Nine ways to redo the inside of the pool, priced per year of service rather than per job. Costs are 2026 Tampa Bay figures for a roughly 1,000 sq ft interior on a gunite shell, and lifespans are Florida adjusted, meaning shorter than the national numbers you will be quoted.
The sample board reads PMM Products, Marquis Series, and across the top: exposed aggregate pool finish. That last phrase settles it.
This is the quartz aggregate tier, the best value row in the table below. The good option, not the cheap one.
PMM describes Marquis as a factory blended mixture of polymer modified cement, quartz aggregates and various admixes. Same product class as Diamond Brite, whose maker SGM is also a South Florida company. They are direct competitors.
White plaster, the marcite that only makes sense on a short hold, is a different product entirely: cement and marble dust, no aggregate, troweled smooth. Those chips would be flat white with no speckle. These are dense with quartz flecks, and one of the colors is literally named Pool Quartz.
These two numbers are unrelated, and it is rarely explained at the quote stage. Here is the actual gap.
PMM's own published warranty on the Marquis Series is 10 years limited, from date of installation by a licensed professional applicator. So six years is not the product's warranty. It is either the contractor's labor coverage, or a contractor offering less than the manufacturer already provides. Ask which, and get both as separate written documents.
So the warranty is not a lifespan estimate. With those exclusions the practical coverage is early catastrophic failure, a bad mix or a bad bond, which surfaces in years one through three if at all. Past that the outcome is the same whether the certificate says six years or ten. That is why the table below uses observed service life instead of warranty length, and why the maintenance conditions are worth following on their own merits rather than for the paperwork.
Installed cost for a ~1,000 sq ft interior in the Tampa market, excluding waterline tile, coping, and equipment. The highlighted row is the quoted finish.
| Finish | What it is | Installed | FL life | $ / yr | Underfoot | Water look | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White plastermarcite |
White portland cement plus marble dust. The original finish, still the default cheap bid. | $5,500-8,500 | 7-10 yr | $824 | Smooth at first, chalky and rough by year six | Pale aqua, bright and shallow looking | Short hold only |
Colored plasterpigmented marcite |
Same plaster with pigment mixed in. No aggregate to hide the cement. | $6,500-9,500 | 6-9 yr | $1,067 | Same as white plaster | Rich on day one, then mottles and streaks | Skip |
Quartz aggregatePMM Marquis, Diamond Brite |
Cement with crushed quartz and pigment. Quartz is harder and far less porous than marble dust. | $8,000-13,000 | 12-16 yr | $750 | Fine sandpaper texture, fine for bare feet | Deep even blue, holds color, no mottling | Best value, quoted |
Pebble, classicPebble Tec |
Cement with exposed river pebble. The aggregate, not the cement, meets the water. | $11,000-18,000 | 15-22 yr | $784 | Genuinely rough, hard on kids' feet and swimsuits | Lagoon depth, hides stains and etching | Most durable |
Polished pebblePebbleSheen, PebbleFina, Hydrazzo |
Smaller pebble or polished marble, ground and polished after curing. | $14,000-22,000 | 15-22 yr | $973 | Smooth, close to plaster. Solves the pebble complaint | Best water color short of glass | Best long hold |
Glass beadBeadcrete |
Cement with crushed or spherical glass aggregate. Glass is inert and nonporous. | $18,000-30,000 | 20-25 yr | $1,067 | Smooth with a slight grip | Shimmer and light play nothing else matches | Aesthetic spend |
All tile interiorporcelain or glass mosaic |
The full interior tiled. Substrate and grout, not the tile, are the wear items. | $30,000-75,000 | 25-40 yr | $1,406 | Smooth, can be slick on steps | Top of the market, fully controllable | Luxury tier |
Thermal polymeraquaBRIGHT, ecoFINISH |
Polyethylene copolymer, flame sprayed and fused to the shell. Not paint, not cement. | $10,000-16,000 | 10-15 yr | $1,040 | Smooth with a soft grip, no brushing needed | Flat solid color, slightly synthetic | Niche fit |
Epoxy paintRamuc EP, Zeron |
Two part epoxy coating, 5 to 10 mils. A cosmetic film over the existing surface. | $2,000-4,500 | 3-6 yr | $1,044true cost | Smooth, then chalky. Clouds the water as it breaks down | Flat opaque color, reads as a painted pool | Costs more later |
Installed cost at the midpoint divided by realistic Florida lifespan. Plaster, quartz, and classic pebble all land within about 10 percent of each other, between $750 and $825. Plaster is half the price of pebble and lasts half as long, which is not a coincidence: the market has priced these so the rate comes out the same either way. That means price is not the deciding factor between them, and ownership horizon is.
Against the household budget: quartz at $10,500 over 14 years amortizes to $62.50 a month. Added to the $120 a month pool service already tracked on the budget page, all in pool cost of ownership runs about $183 a month. This is a capital item and is not in that monthly total.
Resurfacing bonds a new 3/8 inch layer of real material to the shell. Epoxy is a film on top of what is already there, roughly 5 to 10 mils. It fixes nothing structural, and nothing cementitious bonds to cured epoxy, so going back to plaster or pebble later means sandblasting it off first. Run both paths out over nine years, which is one plaster lifetime.
Epoxy earns its place in exactly two cases: selling within two or three years and wanting the pool to photograph well for the least money, or a shell problem not yet ready to be fixed, needing a cosmetic bridge. Outside those it is the most expensive option here.
National lifespan figures are written for pools that sit under a cover four months a year. This one does not.
Since cost per year is roughly flat across the good options, ownership horizon is the real input.
The cheapest thing that is still a real finish, and it will not be your problem at year eight. Epoxy is the only cheaper move and it gets flagged at inspection, so the $3,000 saved comes back in negotiation.
The value answer and the one already quoted. Lowest cost per year, comfortable underfoot, holds color, tolerates salt, and every Tampa pool company applies it well because they apply it constantly. Mid tone blue or blue grey hides scale best.
PebbleSheen or PebbleFina class. Within 5 percent of quartz on cost per year, twice the interval between drainings, the best water color short of glass, and smooth enough that the usual pebble complaint goes away. Ask for the 10 year material warranty.
Three quotes, each answering all of it in writing. Two bids on the same finish can differ by $4,000 purely on what is excluded.
A dry two inch chip tells you almost nothing. Water color is the finish plus six feet of water plus the sky plus whatever is around the deck, and every manufacturer says so in their own fine print. The tools below sort finished pools by resulting water color rather than by chip.
The quoted line. It runs 20 colors, so ask for the panels the contractor did not bring: Azure, Midnight Blue, Tahoe, Charcoal, and Emerald Isle all read deeper than the nine light bases on the board.
The direct competitor, same class and price. Worth a second quote purely to compare colors, since the two lines do not overlap exactly. SGM's water color tool is the better of the two for judging final appearance.
The upgrade tier for a 12 year or longer hold. PebbleFina and PebbleSheen are the smooth ones, classic PebbleTec is the rough one. The water color selection tool is the single most useful page in this list.
For completeness. River Rok is SGM's pebble line and Durazzo their polished marble. aquaBRIGHT is the thermal polymer marketed alongside epoxy but priced like pebble, and is a genuinely different product.
The only preview that counts. Ask the contractor for addresses of two or three pools they finished in the exact color under consideration, with at least one that is two or more years old, then drive by. A fresh pool looks great in every color. A two year old pool shows how the color settled, how the scale line is behaving, and whether the aggregate is holding. Any contractor working in Tampa can produce that list.
PMM's own gallery disclaimer says it plainly: images may be photographs or renderings, and finish and water color vary with environment, lighting, and depth. Every gallery here is a shortlist tool, not a promise.
Costs are 2026 Tampa Bay ballparks for a roughly 1,000 sq ft interior, drawn from Florida contractor pricing guides and adjusted to midpoints. Lifespans are Florida adjusted downward from national figures. Actual quotes will move with pool size, shell condition, how many finish layers are already on it, and how busy the market is. This is the frame for comparing three real bids, not a substitute for them.