Tool
Roofing estimate template
Where the bid price becomes line items the customer reads.
Roofing profit margin calculator
A takeoff tells you what a roof costs. It does not tell you what to charge. Put in the job costs, decide how overhead is carried and what you want to keep, and this works backwards to the bid price, the profit in it, and the markup that gets you there.
Bid price from job cost
Every field is editable. Pre-filled with a 25-square architectural re-roof, one layer off — replace the lines with your supplier quote and crew sheet.
Direct job cost$9,550
Overhead recovered as
Bid price
$12,733
$509.33 per square on 25 sq, markup on cost 33.3%
| Line | Amount | Of price |
|---|---|---|
| Direct job cost | $9,550 | 75% |
| Gross profit (price − job cost) | $3,183 | 25% |
| Overhead recovered | $1,910 | 15% |
| Net profit | $1,273 | 10% |
| Equivalent markup on job cost | 33.3% | — |
| Bid price | $12,733 | $509.33/sq |
Markup and margin, in one sentence each
Markup is what you add, measured against your cost. Margin is what you keep, measured against the price. They describe the same dollars from opposite ends, which is why the percentages never match: a $10,000 job sold for $12,500 carries a 25% markup and a 20% margin. Converting is plain arithmetic — margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup), and markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin).
Your books report margin. Most estimating habits work in markup. A company that plans for a margin but prices with the same number as a markup comes in short on every job, and the gap grows as the percentages rise.
| Markup on cost | Margin you get |
|---|---|
| 10% | 9.1% |
| 15% | 13% |
| 20% | 16.7% |
| 25% | 20% |
| 30% | 23.1% |
| 35% | 25.9% |
| 40% | 28.6% |
| 50% | 33.3% |
| 60% | 37.5% |
| 75% | 42.9% |
| 100% | 50% |
| Target margin | Markup required |
|---|---|
| 10% | 11.1% |
| 15% | 17.6% |
| 20% | 25% |
| 25% | 33.3% |
| 30% | 42.9% |
| 35% | 53.8% |
| 40% | 66.7% |
| 50% | 100% |
How to price a roofing job with this calculator
- Measure the roof first. The roof square calculator turns a plan and pitch into squares, and the bundle calculator turns squares and waste into a material order.
- Enter the direct costs — anything that would not exist without this roof. Rename lines, add a skylight or a sub, drop the dumpster if your tear-off rate already pays the dump.
- Pick how overhead is carried: a share of the price, or a fixed dollar allocation.
- Set the net margin you want to keep. It is a business decision, not a constant: it moves with your market, your size and how busy the schedule is.
- Read the bid price, the price per square, and the markup that lands it. Copy or print the sheet.
Gross margin and net margin are different numbers
Gross profit is price minus job cost; it has to pay overhead before anything is left. Net profit is what remains after overhead. A healthy-looking gross margin on a bid can still be a loss once the office is paid, so the calculator shows both.
A worked example: 25 squares, one layer off
The calculator opens on a 25-square architectural re-roof. Labour and materials each start at $4,000 — 40% of a $400 square, the low end of the installed band the replacement cost calculator uses, and the floor of the 40–60% labour share. Tear-off is 25 squares at $50, or $1,250, dumping included. The permit sits at $300, the middle of the $100–$500 band Fixr reports for roofing permits. Direct job cost: $9,550.
With overhead set at 15% of the price and a 10% net target, 25% of every dollar is spoken for before the job is paid, so the job cost has to fit in the other 75%: $9,550 ÷ 0.75 = $12,733, or $509.33 a square. Of that, $1,910 pays the office and $1,273 is profit. The markup on job cost that lands the same price is 33.3% — the number to type into estimating software that only asks for markup.
The shortcut that eats the profit
Adding 15% overhead and 10% profit on top of cost gives $9,550 × 1.25 = $11,938. That is $795.83 short of the right price. Overhead still takes its 15% of the bigger number, and the job clears $596.88 — a 5% net margin instead of 10%.
How overhead gets recovered
Overhead is everything that keeps the company open whether or not a roof is going on today: the yard and the office, the estimator’s truck, the phone, software, general liability, the owner’s salary when the owner is not on a roof, advertising, and the days rain sends everyone home. None of it shows up on a single job’s material ticket, so it has to be priced into every bid or nobody pays it.
As a percentage of the price
Total last year’s overhead, divide it by last year’s revenue, and that is your overhead share. It suits a company doing many similar re-roofs, because every job carries its weight in proportion to its size. Use the percentage of the price, not of cost; the calculator solves for the price so that the share is exact.
As a fixed dollar allocation
Divide annual overhead by the crew-days you actually produce in a year, then charge each job its crew-days. This is fairer when job sizes swing: a two-day repair and a five-day tear-off of the same dollar value tie up the company very differently. Switch the toggle to “Fixed $” and the field starts at the dollars the percentage was recovering, so you can see the difference before you change it.
Labour is the line that most often hides overhead by mistake. A bid rate is the wage a roofer earns plus payroll tax, workers’ comp and the rest of the burden; the labour per square guide walks through production rates. Put the loaded crew cost in the labour line, keep office costs in overhead, and count each dollar once.
What margin should a roofer target?
There is no single right number, and published figures disagree widely because they mix gross and net, residential and commercial, owner-operators and large firms. Start from your own books: last year’s overhead share, what you actually netted, and what the market paid. Replacement work with insurance or warranty exposure deserves more margin than a clean re-roof, and a tear-off with an unknown deck deserves a stated contingency rather than a thinner profit — the overlay vs tear-off comparison covers when that risk is in the job, and the permit guide covers the inspections that come with it.
From the bid price to the paperwork
The customer never sees this sheet. The price it produces goes into the roofing estimate template as installed rates per square, with tear-off and the deck contingency on their own lines; overhead and profit live inside those rates, not as a line someone can strike. Once accepted, the scope and total move into the roofing contract template with its payment schedule and change-order rule, and the roofing invoice template bills against it. Keep this sheet with the job file: when the final invoice is paid, the real material ticket and crew hours tell you whether the margin you priced is the margin you kept.
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