Buy it for bedrooms, ceilings, closets, and rentals. Two coats of flat or eggshell over a similar existing color pull even with no flashing and no primer pass, the flat, eggshell, and satin sheens are zero-VOC before tinting, and it carries GREENGUARD Gold at $33 to $43 a gallon. The film is what the price costs you: wipe a greasy fingerprint with real pressure and you polish a shiny patch into the finish that will not come back without repainting the wall.
Which Premium Plus Are You Buying?
Premium Plus spans more SKUs than the shelf tag suggests, and the name has a history that sends people to the wrong can. This review covers the interior paint and primer.
Spec Sheet
- COVERAGE
- 250–400 sq ft / gal (color and substrate dependent)
- SHEENS
- Flat, Eggshell, Satin Enamel, Semi-Gloss Enamel, Hi-Gloss Enamel
- DRY / RECOAT
- Touch 1 hr · recoat 2 hr
- FULL CURE
- About 14 days
- VOC
- Zero VOC before tinting — under 5 g/L in flat, eggshell, and satin; colorant adds a little, most of all in deep colors
- CERTIFICATIONS
- GREENGUARD Gold; meets LEED requirements
- PRIMER
- Self-priming on clean, coated interior; dedicated stain blocker over stains, bonding primer on glossy or laminate
- SURFACES
- Drywall, plaster, masonry, primed wood and trim
- COLORS
- Any Behr library color at the counter; Ultra Pure White untinted; 34-color Designer Collection
- SIZES
- 8-oz sample, quart, gallon, 5-gallon
- WARRANTY
- Limited lifetime, original residential purchaser
- PRICE
- $33–43 / gal at Home Depot; sale dips lower
Dry, Recoat, and the 14-Day Cure
Touch dry in an hour, recoat at two, so a bedroom takes two coats in a day. Full cure runs about fourteen days. The number that changes your shopping list is coverage: 250 to 400 square feet a gallon is honest but loose, and where you land depends mostly on the color. Deep, saturated colors ride Deep Base, sit at the bottom of that range, usually want a tinted primer plus two coats to hit full depth, and add measurable VOC to what the shelf can calls zero. None of that is a Behr flaw, it is how deep tints work everywhere, but it is the difference between a $40 gallon covering a bedroom and a $40 gallon needing a third can. Budget the extra gallon, or put the money into Marquee instead.
When It Goes Wrong — and How to Fix It
A shiny patch where you wiped the wall
Why it happens: Burnishing. The flat and eggshell films do not take a hard scrub, so pressing on a greasy fingerprint polishes the matte finish instead of cleaning it. This is the honest deal-breaker for high-traffic rooms, and Marquee and Ultra both survive the same wipe.
The fix: There is no fix short of repainting the wall. Wipe gently and only when you have to. If a wet rag lands on that wall regularly, the room wanted Ultra or Marquee in the first place.
Shiny tracks around switches and door edges
Why it happens: The film polishes from ordinary contact within the first year in any room that gets used. Light switches, door edges, and chair-rail height go first. In a bedroom you never notice. In a hallway with kids and a dog you see tracks by month eight.
The fix: This is a room-choice problem, not an application problem. Keep Premium Plus in bedrooms, ceilings, closets, and rentals, and spend up one rung anywhere hands land daily.
A stain ghosted back through
Why it happens: Premium Plus is not a stain blocker, whatever the shelf copy suggests. A water ring, tannin bleeding from knotty pine, or a nicotine wall comes straight back through the topcoat.
The fix: Spot-prime with a dedicated stain-blocking primer first, then two coats. Glossy or laminate surfaces need a bonding primer instead, and any deep color goes over a tinted primer.
You went looking for Premium Plus Texture Paint
Why it happens: It is discontinued. The old roll-on line — No. 1001 Smooth, No. 1002 Sand, and the No. 559 Popcorn ceiling finish with reinforcing fibers — is gone from Behr's current catalog. Listings that still show it are old stock, an archived safety data sheet, or a pin from a decade ago.
The fix: Use BEHR PRO Acrylic Texture Coating No. PR710 for walls and masonry, BEHR PREMIUM Textured Spray Paint for small pieces, or stir a universal texture additive into regular Premium Plus and keep the color deck. And ignore the Premium Plus colors named Fresh Popcorn and Popcorn Ball, which are colors, not textures.
Application Settings That Work
- BRUSH
- Fine on short cuts. Long sash pulls drag a little toward the end of the stroke, so reload more often. On the walls, a 3/8-inch microfiber roller is the pairing, and the film is forgiving enough that a second pass will not wreck it.
- PRIMER
- Self-priming on clean, prepped, previously coated interior surfaces. You still need a dedicated stain blocker over water, tannin, smoke, or grease, a bonding primer on glossy or laminate, and a tinted primer under any deep color.
Premium Plus vs Ultra vs Marquee
Three Behr interior rungs, about $25 a gallon end to end. One question decides it: will a wet rag touch this wall?
| Behr Premium Plus | Behr Ultra | Behr Marquee | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per gallon | $33–43 | $44–52 | $48–58 |
| Coats to full hide | Two solid coats. No one-coat claim. | Often a true one-or-light-two-coat job. | Honest one coat inside the One-Coat Hide Collection. |
| Washability | The weak spot. Scrub it hard and it burnishes. | Survives a wipe-down without burnishing. | Survives a kitchen. |
| Stain blocking | None. Prime stains first. | Real stain blocking built in, so a water ring or a marker scribble seals without a separate primer. | Not the pitch here. You buy it for hide, washability, and the lifetime warranty. |
| Best rooms | Bedrooms, ceilings, closets, and rentals you repaint at turnover. | Anywhere a wet rag lands regularly. | High-traffic walls and forever-room finishes. |
The line is simple. If a wet rag will touch the wall regularly, buy Ultra or Marquee. If it will not, buy Premium Plus and put the difference into prep, because a washed, sanded, patched, spot-primed wall makes cheap paint look expensive and skipped prep makes expensive paint look cheap. Across the aisle, Premium Plus is priced and built like ProMar 200: a clear step below SuperPaint, and well below Regal Select and Duration on scrub resistance and film toughness. That is the job description, not an insult.
What It's Good At
- +Price. At $33 to $43 a gallon it is the cheapest legitimate paint-and-primer at Home Depot, and three bedrooms plus ceilings runs about $300 against $420 to $460 in Marquee
- +Zero VOC before tinting in flat, eggshell, and satin, with GREENGUARD Gold and LEED compliance, so you can sleep in the room that night
- +Clean two-coat hide on repaints: a soft greige over an older beige covered with no flashing and no primer pass
- +A mildew-resistant dry film, which matters in a low-airflow bedroom or a closet on an exterior wall
- +Color-deck access, with roughly 3,000 Behr library colors tinted at any Home Depot in 15 minutes
- +Holding up to third-party scrutiny. Consumer Reports runs it against paint costing twice as much and it does not embarrass itself
What It's Not Good At
- −Washability. Wipe a greasy fingerprint with real pressure and you polish a shiny patch into the finish
- −Burnish at the touch points, with light switches, door edges, and chair-rail height going shiny inside the first year
- −Stain blocking. Water rings, tannin from knotty pine, and nicotine walls all ghost back through
- −Deep saturated colors, which ride Deep Base, land at the bottom of the coverage range, and often want a tinted primer plus a third gallon
- −Trim. The semi-gloss can read slightly plasticky next to a proper trim enamel
Honest Alternatives
Also a Home Depot stock paint, a few dollars below Premium Plus. The hide is thinner and the color deck is smaller, but for a closet, a garage interior, or a rental you are flipping fast it does the job. Step down only when the room genuinely does not matter.
About $10 more a gallon for better hide, a washable film that survives a wipe-down without burnishing, and real stain blocking, so a water ring or a marker scribble seals without a separate primer. The upgrade to make the moment a wet rag enters the room.
The one-coat flagship of the same brand: real one-coat coverage inside the One-Coat Hide Collection, a washable film that survives a kitchen, and the lifetime warranty with teeth. About $15 a gallon more. Right for high-traffic walls and forever-room finishes.
The upgrade that justifies the drive to a Sherwin-Williams store when you want the deepest color rendering and burnish resistance that still holds at year three. It outclasses every Behr line on color depth and long-term wear. Use it for a forever-home statement wall, not a guest bedroom.
Premium Plus Questions, Answered
Is Behr Premium Plus actually a good paint?
For the price, yes, with limits. At $33 to $43 a gallon it hides cleanly in two coats, smells mild, and carries a zero-VOC GREENGUARD Gold cert. It is a solid pick for bedrooms, ceilings, closets, and rental repaints. It scrubs and burnishes worse than Marquee, so it is the wrong paint for a kitchen or a kid hallway you wipe down weekly.
Does Behr Premium Plus need a separate primer?
On a clean, previously painted wall in good shape, no. The paint-and-primer formula self-primes fine. You still need a dedicated primer in three cases: bare drywall in a deep or saturated color, a glossy or laminate surface, and any wall with water, tannin, smoke, or grease stains. Premium Plus is not a stain blocker, so spot-prime first or the stain bleeds through.
How many coats of Behr Premium Plus do you need?
Plan on two. Over a similar existing color in flat or eggshell you can sometimes get away with one good coat, but going lighter over darker, or any saturated color, takes two. The hide is honest for the price, not one-coat magic. That claim belongs to Marquee, not this line.
What is the difference between Behr Premium Plus and Behr Ultra?
Ultra sits one rung up at $44 to $52 a gallon, about $10 more. It hides better in fewer coats, scrubs harder, and adds real stain-blocking that Premium Plus does not have. Premium Plus is the value tier for low-traffic rooms. For a guest room you will repaint in five years, Premium Plus saves real money.
Is Behr Premium Plus the same as Premium Plus Ultra?
No, and this trips up anyone reading older reviews. Behr Premium Plus Ultra was the old name for what is now simply Behr Ultra, the mid-grade line one rung up with better hide and built-in stain blocking. Behr dropped the shared name in its rebrand around 2018, so any pre-2018 forum thread praising Premium Plus Ultra is describing Ultra, not this entry-level paint.
How many colors does Behr Premium Plus come in?
All of them. Any of Behr's 3,000-plus library colors can be tinted into Premium Plus at the Home Depot counter, and the untinted shelf can is Ultra Pure White. If the full deck is overwhelming, the Behr Designer Collection narrows it to 34 designer-approved whites, neutrals, and accents sold in Premium Plus. 8-oz samples let you test before committing, and deep colors use Deep Base and usually want an extra coat.
Does Behr still make Premium Plus Texture Paint?
No. The old roll-on Premium Plus Texture Paint line — No. 1001 Smooth, No. 1002 Sand, and the No. 559 Popcorn ceiling finish with reinforcing fibers — is gone from Behr's current catalog. Today the texture options are BEHR PREMIUM Textured Spray Paint for small projects and the PRO-side Acrylic Texture Coating No. PR710 for walls and masonry, or you can stir a universal texture additive into regular Premium Plus. Home Depot listings for Fresh Popcorn or Popcorn Ball are color names, not textures.
Is Behr Premium Plus interior or exterior paint?
Both exist as separate products. This review covers the interior paint-and-primer. PREMIUM PLUS Exterior is a 100% acrylic low-VOC paint-and-primer in flat, satin, and semi-gloss that runs $34 to $46 a gallon, wants two coats applied between 50 and 90°F, and carries a substrate-limited warranty rather than Marquee's lifetime one. Same value logic outside as inside: fine on sound, well-prepped, light-to-mid colors.
Is Behr Premium Plus really zero-VOC?
In the base, before tinting, yes: under 5 g/L in flat, eggshell, and satin, with GREENGUARD Gold and LEED compliance. Colorant pushes that up a little, most of all in deep saturated colors, which is the one place the label and the gallon in your cart diverge. In practice the smell is mild, the room airs out fast, and it is a defensible pick for a nursery or a bedroom you sleep in that night.
Ask a Question
Mid-project with Premium Plus? Stuck between two cans?
Ask Maya below — every question gets a real reply, usually within a day. Painted a whole house in Premium Plus? Tell us which rooms held up and which ones you wish you had spent up on.