Roofing carries more risk per dollar of revenue than almost any other trade in this series — weather exposure, material cost swings, fall liability, and material-heavy jobs that leave little room for pricing error. It also runs the thinnest margins of any trade we've covered. Here's the real 2026 numbers, and why protecting margin matters more here than anywhere else.
Inspections and minor repairs
Roof inspection
- Standard visual inspection: $150-$400, often credited toward repair work if the customer proceeds
- Insurance claim inspection / documentation: $200-$500 — this one takes real time (photos, measurements, a written report) and should be priced for the paperwork, not just the climb
Minor repairs (leaks, flashing, isolated shingle damage)
- Small repair (under 2 hours): $300-$750
- Flashing repair/replacement: $400-$1,000 per section
- Minimum trip charge for any repair call: $250-$400 — a roof repair is never a quick, low-overhead visit once you account for safety setup, tarping, and material staging
Small repairs are deceptively expensive to deliver safely. Fall protection setup, ladder placement, and tarping take real time before any actual repair work starts — price for the full visit, not just the minutes spent on the actual fix.
Full roof replacement by material
Asphalt shingle (architectural, most common)
- Per square (100 sq ft), installed: $450-$750
- Typical residential roof (20-30 squares): $9,000-$22,500
Architectural / premium shingle
- Per square, installed: $550-$900
Metal roofing (standing seam)
- Per square, installed: $1,000-$1,800
- Typical residential roof: $20,000-$54,000
Tile roofing (concrete or clay)
- Per square, installed: $1,200-$2,200
Tile requires specialized crews and structural load consideration — don't quote it with a general roofing crew's labor rate if that crew isn't tile-certified.
Flat / low-slope (commercial or modern residential)
- TPO or EPDM, per square, installed: $450-$850
What drives the price beyond the base material rate
- Roof pitch: steep-slope roofs require more safety equipment, more time, and more skilled labor — add 10-30% for pitches above 6/12
- Number of stories: second-story and above work adds setup time and often requires additional fall protection anchors
- Tear-off layers: removing 2+ layers of old roofing (common on older homes) adds real disposal and labor cost most quotes underestimate
- Decking repair/replacement: rotted decking discovered during tear-off is the single most common source of install-day scope creep — quote a contingency line for it upfront rather than surprising the customer mid-job
- Permit and code requirements: vary by municipality and can add $200-$800 to a job most contractors forget to itemize separately
Why roofing margins run thinner than other trades
For a typical $12,000 asphalt shingle replacement (25 squares):
- Materials (shingles, underlayment, flashing, fasteners): ~$4,800
- Labor (crew of 4, 2 days @ loaded $30/hr avg): ~$1,920
- Dumpster/disposal: ~$500
- Permits: ~$300
- Equipment and safety gear allocation: ~$400
- Overhead allocation (~20% of revenue, includes the insurance load this trade carries): $2,400
- Total cost: ~$10,320
- Profit at $12,000: ~$1,680 (14% margin)
That 14% is a genuinely healthy roofing margin — this trade runs materially thinner than pressure washing or landscaping because materials alone eat 35-45% of revenue before labor even enters the picture. Anyone quoting roofing work expecting 40-50% margins like a labor-heavy trade is either underpricing labor or about to find out the hard way.
A crew that finds 15 sheets of rotted decking mid-tear-off, without a pre-agreed contingency price per sheet, either eats the cost or has an awkward mid-job negotiation with a customer whose roof is currently open to the weather. Neither is a good position. Quote decking replacement as a per-sheet contingency rate ($75-$150/sheet is typical) in writing before the crew ever climbs the ladder.
Common roofing pricing mistakes
1. Quoting from a satellite measurement without a physical inspection
Satellite and drone measurements are useful for a fast ballpark, but pitch, existing layer count, and decking condition genuinely require eyes on the roof before you commit to a firm number. A quote built entirely off a desktop measurement is a quote built on assumptions you haven't verified.
2. No decking contingency in the contract
Covered above, and worth repeating: this is the single most common source of roofing disputes and margin loss. Put the per-sheet rate in writing before the tear-off starts.
3. Underpricing steep or multi-story jobs at flat per-square rates
A 12/12 pitch three-story roof takes meaningfully longer and requires more safety equipment than a 4/12 single-story roof of the same square footage. Pricing them identically because "it's the same number of squares" ignores where your actual labor cost lives.
4. Not separating insurance-claim work pricing from out-of-pocket work
Insurance-paid replacements involve adjuster negotiation, documentation, and often a longer payment timeline. Pricing and cash-flow planning should account for that difference rather than treating every roof the same regardless of who's paying and when.
How this connects to margin
Roofing sits at the low end of the margin benchmarks across this whole trade category — see What Profit Margin Should Your Field Service Business Actually Target? for how roofing compares to other trades, and why that makes disciplined job costing more important here than almost anywhere else in home services.
The bottom line
Roofing rewards precision more than any other trade in this series — precise measurement, a written decking contingency, pitch and story adjustments that reflect real labor cost, and margin discipline that assumes 15% is good, not 45%. Get sloppy with any of those and the thin margin this trade already runs on disappears fast.