Best Spray Paint? 8 Cans Tested a Full Year Later

Spray paint cans all promise the same things on the label: tough, fast-drying, rust-blocking, one coat coverage. What they do not tell you is how any of that looks after a real year outside, once the sun has had its way with the color and something has actually scraped against the surface. That is the gap between a fresh coat looking good in the driveway and a project still looking good next summer.

Somebody actually waited to find out. A test sprayed 8 popular spray paints on identical panels, graded them fresh out of the can, then set them outside and re-graded the same panels a full year later for chip resistance, scratch resistance, and fade.

Here is which can earned its price and which one you can skip.

What the testing showed

Every measurement below comes from Project Farm, who bought 8 spray paints and ran the same gloss, chip, scratch, fade, and rust-blocking checks on each one, both immediately after painting and again after a full year of outdoor exposure. The complete year-later breakdown is on the 8-can spray paint comparison, and every figure here traces to that video.

The lineup ran from Rust-Oleum Professional and Rust-Oleum 2X, both premium lines, down to Color Place, a 96 cent Walmart house brand, with Seymour, Valspar, Krylon, Majic Paints, and Sherwin-Williams filling out the field. Each can was scored on:

• Initial gloss, how smooth and reflective the fresh finish looked.
• Initial and one-year chip resistance, measured in millimeters of paint loss.
• Initial and one-year scratch resistance, using a Mohs hardness pick test.
• Fade after one year of outdoor sun exposure.
• Rust-blocking performance on bare metal.

Rust-Oleum Professional won on overall balance

Rust-Oleum Professional, at 5.98 dollars for a 15 ounce can, had the best initial gloss of all 8 brands and finished second in scratch resistance behind only Valspar. After a full year outside its scratch performance was still among the best in the test, though the pick did reach the primer layer in a few small spots. The test's own verdict: "rustoleum pro definitely seems like the best all around paint."

Valspar won the hardness test outright

Valspar Anti-Rust Armor, at 9.77 dollars for 12 ounces, took first place on the initial Mohs hardness scratch test, ahead of all 8 brands including Rust-Oleum Professional. It was also one of the few paints in the test whose chip resistance actually improved slightly after a year outside, going from 4.85 mm to 4.76 mm of paint loss. No country of manufacture is listed on the can.

Krylon led on chip resistance, but faded

Krylon ColorMax had the best initial chip resistance of all 8 brands at 3.45 mm of paint loss, and it barely moved after a year at 3.44 mm. The catch is UV fade: the test notes that Krylon's strong chip numbers were "undercut by poor UV fade performance," a reminder that a paint can win one category and still disappoint overall.

The cheapest paint was also the weakest

Color Place, the 96 cent house-brand can and the least expensive paint in the test, had the worst initial gloss and the worst initial scratch resistance of all 8 brands, with the test pick scraping straight through to the primer. Its chip number actually looked good after a year, but the notes flag that the panel had already badly faded and the paint was rubbing off by then, which likely explains the smaller apparent chip rather than real durability.

How to read this for your own purchase

This is one of the few tests in this archive that measured the same cans twice, a year apart, which matters more for spray paint than almost any other product category. A can that looks great on day one can still fail the job if it chips or fades badly by summer.

For anything that needs to look good long-term outdoors, favor Rust-Oleum Professional or Valspar. Both held their scratch and chip numbers close to their initial scores after a full year of sun.

For a project where chip resistance matters more than UV exposure, such as a garage tool or something kept mostly covered, Krylon's initial numbers were the best in the test, just budget for a repaint sooner if it lives in direct sun.

Skip the cheapest can if the project needs to last. Color Place was the weakest performer on gloss and scratch resistance from day one, and its apparent one-year chip improvement is explained by fading and paint loss, not real toughness.

A couple of rules the year-later data backs up regardless of brand:

• Surface prep matters more than the can. Every paint in this test was applied to identical, properly prepped panels; skipping prep on your own project will hurt any brand equally.
• Budget for two coats on outdoor projects. The paints that held up best over a year were also the ones the test rated highest on initial coverage and gloss.

For the rest of the household and shop supplies put through the same kind of real-world grind, browse the home and cleaning tests.