Roofing is one of the most dangerous trades in the country. BLS puts the 2024 fatal injury rate for roofers at 48.7 per 100,000 full-time workers, almost 15 times the 3.3 rate for all workers.1 It is also big-ticket and weather-driven: BLS counted 135,490 employed roofers in May 2025 at a median wage of $55,440, and notes that work slows in northern winters while summer brings overtime.2 A roofing company's year is shaped by seasons and storms, and its profit by how well it measures, prices, protects its crews and collects on each job.
How a roofing business makes money
Retail replacements. Homeowners replacing an aging roof with their own money. Sales cycles are longer, and options (shingle lines, underlayment, ventilation, warranty tiers) matter.
Insurance work. Hail and wind damage claims. The insurer's adjuster sets the initial scope, and the roofer documents and supplements missed items. Volume can be huge after a storm, but so are paperwork and payment delays, such as depreciation held back until the work is complete.
Repairs. Leaks, flashing, missing shingles, pipe boots. Smaller jobs that keep crews busy between replacements and build a customer list for future roofs.
Inspections and maintenance. Real estate inspections, post-storm inspections and annual checkups. Low revenue, but they generate leads.
Related work. Gutters, skylights, ventilation and siding often ride along with roofs.
The market in numbers
Census counted 25,519 roofing contractor establishments with employees in 2023, with 215,242 employees and $15.2 billion in payroll, about $70,600 per employee.3 Most are small: 65.3 percent had fewer than five employees and 80.3 percent fewer than ten. Only 749 establishments, 2.9 percent, had 50 or more. BLS projections put 19.8 percent of roofers as self-employed.4
Roofing labor is concentrated in two states. Florida (23,550 employed roofers) and California (21,190) together account for about a third of the national total, and they pay very differently: Florida's median is $47,590, California's $63,600. The highest state medians are Illinois ($77,900), New Jersey ($76,600) and Minnesota ($74,490).2
Seasonality. BLS monthly employment at roofing contractors (not seasonally adjusted) rose from 240,100 in January 2025 to 263,600 in July, a 9.8 percent swing.5 That is three times the swing for plumbing and HVAC contractors, and the national number hides much deeper winter troughs in northern states. Repair work, inspections and gutters are what keep a crew together between replacement seasons.
Safety is a pricing input
Fall protection is not just a safety topic in roofing; it is a cost line, an insurance rate and a legal requirement.
Hours-based rates. In 2024, construction and extraction workers had 1,032 fatal injuries, 370 of them from falls, slips and trips.
| Roofers | 48.7 |
|---|---|
| Grounds maintenance | 20.9 |
| Construction and extraction (all) | 12.6 |
| HVAC mechanics | 6.7 |
| All workers | 3.3 |
The federal rule is simple to state. OSHA's construction standard requires fall protection for each employee on a steep roof with unprotected sides and edges 6 feet or more above lower levels, and for each employee in residential construction at 6 feet or more, with specific allowed systems for low-slope roofs.6 Fall protection, general requirements (1926.501) sits at number one on OSHA's preliminary list of most frequently cited standards for fiscal 2026, with scaffolding at four, construction ladders at five and fall protection training at eight.7
Fall protection items to price into every roof
- Anchors and personal fall arrest systems for every person on the roof, inspected before use
- Guardrails or warning lines where the roof and the plan call for them
- Written fall protection training for each worker, documented
- Ladder setup and tie-off time on every job, including repairs
- Extra setup time for steep, high or two-story roofs as a separate adder
- Workers' comp at your actual roofing class rate, not a blended guess
Running the day
Production is a sequencing problem. A replacement needs materials delivered, a dumpster dropped, a permit pulled and a crew available on a dry day, and all of it can move with one forecast. Plan replacements as multi-day crew jobs and re-plan quickly when weather moves. TradesWork plans crew jobs across days and re-plans the rest of the schedule when something moves.
Photograph everything: every slope before work, the decking once exposed, the underlayment, the flashing and the finished roof. Photos protect you in insurance supplements, warranty claims and disputes. Keep repair crews separate from replacement crews when you can: repairs are short and unpredictable, replacements are long and planned.
Pricing your work
Roofing is priced by the square: 100 square feet of roof surface.
- 1
Measure
By hand, by drone or from an aerial report. Record pitch, slopes, hips, valleys, rakes, eaves and penetrations.
- 2
Add waste
Simple gable roofs need less; cut-up roofs with hips, valleys and dormers need more. Track your actual waste by job to calibrate your factor.
- 3
Cost the crew
Crew wages plus burden per crew-day, divided by the squares that crew actually installs in a day on that kind of roof.
- 4
Add the rest
Materials, tear-off and disposal, permit, fall protection setup and adders for pitch, layers, decking and height.
- 5
Apply margin
Divide direct cost by (1 − target gross margin). Do not multiply by a markup and call it margin.
Roof price
A worked example, using BLS median wages and example assumptions you should replace with your own:
| Line (example) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Crew-day: 3 roofers at $26.65 and 1 helper at $21.23, 8 hours | $809.44 |
| Plus burden at 35% (example; roofing comp runs high) | $1,092.74 per crew-day |
| Roof: 30 squares, 12% waste (example), 34 squares ordered | |
| Materials at $160 per square ordered (example) | $5,440 |
| Labor: 2 crew-days at 15 squares a day (example) | $2,185 |
| Dumpster and disposal, permit (example) | $900 |
| Direct cost | $8,525 |
| Price at a 35% gross margin | $13,116 (about $437 per square) |
Every input in that table moves by market and by roof, which is the point: two roofers quoting the same house from their own costs can land thousands of dollars apart and both be right. Build your crew-day cost with the labor rate calculator, and use the markup and margin calculator so a 35 percent markup doesn't get mistaken for a 35 percent margin (it's a 26 percent margin).
Free calculatorMarkup vs margin calculatorConvert markup to margin (and back) so your prices actually hit your margin target.For repairs, use a minimum charge that covers ladder setup, fall protection and travel. If you are not on software yet, start from the roofing estimate template and the roofing invoice template.
Insurance work, storm selling and the law
When a storm hits your area, the first week decides your season. Plan before it happens:
- Capacity. Know how many inspections per day you can do well, and who does them.
- Documentation standard. Every inspection gets the same photo set: each slope, close-ups of damage with a reference, gutters, vents and soft metals, and interior damage if any.
- Fast follow-up. Send the homeowner a clear summary the same day, and follow up on every inspection until it's a yes or a clear no.
- Compliance. Follow your state's rules on door-to-door solicitation, contract cancellation periods and insurance-related contracts.
- Production limits. Don't sign more than your crews can install before the weather turns. Delays become bad reviews.
After the rush, review what came in: inspections, contracts signed, supplements approved and days to final payment. Those numbers tell you how to staff the next storm.
Marketing that works for roofing
Reviews and Google Business Profile. Roof replacement is a high-trust purchase. Recent reviews with photos matter more than slogans.
Referrals and yard signs. A finished roof is visible to the whole street. Ask happy customers for referrals and permission for a sign.
Real estate and insurance agents. Inspection work leads to repairs and replacements.
Follow up on old estimates. Retail replacement decisions take time. Scheduled follow-ups win jobs that would otherwise go quiet.
Where TradesWork fits today, and where it doesn't
TradesWork is a strong fit for roofing companies whose core is service, repairs and retail replacements. Today: a lead inbox for website, Angi, Thumbtack and email leads with missed-call text back and online booking for inspections; estimates with options and monthly payment shown, signed on the phone; photos and notes in a field app that works on a roof with no signal, in English and Spanish; multi-day crew jobs you can re-plan when weather moves the day; and text-to-pay, Tap to Pay, review requests, referral rewards and QuickBooks Online sync.
Not built yet: aerial and drone measurement integrations (such as EagleView or Hover), so measurements are entered by hand; insurance claim and supplement tracking; and deposits and progress billing. If most of your revenue is insurance work, a roofing CRM built around supplements is the better fit today.
Choosing roofing software
What to compare:
- Measurements: aerial or drone report integrations, or fast manual entry.
- Estimating by the square with waste factors and adders.
- Insurance workflows: claim info, supplements and depreciation tracking.
- Production scheduling for crews, materials and dumpsters, with weather changes.
- Photos organized by job.
- Billing: deposits, progress payments and final collection.
Roofing CRMs such as AccuLynx, JobNimbus and Roofr are built around measurement and insurance workflows. Use our buyer's guide to weigh what your business needs most, and read how to start a roofing business if you're early.
Footnotes
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BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, hours-based fatal injury rates by occupation, 2024 (SOC 47-2181 and total). https://www.bls.gov/iif/fatal-injuries-tables.htm ↩
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 national and state files, SOC 47-2181 and 47-3016; BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Roofers, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/roofers.htm. OEWS tables: https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm ↩ ↩2
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U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, national file, NAICS 238160. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/data/datasets.html ↩
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BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, Table 1.2, SOC 47-2181 (166.9 thousand in 2025, 175.6 thousand in 2035). https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupational-projections-and-characteristics.htm ↩
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BLS Current Employment Statistics, all employees, roofing contractors, not seasonally adjusted, series CEU2023816001, 2025. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CEU2023816001 ↩
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OSHA, 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(10), (b)(11) and (b)(13). https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1926/1926.501 ↩
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OSHA, Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards (preliminary, fiscal 2026). https://www.osha.gov/top10citedstandards ↩
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Texas Department of Insurance, Roofing and insurance: know the law. https://www.tdi.texas.gov/consumer/storms/roofing-and-insurance-know-the-law.html ↩
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Federal Trade Commission, Buyer's Remorse: The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule May Help. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/buyers-remorse-ftcs-cooling-rule-may-help ↩
