Market study
What Paint to Sample is worth
A Porsche ordered in Paint to Sample sells for about 15% more than the same model and model year in a standard colour. That is 142 cars sold at auction over three years, measured against 1,262 standard ones.
+15.6%
Median premium over the same model and year in a standard colour
+6.1% to +25.2%
Where the middle half of those cars landed
142 / 1,262
Paint to Sample cars measured against standard ones
Read that as a number about the car, not about the paint. A buyer who orders Paint to Sample tends to order everything else too, and this measures the car as it was specified. What it does say is that a custom colour travels with a real, repeatable price difference — and that it shows up on 13 of the 14 model lines we can measure rather than resting on one hot car.
By model
We only put a number on a model when at least eight Paint to Sample cars and eight standard cars have sold. That is the same bar the app uses before it will show you a comparison. 5 models clear it.
| Model | Premium | Middle half | Cars (PTS / standard) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 992 GT3 Touring | +11.8% | +3.9% to +21.3% | 36 / 15 |
| 992 GT3 RS | +20.6% | +15.9% to +28.9% | 14 / 16 |
| 991 GT3 | +27.4% | +15.8% to +43.3% | 10 / 27 |
| 982 GT4 RS Weissach | +16.5% | +8.2% to +23.6% | 8 / 14 |
| 992 GT3 | −1.6% | −3.1% to +5% | 8 / 15 |
The 992 GT3 is the outlier and we are leaving it in. On 8 Paint to Sample cars against 15 standard ones it came in fractionally below the standard-colour median. A custom colour is not a guaranteed cheque on every car in the range, and a study that only ever produced good news would not be worth reading.
Still counting
These lines are running the same way but have not reached eight cars on both sides, so we are not publishing a figure for them yet: 992 Sport Classic (10/5), 991 GT2 RS (6/8), 982 GTS 4.0 (5/12), 992 Dakar (5/12), 992 Turbo S (5/17), 992 S/T (4/9), 991 GT3 RS (3/17), 991 GT3 Touring (3/5), 991 Speedster (3/13).
How often it turns up
Share of each model’s auction sales that were Paint to Sample. This is what comes to market, not what left the factory — the cars people choose to sell are not a random sample of the cars built.
- 992 Sport Classic47.6% (10/21)
- 992 GT3 Touring40.4% (36/89)
- 992 Carrera GTS Cabriolet27.3% (3/11)
- 992 S/T26.3% (5/19)
- 992 GT3 RS24.1% (14/58)
- 991 GT3 Touring20% (4/20)
The colours people actually order
The Paint to Sample colours that came up most often, by number of cars sold. We are not putting a premium on any single colour: the most common one here has 13 sales, and a price cut that thin is noise wearing a number.
- Slate Grey 13
- Gulf Blue 10
- Azzurro Thetys Metallic 7
- British Racing Green 6
- Grey Black 6
- Brewster Green 5
- Meissen Blue 5
- Oslo Blue 5
- Viola Purple Metallic 5
- Fashion Grey 4
- Fjord Green 4
- Oak Green Metallic 4
- Viola Metallic 4
- Yachting Blue Metallic 4
- Albert Blue 3
- Azure Blue 3
- Black Olive 3
- Carbon Steel Grey Metallic 3
- Ipanema Blue Metallic 3
- Jet Green Metallic 3
- Mexico Blue 3
- Nato Olive 3
- Riviera Blue 3
How we worked it out
Every Porsche sold at auction in the last three years, model year 2010 or later, where the listing carried a real write-up. A car counts as Paint to Sample when the listing says so. We read the write-up on 52,639 listings to find them.
Mileage is the trap here. Paint to Sample cars in this set sold at a median of 2,850 miles. The standard cars they would otherwise be compared with sold at 45,587. Line those up raw and you are pricing delivery miles, not paint. So every price is first adjusted for mileage using the same curve behind the Shifty Estimate, and only then compared with the median of standard-colour cars of the same generation, variant and model year.
We ran it three ways as a check — the mileage-adjusted method above, a version that only ever compares cars in the same mileage band, and a blunt cap at 15,000 miles on both sides. They land at +16.8%, +15.2% and +14.6%. The headline does not depend on which one you prefer.
Ferrari Tailor Made, Lamborghini Ad Personam and McLaren MSO are not here. Tailor Made is a whole-car commissioning programme rather than a paint option, and its spread is far too wide to quote honestly. For the other two there simply is not enough listing text to measure anything. We would rather publish one number we trust than four we do not.
Figures as of 2026-09-07. Auction sales only, prices in USD.
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