. That is £33, the price of a 5-litre trade tin, spent on pots you throw away. Match the colour on DupeCoat first to get down to one or two real options. Then buy a single trade sample, paint a sheet of A4 card, and move it around the room through the day. A north-facing wall at 8am and a south-facing wall at 4pm show you two different colours from the same tin.

Colour-drench a room without the £300 bill

Colour-drenching, painting the walls, skirting, radiator and ceiling in one shade, is the look people keep asking for in 2026. It also drinks paint. A single room can take 10 to 15 litres once you cover every surface, and in a designer brand that runs past £300. The same colour in trade paint, mixed to one NCS code, comes in at around a third of that.

One code covers every surface because the trade paint is mixed to the same value in different finishes: matt for the walls, satinwood for the skirting and radiator. Work out what you need with the paint calculator before you order, so you buy once.

Where a dupe will not match

A dupe matches the colour, not always the texture. Some premium ranges sell a finish as much as a shade, like the chalky, dead-flat look of an estate emulsion. A trade matt lands on the same colour without copying that exact surface. On a feature wall where the finish carries the room, order a sample and look at it in your own light before you commit to five litres. For flat colour across a whole room, you will not spot the difference once the second coat dries.

Common questions

Is a dupe the same colour as the original?

Within the tolerance of the match score on each colour, yes. DupeCoat matches on the NCS value, so the shade reads the same on your wall as the designer original. The closer the score sits to 100, the tighter the match.

Will trade paint last as long as a premium brand?

Trade paints are built for decorators who repaint for a living and need coverage and durability on every job. On the walls, woodwork and ceilings of a home they hold up as well as premium ranges, and often cover in fewer coats.

How much will I save?

Up to 40% on the matched colour. More on a large job, where the volume and the extras you skip, such as branded primers and testers, stack up.

Do I need a special primer for a dark colour?

On a sound painted wall, no. A high-opacity trade paint covers a deep shade in two coats. Keep primer for bare plaster, stains, or a big jump from a dark colour to a light one.

Find your colour in the dupe finder, or work out quantities with the paint calculator.