Free Roofing Estimate Template — Build It Online, No Signup

What's on this roofing estimate template

The document this builds is the one a homeowner can read and a supplier can order from. Your business name, license number, and contact block sit at the top, because a bid without a license number gets thrown out in half the towns in the country. Under that: the customer, the job address, an estimate number, the date, and how long the price is good for.

Then the takeoff prints as its own block — area squares and material squares on separate lines — followed by three groups of line items you price yourself: materials, labor, and adders. Overhead and profit come off the subtotal as percentages, and the notes field at the bottom is where the exclusions go. Nothing is pre-priced. The geometry is ours; the money is yours.

• Contractor block: business name, license number, phone, email, address
• Customer block: name and job address
• Estimate number, date, and a good-through date
• Takeoff: footprint, pitch, pitch multiplier, roof surface, area squares, waste, material squares, bundles, tear-off squares, linear feet
• Material lines by the unit you actually buy in — square, bundle, roll, sheet, linear foot
• Labor lines, priced your way: by the square, by the day, or lump sum
• Adders: chimney flashing, skylights, pipe boots, decking by the sheet, dumpster, permit
• Subtotal, overhead, profit, total
• Notes and exclusions printed on the document

Roof takeoff: turning a footprint into squares

A square is 100 square feet of roof surface. Not floor area, not the footprint of the house — the surface of the slope itself. That distinction is where most bad numbers start.

You measure the footprint, the flat outline of the roof as seen from above, either off a plan or by walking the perimeter. Then you multiply it by the pitch multiplier for the slope, because a 6/12 roof holds more shingle than the ground it covers. Divide by 100 and you have your area squares.

Area squares are not what you order. Every hip, valley, and dormer costs you a cut, and cuts become scrap. That is the waste factor, and it moves with the shape of the roof, not with the size of it.

Why the estimate says 34 squares when the roof is 30

This is the single most common argument on a roofing job, and it comes up on r/Roofing almost weekly: "I'm getting estimates for my roof and the first one came in based off 34 square, but my roof is 30 square." Nobody is padding anything. The roof is 30 squares of surface. At 13% waste on a hip, the order is 34 squares of material, and the fourth of those extra squares goes in the dumpster as offcuts from the valleys.

The fix is not to argue about it after the fact. The fix is to print both numbers. This builder puts area squares and material squares on two separate lines of the estimate, labeled, so the homeowner sees the roof measurement and the order quantity as two different facts. Bundles follow from the material squares at three bundles per square for architectural shingle — check the wrapper, because heavier profiles run four or five.

How much does a roof cost per square in 2026?

Nothing in the tool above suggests a price, and that is deliberate — if we put a number in your estimate and you sent it to a homeowner, you would eat the difference. But you still need to know where the market sits before you write your own number, so here is the market, with the source next to it.

Three things from that same report are worth carrying into your pricing. Prices moved 4–7% from 2025 to 2026 on material and labor together, so a spreadsheet you built two seasons ago is already low. The wage spread between markets is real — roughly 35% between a Connecticut crew and a South Carolina crew — which is why a per-square number copied off a national blog is worthless in your zip code. And Florida's impact-resistant shingle requirement carries a 15–25% premium, so a Tampa reroof is not a Savannah reroof with a different address.

Shingle life also moves with climate, and it belongs in the conversation when a homeowner asks why the good roof costs more: asphalt runs about 15–18 years in the Northeast and 20–25 in the Southwest (RoofReport, 2026).

On material, counter pricing for 2026 runs about $130 per square for architectural shingle, $65 a roll for synthetic underlayment, and $120 a roll for ice and water shield; on the commercial side, 60-mil TPO around $95 per square and 3-inch polyiso around $1.25 per square foot (Projul, 2026). Aggregated across suppliers, 3-tab lands at $90–120 per square in material and architectural at $120–180. Roughly, a finished job breaks down as 35–45% material, 40–50% labor, and 10–20% overhead and profit.

What you pay the crew vs what you bill the homeowner

This is the number that puts roofers out of business, and no other page on this search result explains it. There are two labor rates in this trade and they are not the same rate.

The gap between those two columns is not profit. It is your company: general liability, workers' comp, the truck, the dumpster, the fuel, the ladder that walked off, the office phone, the workmanship warranty you will honor in year four, and the three estimates you wrote that never closed. A contractor who puts the crew rate on the labor line of the estimate is working for free, and will keep working for free until the day the truck needs a transmission.

Price labor at what your company has to collect, not at what the crew has to be paid. Then check it against your gross margin: Projul's guidance is overhead at 10–20%, profit at 10–15% (15% on repairs), and never below 35% gross margin.

Labor by roof complexity

Anything up to about 7/12 is walkable. From 8/12 the job changes: harnesses come out, the crew moves slower, and material has to be carried instead of slid. EstimationPro puts the same effect at +25 to 40% for an 8/12 to 12/12 pitch, plus $10–20 per square for a second story. For sizing the day, figure 2–3 squares per hour per crew on install only, 1.5–2.5 with tear-off — which lines up with Projul's day rates of 20–25 squares of tear-off and 15–20 squares of install for a crew of three or four.

Tear-off, by the layer

Tear-off is priced by the layer, not by the roof, and the house may have two or three. Look at the rake edge before you write the number.

Layers drive the dump count too. Two layers of architectural on a 30-square roof is not one dumpster, and a second haul is a real cost that quietly comes out of your profit if it is not on the estimate.

Line items roofers forget (and eat the cost on)

Every one of these has been left off somebody's estimate this week. None of them is exotic. They are just invisible from the driveway.

• Rotten decking. You cannot see it until the old roof is off. Put a unit price per sheet of OSB or plywood on the estimate, in writing, with the change order language beside it. A number agreed to before the tear-off is a line item; the same number after the tear-off is an argument.
• Dumpster and dump fees. Sized by layers and squares, and the tipping fee is per ton, not per trip.
• Permit. Varies by town, and some require a mid-job inspection that costs you a return trip and a morning.
• Ice and water shield. At eaves and in valleys it is code across the North, not an upgrade. It is also the most expensive roll on the truck.
• Drip edge. Code in most states since the 2012 IRC, and still missing from estimates every day. It is cheap to install and expensive to add back after the shingles are on.
• Ventilation. Ridge vent plus soffit intake. A ridge vent with no intake does not ventilate anything, it just looks like it does — and installing one without the other can void the manufacturer's warranty. Price the intake work, including cutting soffit if there is none.
• Starter strip. A separate product, not field shingle cut down. It is what holds the first course against wind uplift, and skipping it is a wind-claim denial waiting to happen.
• Hip and ridge cap. Bought separately from the field shingle, by the bundle, with its own coverage. Forgotten constantly on hip roofs, which is exactly where you need the most of it.
• Flashings. Step, counter, chimney cricket, pipe boots. This is where roofs leak. Reusing old step flashing to save a hundred dollars is how you end up back on that roof for free.
• Waste. Covered above, and it belongs on the document as its own line so the number is never a surprise.
• Magnet sweep and landscaping protection. Tarps, plywood over the AC unit, and two passes with the magnet. It is crew hours and almost nobody bills it.
• Mobilization and the second trip. Any roof you cannot finish in a day costs a setup you did not price. So does a steep or second-story surcharge — see the complexity table above.

How to fill out a roofing estimate, step by step

Eight steps, each one a field in the builder at the top of this page.

1. 1

   Measure the footprint

   Walk the perimeter or pull it off a plan and enter the flat outline in square feet. This is the ground area under the roof, not the roof surface, and not the living area of the house.

2. 2

   Set the pitch

   Rise over 12 inches of run. A pitch gauge on a rafter, a level and a tape in the attic, or a phone app against the gable end. The builder applies the multiplier and shows you the roof surface.

3. 3

   Pick the roof shape

   Gable, hip, complex with dormers and valleys, or mansard. This sets the waste factor, and you can override the percentage if your own history says different. Now you have area squares and material squares as two separate numbers.

4. 4

   Count the tear-off layers

   Look at the rake edge. One, two, or three layers, or none if it is new construction or a layover. Tear-off squares print separately because they are priced separately.

5. 5

   Measure the linear feet

   Eave, rake, ridge plus hip, and valley. Eave gives you drip edge and starter, ridge and hip gives you cap and ridge vent, valley gives you valley metal or the ice and water that goes under it.

6. 6

   Price the materials

   One line per product, in the unit you buy it in: shingle by the bundle, underlayment by the roll, drip edge by the piece or the linear foot, decking by the sheet. Your prices, at your supplier, this month.

7. 7

   Price the labor and the adders

   Labor at what your company must collect, not what the crew is paid — the crew rate belongs in your cost sheet, not on this document. Then add the chimney flashing, the skylights, the pipe boots, the dumpster, and the permit.

8. 8

   Set overhead and profit, then write the exclusions

   Overhead and profit come off the subtotal as percentages. In the notes, say what is not included, who pulls the permit, and what a sheet of decking costs if you find rot. Then print it or save it as a PDF.

Repair, replacement, and commercial estimates aren't the same document

Repair

A repair estimate is mostly diagnosis and access. The material is a bundle and a tube of sealant; the money is in getting a crew to the house, finding the actual leak, and standing behind the fix. Price repairs at a minimum charge plus time, keep the profit margin higher than replacement work (15% is the common guidance), and be explicit in the notes that a repair on a twenty-year-old roof is not a warranty on the rest of it.

Replacement

This is what the builder above is shaped around: tear-off by the layer, decking allowance, underlayment, ice and water where code requires it, starter, field shingle, hip and ridge, ventilation, flashings, drip edge, cleanup. The estimate should read as a system from the deck up, because that is the order the crew installs it in and the order a homeowner can follow.

Commercial and low-slope

Different vocabulary, different units. Membrane by the square — 60-mil TPO is the common spec — polyiso insulation by the square foot and by thickness with an R-value attached, a cover board over it, then termination bars, walk pads, curbs, drains, and scuppers. Commercial estimates also carry things residential ones do not: prevailing wage on public work, night or weekend hours, roof access and crane time, and a warranty that the manufacturer inspects before issuing.

Insurance job vs retail job

A retail job is priced by you. An insurance job is priced by Xactimate, the software the carrier's adjuster uses, and your estimate has to speak that language or you lose money quietly. Line items that are standard in your own bid — detach and reset, steep charge, second story, starter, ridge cap, ice and water by the linear foot — have to appear as their own items with quantities, because the adjuster's scope pays for what is itemized, not for what is implied.

ACV and RCV decide when you get paid. Actual Cash Value is the depreciated number, and it is the first check. Replacement Cost Value is the full amount, and the held-back depreciation is released after the work is documented as complete. O&P — overhead and profit, historically ten and ten — is a separate line, not something folded into your unit prices.

When the real scope exceeds what the adjuster approved, the mechanism is a supplement: photos, measurements, code citations, and a revised itemized estimate submitted to the carrier. That is easier to win when your original estimate was already itemized the same way. Keep a retail estimate and an insurance estimate as two different documents — the scope may be identical and the paperwork is not.

Estimate, quote, proposal, invoice — what's the difference

An estimate is your best professional judgment of what the job will cost. It can move if the scope moves, and on a roof the scope moves when the decking is bad. A quote is a fixed price — say it is a quote and you have said you will do it for that number. A proposal is an estimate or a quote wrapped in the rest of the sales case: scope, materials by product name, schedule, warranty, references. An invoice is a demand for payment for work already done, with a number, terms, and a due date.

Most disputes on a residential roof come from a document that called itself an estimate and was read as a quote. Say which one it is on the page, put a good-through date on it, and write the decking allowance into the notes.

When you win the job

The estimate is the first of three documents on every roof. Once the homeowner says yes, the same scope should become the contract — with a change order clause for the decking, a weather delay clause, and your workmanship warranty written separately from the manufacturer's. When the job is done and swept, the same line items become the invoice, and on an insurance job that invoice is what releases the withheld depreciation.

The invoice generator and the contract builder are being built next, on the same engine, so the takeoff you just did carries straight through instead of being retyped. There is no launch date to announce. If you want to know the day each one works, leave an email on the home page — that is the only thing we will use it for.

Roofing estimate FAQ

Where the pricing figures come from

• RoofReport — Roofing Costs by Region, 2026
• SquareDash — Roofing Labor Cost Per Square, updated 09/04/2026
• EstimationPro — Roofing Labor Cost Per Square, 2026
• Projul — Free Roofing Estimate Templates, 2026

Plannus is a document tool, not an accounting, insurance, or legal service. Every dollar figure in a document you build here is a number you entered yourself.