Roofing is one of the few large purchases a homeowner makes with almost no price reference. You will get three numbers from three contractors, they will disagree by thousands of dollars, and nothing in ordinary experience tells you which one is reasonable. These guides exist to close that gap — not by pretending to know what your roof will cost, but by showing the ranges the work generally falls into and, more usefully, what moves a job from one end of a range to the other.
Everything here is a modelled estimate. We do not have your quote, your roof, or a database of local invoices, and any site that implies otherwise is overselling what it knows. What we do have is a consistent method, stated openly: a national industry-typical range for each type of work, adjusted by a single regional cost index per metro, rounded to a resolution the estimate can actually support. The method is written out in full further down this page, and it is the first thing you should read if you intend to plan around these numbers.
These are estimates, not quotes
Every figure on this site is a modelled range built from industry-typical national pricing and adjusted by a regional cost index. Nobody has inspected your roof, and no contractor has priced your job. Use these numbers to judge whether a bid is plausible; do not budget from them without getting quotes. Read the full method.
Eight kinds of roofing work, each priced the way the trade actually prices it. Replacement, metal, flat roofing, tear-off and decking are sold by the square, so those guides show a per-square figure and the roof-size assumption behind the job total. Repairs, storm work and inspections are sold per visit, and we do not invent a per-square number for them.
Full tear-off and re-roof in architectural asphalt shingle — the job most homeowners mean when they say "new roof". Priced per square, with the size assumptions shown.
$5,625–$27,000 national estimate
Localized fixes — leaks, flashing, boots, valleys, a section of shingles. Priced per visit rather than per square, because that is how the trade actually sells it.
$250–$3,500 national estimate
Exposed-fastener panel through steel and aluminium standing seam. The widest price band in residential roofing, because "metal roof" covers products that differ by a factor of four.
$8,250–$56,000 national estimate
Single-ply membrane — TPO, EPDM and PVC — plus modified bitumen. Covers whole low-slope roofs and the flat sections over additions, porches and dormers.
$3,600–$35,000 national estimate
Wind, hail and impact damage — from a tarp on the night of the storm to a full insurance-scoped replacement. The one topic where the price you pay and the price of the work are usually different numbers.
$450–$12,000 national estimate
Stripping and hauling away the existing roof — the line item that is usually bundled into a replacement quote and is worth pulling out and looking at on its own.
$1,500–$9,000 national estimate
Replacing sheathing under the shingles — the change order that surprises more homeowners than any other, because it cannot be quoted until the old roof is off.
$500–$14,000 national estimate
From the free look that comes with an estimate through to an infrared moisture scan or an engineer's report. Priced per visit, and often free — which is itself worth understanding.
$0–$1,200 national estimate
Nine factors account for most of the variance between two quotes on two houses. If you understand these, you can read a bid properly — and more importantly you can tell the difference between a contractor who is expensive and a contractor who has scoped more work.
Roof area, not house area
Roofing is priced per square — 100 square feet of roof surface. A sloped roof always covers more area than the footprint beneath it, and the steeper it is the bigger the gap. Working from your floor area rather than your roof area is the most common way a homeowner's own estimate goes wrong.
Pitch
Pitch does two things to the price at once: it increases the surface area, and above roughly 7/12 it slows the crew down and triggers a steep-pitch labor premium. A 12/12 roof over the same footprint as a 4/12 roof carries about 41% more material and costs considerably more than 41% extra to install.
Layers and tear-off
Every existing layer has to come off and be paid to go somewhere. Disposal is priced by weight, so a second layer costs more than a proportional amount extra, and heavy coverings like tile and slate are in a different class again.
Decking condition
Nobody can price this before the tear-off, because nobody can see it. Get the per-sheet rate in writing before the job starts — it is the single most valuable clause a homeowner can negotiate onto a roofing contract.
Complexity
Valleys, hips, dormers, skylights, chimneys and wall intersections are where the slow, skilled, leak-prone work is. Two roofs with identical square counts can differ 20% or more on complexity alone.
Material tier
Within asphalt, moving from a builder-grade 3-tab to an impact-rated or designer line adds a few hundred dollars per square. Moving to metal, tile or slate changes the price class entirely — and changes the expected service life with it.
Access and staging
Where the dumpster goes, how the material gets lifted, whether the truck can reach the house. On a dense urban lot or a steep mountain driveway this is a real line item rather than a rounding error.
Local labor rates and permitting
This is the part the regional index tries to capture. Prevailing construction wages, insurance and licensing overhead, and permit fee schedules all vary substantially between a large metro and a small one.
Timing and demand
A regional hail or wind event consumes local capacity for months and firms up prices while it lasts. The other side of that is real leverage in the off-season, when a crew with a gap in the schedule will price to fill it.
Size your own roof before you read a quote
Every number in this guide is priced against roof area, and roof area is not house area. Put your footprint dimensions and your pitch into the squares calculator and you will know how many squares you are buying — which turns a vague estimate into arithmetic you can check against a bid.
The baseline bands before any regional adjustment. These are wide on purpose: they span both different job sizes and different unit prices, because both genuinely vary that much.
| Work type | Per square | Typical job | Job range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roof Replacement | $375–$900 | $11,000 | $5,625–$27,000 |
| Roof Repair | Not sold by the square | $900 | $250–$3,500 |
| Metal Roofing | $550–$2,000 | $22,000 | $8,250–$56,000 |
| Flat & Low-Slope | $450–$1,400 | $12,000 | $3,600–$35,000 |
| Storm & Hail Damage | Not sold by the square | $2,200 | $450–$12,000 |
| Tear-Off & Disposal | $100–$300 | $3,000 | $1,500–$9,000 |
| Decking & Sheathing | $250–$700 | $2,000 | $500–$14,000 |
| Roof Inspection | Not sold by the square | $300 | $0–$1,200 |
Modelled national baselines, rounded. Per-square figures are installed cost per 100 sq ft of roof surface. Job ranges assume the roof sizes stated on each topic page, so the arithmetic can be checked.
Each city guide takes the national band for a work type and multiplies it by that metro’s cost index, then adds the climate, geography and building-practice context that actually applies there. All eight topics are published for every city listed below; the links here open the roof replacement guide, and each city page links across to the rest.
The index next to each city is the multiplier applied to the national numbers. It is an editorial estimate of where local labor and overhead sit relative to the national middle — not a measured price feed. That distinction matters, and it is spelled out in the method below.
Below baseline
under 0.97
Smaller market, lower prevailing construction wages, lighter permitting overhead.
At baseline
0.97 – 1.03
Broadly at the national middle. Most mid-size US metros sit here.
Above baseline
over 1.03
Higher prevailing wages, denser sites, more permitting and insurance overhead.
25 metros are covered so far, across 4 states. Cities outside this list do not have a guide — rather than generate a page for any city name someone can type, we publish only the metros we have actually modelled.
The short version: these are industry-typical ranges, not a quote.
These are modelled ranges, not quotes
Every figure on this page is an estimate produced by a model, not a price anyone has been charged. We do not collect invoices, we do not receive bid data from contractors, and we do not have a feed of completed jobs. If you need a number you can rely on, the only source of one is a written quote from a contractor who has been on your roof.
Where the national ranges come from
The national baseline for each work type is an industry-typical installed-price band: the range that published cost guides, manufacturer installation literature and ordinary contractor pricing conventions broadly agree on for 2026. Each band is expressed low / typical / high, and where the work is genuinely sold by the square we show the per-square price and the roof size assumptions separately, so the whole-job figure can be re-derived rather than taken on trust.
Where the city adjustment comes from
Each metro carries a single cost index, with 1.00 meaning the national baseline. The index is our own editorial estimate of where local labor, overhead and permitting sit relative to the national middle, based on the well-established general pattern that construction costs run higher in large, high-wage, densely-built metros and lower in smaller ones. It is not a measured price feed, it is not a licensed location-factor dataset, and it is not derived from local quotes. The city figure is simply the national band multiplied by that index.
What we deliberately do not do
We do not publish invented local statistics. There is no "average roof size in your city" on this site, because we have not measured one. Local context here is limited to climate, geography and building-practice factors that are true of the region and that you can verify independently. We would rather be generic and correct than specific and made up.
Why the numbers are rounded
Modelled figures are rounded before display — to the nearest $500 above $10,000, the nearest $100 above $1,000, and more finely below that. A modelled estimate printed to the exact dollar is claiming a resolution it does not have. The rounding is the honest representation of how coarse these estimates really are.
What the model cannot see
It cannot see your pitch, your decking, how many layers are up there, how a truck reaches your house, what your local supplier quoted this month, or how booked the good crews are after the last storm. Those factors routinely move a real quote further than the entire spread between our low and high figures. Treat these ranges as a way to tell a plausible quote from an implausible one — nothing more than that.
Cost model version 2026.08. Baselines and the regional index are reviewed periodically; the date shown on each page is the date that page's figures were last reviewed. Contractor listings on this site are compiled from public records — confirm any contractor’s licence and insurance with your state licensing board before work begins.
Roofing Guides
Longer-form guides on repair, replacement, storm claims, metal and flat roofs — the how and why behind the numbers on these pages.
Roofing Calculators
Pitch, squares and ventilation calculators. Each one shows the formula it used, so you can check the arithmetic behind any estimate on this site.
Get three, scoped alike — same material line, same underlayment, same flashing treatment, same per-sheet decking rate. Search roofing companies by city or state and contact them directly, free and with no middleman.
