How to Find Equivalent Paint Colors Across Brands

You fall in love with Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace at a friend's house. Your local hardware store only carries Behr and PPG. You find Farrow & Ball's Railings in a design magazine but balk at $115 per litre. Or you've spec'd Sherwin-Williams Agreeable Gray for a project, only to discover the project site is serviced by a different brand. The color match problem is everywhere — and it's more solvable than most homeowners realize. Paint brands don't share proprietary formulas, but they do use the same underlying pigments to hit similar wavelengths of light. The science that quantifies how closely two colors match is called Delta-E, and it makes cross-brand equivalency a measurable fact rather than a subjective judgment.

Why Brands Don't Just Make the Same Colors

Paint color names are proprietary. Benjamin Moore owns 'Chantilly Lace OC-65.' Sherwin-Williams owns 'Agreeable Gray SW 7029.' Neither brand will formulate an identical color and call it the other brand's name — that would be brand confusion at minimum, trademark infringement at worst. Instead, each brand independently develops its own palette and mixing formulas. Two brands can arrive at nearly identical final colors through entirely different pigment paths: Brand A might mix a warm gray from lamp black, raw sienna, and titanium white; Brand B might arrive at the same hex value using synthetic iron oxides with a different carrier. The color on the wall looks the same. The formulas are completely different. The legal equivalency that brands will acknowledge is the cross-reference built into every paint store's tinting computer — a proprietary database that maps competitor colors to the closest in-house formula. These matches are good but not perfect, and they're not transparent to consumers.

The Science: What Is Delta-E?

Delta-E (written ΔE) is a numerical measure of the perceptual difference between two colors. A Delta-E of 0 means the colors are mathematically identical. A Delta-E of 1 is the threshold of human perception under laboratory conditions — two trained observers with side-by-side paint chips can just barely detect a difference. A Delta-E of 2–3 is a small but visible difference if the chips are viewed together; most people wouldn't notice it on walls in different rooms. A Delta-E above 5 is clearly different to most observers — you'd see it as a distinct color shift. The most accurate formula for calculating Delta-E is called CIEDE2000 (published by the International Commission on Illumination). It accounts for quirks in human color perception — the fact that we're more sensitive to color differences in some hues than others, that lightness differences are perceived differently than chroma differences, and that our eyes have different sensitivity at different parts of the spectrum.

How PaintDB Calculates Cross-Brand Matches

Every color in the PaintDB database — all 51,000+ colors across 25 brands — is stored with its precise Lab (CIELAB) color values, derived from the manufacturer's official hex code. When you view any color page, PaintDB calculates CIEDE2000 Delta-E scores between that color and every other color in the database, then surfaces the closest matches across all brands. These are displayed on the color page as 'similar colors,' ranked by Delta-E score. A match with ΔE 0.5 is remarkably close. A match with ΔE 2 is a solid practical equivalent. The brand coverage — including international brands like Jotun, Caparol, Tikkurila, Resene, Asian Paints, and Dulux Australia — means PaintDB can surface matches that US-only databases miss entirely.

Worked Example 1: Agreeable Gray (SW) Equivalents

Sherwin-Williams Agreeable Gray (SW 7029) is the single best-selling paint color in the United States for multiple consecutive years. It's a warm greige (gray-beige hybrid) with LRV 60 and a subtle warm yellow-beige undertone. It's also a Sherwin-Williams exclusive — you can only get the exact formula from a Sherwin-Williams store or from dealers licensed to carry their paint. If you're working with Behr or PPG, here's the closest match the data finds.

Behr Cotton Grey (HDC-NT-20) scores a Delta-E of 0.6 against Agreeable Gray — well below the 1.0 human perception threshold. Both sit at LRV 60–61 with a warm, slightly yellow-beige undertone. In a blind wall test, most people cannot tell these apart. PPG and Glidden, which share a parent company and a tinting database, both land on a color called 'Whiskers' (PPG-1025-3) at Delta-E 0.5 — essentially a pixel-level match.

Worked Example 2: Chantilly Lace (BM) Equivalents

Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace (OC-65) is the go-to bright white for designers who want a clean, cool-neutral white without the yellow or pink cast that plagues many 'white' paints. At LRV 90.04, it reflects almost all light and holds a rigorously neutral undertone across virtually every lighting condition. It became particularly popular during the black-and-white kitchen trend and as the pairing white for moody cabinet colors. Here's how it matches across brands.

Sherwin-Williams UltraWhite (SW 9500) scores Delta-E 0.5 against Chantilly Lace — imperceptible in practice. The slight difference is in LRV: UltraWhite sits at LRV 94 vs. Chantilly Lace's LRV 90, making it a fraction brighter. If you're replacing all walls and trim in one project, this difference won't matter. If you're trying to match a wall painted in Chantilly Lace with new trim in UltraWhite, test both under your room's actual lighting before committing. Behr's closest match is Blanca Peak (HDC-NT-04G) at Delta-E 0.8 — still firmly imperceptible.

Worked Example 3: Naval (SW) and Hale Navy (BM) — the Navy Blue Comparison

Deep navy blues are among the most requested cross-brand matches because homeowners often encounter them in design inspiration photos without knowing the brand. Sherwin-Williams Naval (SW 6244) and Benjamin Moore Hale Navy (HC-154) are the two most recognized deep navy paint colors in the US market — but they are not close equivalents of each other. Naval is a true deep ink navy (LRV 4), cool-blue with almost no perceptible warmth. Hale Navy (LRV 8) is lighter and warmer — a softer, slightly blue-teal navy. They're different enough to require separate equivalency searches.

The Limits of Color Matching

Even a Delta-E 0 mathematical match doesn't guarantee a perfect visual result on your walls. Three variables can make a 'matched' color read differently from the original: Sheen level — the same pigment in matte vs. satin will reflect light differently, changing the perceived hue. Test both candidate colors in the specific finish you intend to use. Paint quality and hide — premium formulas use higher concentrations of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and expensive pigments that provide better coverage and more consistent color from edge to center. A Delta-E 0.5 match in a budget formula may not cover as evenly as the original in a premium formula. Application — brush, roller nap, spray, and wet-edge technique all affect how pigment deposits on the wall. Two mathematically identical formulas can read slightly differently under specific application methods. For walls, a Delta-E below 2 is a safe working assumption for 'close enough.' For trim, where two colors sit in direct contact with each other, test your equivalents side-by-side at full sample scale before committing.

How to Find Your Color's Equivalent on PaintDB

Every color page on PaintDB displays a 'Similar Colors' section that lists the closest Delta-E matches across the entire database, ranked by score. To find your equivalent: navigate to the color page of the brand-original color (search by name or browse by brand), scroll to the Similar Colors section, and filter by the brand you have access to. The Delta-E score is displayed for each match — anything under 2.0 is a reliable practical equivalent. Because PaintDB indexes 25 brands including international lines, you may find that your closest equivalent is from a brand you wouldn't have considered — Jotun, Tikkurila, or Resene may have a closer match than any of the US majors, which matters for international projects or design firms specifying global interiors.

Frequently Asked Questions