Roofing
Roofing Labor Markup Calculator
Check what the billed labour rate recovers against what a roofing crew hour genuinely costs.
Result
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against the price you charge. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not a 50% one. Pricing off the wrong one is the most common way a job that looked profitable turns out not to have been.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Workers compensation, which for roofing is among the highest of any trade classification.
- Weather days, which are paid or lost and either way reduce sellable hours.
- Crew productivity, which varies with pitch, complexity and heat.
Where this one goes wrong
Using a general construction burden figure. Roofing workers compensation rates are substantially higher than most trades, and a burden borrowed from another trade will understate the cost of every hour.
Questions
About this calculator
Why is roofing insurance so expensive?
Because of fall risk. The classification reflects real injury rates, and it makes labour burden a much larger share of cost than in ground-level trades.
How should weather days be handled?
Recovered across the jobs that do run. They are not chargeable to a customer and they are not avoidable, so the rate has to carry them.
Does crew size change the economics?
Yes. Roofing has real economies within a crew up to a point, then people start waiting on each other. The productive crew size varies by roof type and is worth measuring.
The formula
price = cost x (1 + markup%); margin = profit / price
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How to use this calculator
- Your cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $6,400.
- Markup on cost (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 45%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Your cost | $6,400 |
| Markup on cost | 45% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price main result | $9,280 |
| Gross profit | $2,880 |
| Margin that gives you | 31.0% |
A 45% markup on $6,400 prices the job at $9,280, which is 31.0% margin, not 45%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only your cost, this is what happens to price. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Your cost ($) | Price |
|---|---|
| $3,200 | $4,640 |
| $4,800 | $6,960 |
| $6,400 example above | $9,280 |
| $9,600 | $13,920 |
| $12,800 | $18,560 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Your cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $6,400.
- Markup on cost (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 500, starting at 45%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Margin that gives you | A percentage. |
What this cannot see
Material quantities assume a clean rectangular plane and the waste factor you enter. Valleys, hips, dormers, penetrations and a steep pitch all raise real waste, and a tear-off frequently uncovers decking that was not in the quote.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.