How to price a roofing job?
Short answerPrice a roofing job by measuring the roof in squares, costing materials with a waste allowance, counting crew days at a loaded labor rate, adding disposal, permit and overhead, then applying your target margin and a contingency for rotten decking. Round to a number you can explain.
The explanation
Step one is a measured area, not a guess. Break the roof into planes, note pitch and layers, and record special parts such as chimneys, skylights and valleys. Photos taken at the visit protect both sides later.
Step two is cost. Materials equal quantity times unit cost times a waste factor you choose. Labor equals crew size times days times a loaded hourly rate, which includes payroll tax and insurance. Add dump fees, equipment and permit cost.
Step three is price. Divide your total cost by one minus your target margin, so a margin is a share of the price, not a markup on cost. Add a stated allowance for decking replacement, charged per sheet if used. Offer a range with good, better and best material choices when the customer wants options.
In roofer
Because a roof is exposed to weather, schedule the tear-off for a window with a dry forecast and have a tarp plan. Quote validity should be short when material costs move. All roofer scheduling questions.
How Apex does it
Rolling out
The screen and the rules are built and tested. Saving real customer data is not connected yet. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex's quote builder with good, better and best tiers and budget-based estimating is being built. Online approval and a deposit step are also in progress, so check the status badges.
- ES01Estimates / quotes builder(Rolling out)
- ES03Good / Better / Best option tiers(Rolling out)
- ES14Budget-based estimating (labor, materials, overhead margin)(Rolling out)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: owners type it, or a close variant, into search boxes. It was returned by public search suggestions (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo) when we collected them on 2026-10-06. We do not have search volumes.