Roofing Pricing Calculator
Price roofing work from your real costs — loaded crew labor, the comp-heavy overhead every roofer carries, materials with markup, dumpster and permits at cost — with your profit margin built in, not diluted away. Squares don't set the price; your hours and your costs do.
Your Company Setup
Set these once — they reflect your business, not the job.
Price a Job
Enter one repair or one full roof — the price updates as you type.
Instant Rate Card — Common Roofing Jobs
Twelve common roofing jobs priced with your company settings above. Change your labor rate or margin and the whole menu reprices instantly. Hours and materials costs are typical starting points for a walkable roof with good access — adjust them to your market, your pitch, and your crew's production rates. Steep or cut-up roofs take more hours; give them more hours.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical materials | Your flat rate |
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We really appreciate feedback from working pros like yourself to get these numbers accurate — to help our fellow trades and businesses succeed, now and for the next generations to come.
Worked Examples: Three Real Roofing Jobs
Using the default company settings above ($30/hr loaded lead roofer rate, $22/hr overhead, 35% materials markup, 20% target margin, 3% card fee, 3% callback reserve):
1. Leak find & single-point repair — two hours, $35 in materials
Labor $60 + overhead $44 + materials charged at $47 (your $35 cost with markup) = $151 base → about $209. This is the job most roofers price worst — "it's just a couple shingles" — but the customer isn't buying shingles, they're buying the diagnosis, the ladder time, and the confidence the leak is actually gone. Price the visit like the skilled trip it is, and the callback reserve covers you if the water finds another path.
2. Chimney reflash — four lead hours plus one crew hour, $120 in materials
Labor $140 + overhead $110 + flashing and fasteners charged at $162 (your $120 with markup) = $412 base → about $559. Flashing work is the profitable middle of roofing: skilled, small-materials, high-consequence. It's also where handyman pricing kills contractors — a caulk-and-hope patch costs $80 and fails; a proper reflash priced from real hours holds for decades and is worth every dollar of the difference.
3. Full asphalt replacement — 20 squares, walkable: 12 lead + 36 crew hours, $4,200 in materials, $600 dumpster and permit
Labor $1,062 + overhead $1,056 + materials charged at $5,670 (your $4,200 cost with markup) + $600 passed through = $8,388 base → about $11,339, which works out to roughly $567 per square. Notice the per-square rate is the output of the math, not the input — start from someone else's per-square average and you inherit their labor rate, their comp premium, and their overhead, none of which pay your bills.
What Does Roofing Overhead Actually Cost?
Overhead is every cost of being in business that isn't a specific roof — and in roofing, insurance is the monster. Workers' comp for roofing classifications runs higher than almost any other trade: depending on your state and history, comp alone can add 15–50% on top of wages, which is why it belongs inside your loaded labor rate, not forgotten in a spreadsheet. On top of that: general liability with a roofing surcharge, fall-protection gear (harnesses, anchors, ropes — replaced on schedule, not when they fail), ladders and a ladder hoist, tear-off tools, nailers and compressors, a dump trailer, trucks and fuel, licensing and bonding, and marketing in a trade where storm-chasers reset customer expectations every season.
The number that matters is overhead per billable hour — and roofing has fewer of those hours than most trades, because weather days, morning dew, and wind holds don't bill anyone. A lead roofer might produce only 1,100–1,400 billable hours a year. Divide annual overhead by those hours: roughly $28,000 ÷ 1,250 billable hours ≈ $22 per billable hour — the default this calculator starts with. Every crew hour on a roof has to carry that weight, or the sunny days quietly subsidize the rained-out ones.
Common Roofing Pricing Mistakes
Recommended Profit Margins for Roofing
These are working benchmarks, not laws. Replacements run thinner because they're shopped against three bids; repair and flashing work carries more because it's skilled, diagnostic, high-consequence work that customers can't compare on price. What matters is that the margin is a decision you made, visible in your price — not whatever was left after the comp bill, the dumpster invoice, and the plywood you didn't quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge per roofing square?
Don't start from a per-square average — build the job from your numbers and let the per-square rate fall out at the end. Price the crew hours the roof actually takes at your loaded rates, add overhead per billable hour, materials with markup, and the dumpster and permit at cost, then divide by one minus your target margin. Squares hide the things that decide the price: pitch, layers to tear off, how cut-up the roof is, and access. Two 20-square roofs can honestly differ by thousands of dollars.
How do I estimate a roof replacement?
Measure the squares, then count what changes the hours: pitch (steep roofs slow production and demand more safety setup), number of layers to tear off, penetrations and flashing details (chimneys, skylights, valleys, walls), deck condition, and access for the dumpster and material delivery. Apply your crew's real production rates to get honest hours, price the hours with this calculator, and put decking replacement in the contract as a per-sheet unit price instead of a guess.
What profit margin should a roofing company target?
Common working targets: 20–35% true net margin on repair and service work, and 10–20% on full replacements won competitively, after all costs, card fees, and a callback reserve. Materials are typically marked up 25–50% over cost on top of that. Roofing carries some of the highest insurance costs of any trade, so a margin that would be comfortable elsewhere can be break-even here.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the final price that's profit. A 20% markup on an $8,000 cost gives $9,600 — but only a 16.7% margin. To earn a true 20% margin you divide by 0.80, giving $10,000. On a full replacement, that difference is real money on a single signature.
Should I charge extra for rotted decking?
Yes — as a unit price written into the contract before the job starts, for example a set price per sheet of sheathing replaced beyond an included allowance. You can't see the deck until tear-off, so a fixed bid that's silent on decking is a promise to absorb whatever you find. A per-sheet price protects you, and homeowners accept it readily when it's in writing up front instead of a mid-job phone call.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no ads. The calculator runs in your browser and the numbers you enter are never sent to us. We use basic traffic analytics, described in our privacy policy.