We install both, so we have no reason to push you toward one. The honest answer is that wallpaper and paint solve different problems, and the mistake is choosing based on trend rather than on what the wall is actually being asked to do.
On cost, paint wins on the first pass and the gap is not close. A standard bedroom repaint costs a fraction of papering the same room, because material cost per square foot is lower and installation is faster. Wallpaper's cost argument is about longevity: a quality vinyl or textile paper installed on a properly primed wall can hold up for fifteen years or more, where a painted wall in a high-traffic room realistically wants a refresh every five to seven.
Humidity is where Central Florida changes the maths. Cheap paper installed over an unprimed or damp wall will lift at the seams, and a bathroom without proper ventilation is genuinely hostile to most wallcoverings. Modern vinyl and vinyl-backed papers handle moisture far better than the paper-backed products people remember from the 1990s, but the substrate prep matters more than the product. If a wall has an active moisture problem, no wallcovering will fix it and paint will fail there too.
Durability depends on what kind of abuse the wall takes. Vinyl wallpaper is genuinely tougher than paint against scuffs and cleaning — hallways, stair walls, and rental common areas do well with it. But paint has the enormous advantage of being touch-up-able. A scratch in a painted wall is a ten-minute fix; a torn seam in a discontinued pattern is a much bigger conversation.
The removal question deserves honesty. Well-installed wallpaper over a properly primed wall comes off cleanly and leaves a paintable surface. Wallpaper installed straight onto bare, unprimed drywall bonds to the paper facing and can tear the wall apart on removal — which is why our first step on every install is a skim coat and a wallcovering primer, even when the client is impatient to see the pattern go up.
Our usual recommendation: paint the bulk of the home, and use wallpaper deliberately where you want a room to have a point of view. A dining room in grasscloth, a powder room in something bold, a mural behind a bed. That combination gives you the flexibility of paint everywhere it matters and the impact of paper where it earns its cost.