Match a paint color
Find the real paint that matches any color. Paste a hex code or search a paint name — or upload a photo and tap the spot — and get the closest match in every major US brand across 23,917 paints. Free and instant; any photo stays in your browser.
Hover to zoom, click to match an exact spot — e.g. a small accent like gold.
Closest matches by brand
How to match a paint color
There are three ways to match a paint color here, and they all end in the same place — the closest real paint in every major US brand. Upload a photo and tap the spot you want, paste a hex code, or type a paint name. Paint color matching is hard to do by eye because a color on a screen, a fabric, or a chip never lines up with pigment on a wall. This tool removes the guesswork: it reads your color, then measures the distance to every paint chip in our 23,917-color library and returns the nearest match, brand by brand.
Under the hood it converts your color into the perceptual space the human eye actually uses (CIE Lab) and ranks every paint by ΔE2000 — the perceptual color-difference formula paint chemists work in. The smallest distance wins. Under 1, you can't tell the two apart; 1–2 reads as near-perfect; 2–3.5 is close; above 5 is a different color. That's the same engine whether you matched from a photo, a hex code, or a paint name.
Match a paint color from a photo
The most common way people match paint colors is from a picture — a wall they saw, a fabric, a piece of furniture, a screenshot. Upload the photo and the tool pulls out the main colors automatically, or tap any exact spot to match that pixel. The image is read right in your browser and never uploaded. Phone photos shift color under room lighting, so use it to build a shortlist, then order a sample pot of the top match and brush it on the actual wall.
When to use the paint color matcher
- You want to match a paint color from a photo of a room, fabric, or object you love.
- You have a Pantone, brand swatch, or web hex and need to source it in real paint.
- You're cross-brand matching — finding the closest Benjamin Moore equivalent of a Sherwin-Williams color, or vice versa.
- You're a paint color finder for a whole-house scheme and want every pick to be a buyable SKU.
Why the match won't be exact
Even a ΔE under 1 is a screen-to-screen number. Once you put real paint on a wall in your real room, the lighting changes everything. North-facing daylight cools every color it touches. Warm-LED bulbs warm them. The undertone you didn't notice in the chip becomes obvious on a 12-foot wall. Always order a sample pot from the brand and test on the actual wall, in the light you live with, before committing.
The hex values in our database are the brand's published swatches, which are themselves approximations of the physical paint. Treat the match as a screening shortlist, not a final spec.
How to Read Your Results
Each paint card shows four pieces of information. The color chip at the top is the paint's actual swatch. Below it: the ΔE number is how far it perceptually sits from your target (smaller is better). The hex code shows what the brand published for that color, and the LRV is how light or dark it is on a 0-100 scale — useful for checking if a color will feel bright or moody in your room. The SKU is what you'll ask for at the paint counter. The colored badge (green for near-perfect, yellow for close, red for noticeable) gives a quick read of the match quality.
Cross-Brand Matching and Custom Paints
If your target color isn't in a brand's standard deck, you have two paths. First, this tool ranks across every major brand, so an equivalent almost always exists elsewhere — use the brand filter to shop around if your preferred brand doesn't have an exact match. Second, most paint brands can custom-mix any color to specification. Bring your hex code or the closest match card from this tool to the paint counter, and they'll mix it for you — costs the same as a standard color.
Photo Picker vs. Hex Code
Pasting a hex code is precise — it goes straight to the engine. Uploading a photo is intuitive and finds colors in real context, but adds a layer: your camera's white balance, lighting conditions, and screen display all shift the color slightly. Use photos to explore colors in a room or product you love, then grab the hex from the magnified loupe to lock in your search. For an existing paint, Pantone, or digital color spec, paste the hex directly — it'll give you a repeatable, brand-independent baseline.
FAQ
Give the tool the color one of three ways — upload a photo and tap the spot, paste a hex code, or type a paint name — and it returns the closest real paint in every major US brand, ranked by ΔE2000. Then order a sample of the top match and test it on the wall before buying.
Yes. Upload any photo and the tool auto-extracts the main colors, or tap an exact spot to match that pixel. The image is read in your browser and never uploaded. Want the whole palette instead of one spot? Use the color palette from image tool.
Yes — this is a free paint color matcher, no signup. It cross-references 23,917 paints across Backdrop, Behr, Benjamin Moore, C2 Paint, Clare, Diamond Vogel, Dunn-Edwards, Dutch Boy, Farrow & Ball, Kompozit, Magnolia Home, PPG / Glidden, Sherwin-Williams, Valspar, so you can match a color and shop the closest SKU in any brand.
Under 2 reads as the same color to most people. Under 3.5 is close enough for moodboard work. Above 5 is a different color.
Yes — paste the hex equivalent of any Pantone, RAL, or other color spec. The tool only knows hex, so as long as you have the hex, it'll match across every brand. The Pantone Color of the Year archive has the matches already done.
The photo tool extracts actual hex values from your image and lets you click an exact spot with the magnified loupe. For best results, photograph in natural daylight (north-facing light is most neutral) and avoid shadows. Even so, camera white balance shifts colors, so treat the result as a starting point — copy the hex from the loupe, paste it back in, and refine the search if needed.
A ΔE above 5 means the closest paint is genuinely different from your target. This happens with rare or high-saturation colors that don't fit standard brand palettes. Check if another brand has a closer match using the brand filter. Otherwise, ask the paint counter about custom mixing — they can match your hex code closer than any stock color. Sample testing is critical in this case.
LRV measures how much light a color reflects — dark colors near 0, bright colors near 100. Two colors can be the same hue but very different LRVs, which changes how the room feels. If you're matching for mood or contrast (like a dark accent wall), check that the LRV is in the range you want. The tool shows it for every result so you can filter by brightness, not just hue.
The hex values come from each brand's published digital swatches — they're official, but remember that hex is a screen color, not real paint. A hex to paint match always has some error because screens emit light and paint reflects it. Order a sample pot before committing to a full can. The tool's job is to narrow your shopping list fast, not replace the final in-person check.
This tool finds the closest match in each brand, which may not be the literal same hex. Colors are mixed to order and vary by brand formulation. Use the results to see which brand's version is closest to your target, then sample-test both to see how they look in your space. If you need pixel-perfect color matching across brands, ask the paint counter about custom mixing — they can match any hex code exactly.