Most roofers I work with hate quoting repairs.
A leak call comes in. You text your sub photos of the damage. You wait. He throws out a number two days later. You add markup, cross your fingers, and send the quote. Half the time the customer ghosts. Half the time you’re not even sure you made money.
So eventually you just stop quoting repairs.
And every leak call becomes a missed replacement waiting to happen.
I built and exited a retail roofing company before I started coaching, and what I learned is this: a profitable repair department isn’t about hiring a crew. It’s about handing your sub a system. Most retail roofers running $3M and up are leaving six figures of repair revenue (and the replacements that come from it) on the table because they never built the pricing framework.
That’s what I’m going to walk you through today.
Why Roofing Repair Pricing Is So Hard To Get Right
Most owners I talk to blame the sub. They tell me their sub won’t answer the phone, won’t quote fast enough, won’t take repair work seriously.
The sub isn’t the problem.
The problem is the system you’re handing him. Or more accurately, the system you’re not handing him.
Right now, every repair job is a fresh negotiation. New customer, new damage, new photos, new conversation. Your sub has no idea what you expect him to charge. You have no idea what your true margin is. The customer gets a different price every time.
That’s not a sub problem. That’s a structure problem.
The roofers who run real repair departments did one thing differently. They stopped asking their sub to figure it out. They built the pricing framework themselves and handed it to him.
Once the work becomes structured, subs are not just willing to take repair jobs. They prefer them. The job is predictable. The pay is predictable. They show up.
How To Price Roofing Repairs: The 3-Step Pay Stack
The framework I teach is called the Repair Pay Stack. It’s a 3-layer system that turns repair pricing from a guessing game into a published rate sheet your sub can work from for years.
Step 1: Calculate Your Roofing Repair Labor Rate
The foundation of everything is your hourly labor basis. This is built from two things: your sub’s average hourly wage, and your desired profit margin.
If your sub’s labor cost averages $35 per hour and you want to run 50% margin, your effective labor basis is $70 per hour. That’s the number everything else gets built on.
Most roofers skip this step entirely. They price repairs by gut. By what feels fair. By what the last customer paid. That’s why their margins are all over the place.
When you start with a real labor basis, every repair is priced from the same math.
Step 2: Build Your Roofing Repair Time-Per-Task List
This is where most companies stop. And it’s the step that separates roofers who quote repairs in 5 minutes from roofers who lose two days going back and forth with their sub.
You need a list of common repairs with an estimated labor time attached to each one.
Examples:
Replace a bundle of shingles
Replace a valley
Flash a chimney
Replace a plumbing boot
Install a skylight
Replace step flashing
Replace a ridge vent
Once you have the labor time on each task, multiply it by your hourly basis. If replacing a bundle of shingles takes 1.75 hours and your basis is $70 per hour, the labor cost is $122.
The math is simple. The real work is sitting down and building the task list. Most owners never do it because it feels tedious.
But once it’s done, you have repair pricing that scales.
Step 3: Choose Per-Task Or Day-Rate Roofing Repair Pricing
Once you have your task list, you choose how the work gets quoted. Most companies use one or both of these styles.
Per-task pricing. Each repair item has its own published rate. The final quote is built by adding line items together. Best for small jobs with one or two clear repairs.
Day-rate pricing. For larger or messier jobs that don’t fit clean line items, you use day-rate buckets:
Show-Up Minimum (2 hours of work plus mobilization)
Half-Day (4 hours of work per person)
Full-Day (8 hours of work per person)
Day rates let you quote quickly without itemizing every detail. They also bundle mobilization costs (drive time, setup time, equipment prep) into one clean number the customer can understand.
Most of my members run both. Per-task for the small stuff. Day-rate for the projects that get fuzzy.
How Roofing Repairs Feed Replacement Sales
The biggest misconception in roofing is that repairs are “small jobs.” Side work. Something you do as a favor.
That mindset is costing you replacements.
Here’s what actually happens. A homeowner calls with a leak. Your team shows up, fixes the leak, treats them well, and walks the roof while they’re up there. They identify three other issues the homeowner didn’t know about. Maybe it’s not time for a full replacement yet. But six months later, when the next storm hits, who do you think gets the phone call?
Repairs aren’t a side business. They’re a feeder for replacements.
Every leak call your team handles becomes a relationship. Every repair done well becomes trust. And trust is what wins the replacement when the roof finally gives out.
The retail roofers I work with who built structured repair departments routinely tell me that 20-40% of their replacement sales come from repair customers from the prior 12-24 months. That’s not a side benefit. That’s a sales channel.
Why Most Roofing Companies Fail At Repair Pricing
The framework isn’t complicated. The Pay Stack has three steps and most owners can wrap their heads around it in 20 minutes.
The reason most companies never finish is the setup.
Building the task list. Estimating labor times. Deciding on margins. Publishing the rate sheet. Walking it through with the sub.
It feels tedious. It feels like the kind of project that gets pushed to next week, and then next month, and then never.
That’s exactly why I built the free Repair Labor Template. It does the setup for you. 40+ common repairs are already loaded with starting time estimates. You plug in your sub’s wage and your margin, the rate sheet recalculates itself, and you hand it to your sub.
You can [download it free here](LINK TO LEAD MAGNET).
How To Start Your Repair Department This Week
If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll build the repair department “when things slow down,” that day isn’t coming.
Here’s the path I’d take if I were you:
Download the Repair Labor Template.
Plug in your sub’s wage and your target margin.
Review the 40+ pre-loaded tasks. Adjust any times that don’t match your market.
Print the published Price Sheet tab.
Schedule a 30-minute sit-down with your sub this week. Walk him through the rates. Get his buy-in.
Send an email to your customer base announcing you now handle repairs.
That’s the whole launch. You don’t need a new crew. You don’t need a new truck. You don’t need new software. You need a system you can hand your sub by Friday.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I pay a roofing subcontractor for repairs?
It depends on your market, but most of the retail roofers I coach pay their repair subs $35-45/hr labor cost and apply a 50-60+% margin to set their published pay rates. That puts the effective labor basis between $70 and $90/hr. Use the Repair Labor Template to plug in your own numbers.
What is a fair markup on roofing repair work?
Don’t think in markup. Think in margin. Aim for a 50% margin on labor (which is a 2x markup) after commissions at minimum. The retail roofers running healthy repair departments are typically running 50-60% labor margin and pricing materials at retail with a separate margin on top.
Should I use day rates or per-task pricing for roof repairs?
Ideally you would have this broken into tasks. You can create task “bundles” for an easier pricing menu. Day rates are more for super basic setups where you can make comprehension for the subs easier.
Do roofing repairs lead to replacement sales?
Yes, and this is the part most owners miss. Repairs are the front door to your replacement business. The retail roofers I work with who run structured repair departments tell me 20-40% of their replacement sales come from current repairs that flip as well as prior repair customers. Every leak call is a relationship. Every relationship is a future replacement.
Do I need to hire a repair crew to add a repair department?
No. That’s the whole point of this approach. You can run a profitable repair department using your existing subcontractor relationships. What you need is a structured pricing framework you can hand to your sub so the work becomes predictable for both of you.
Ready To Build Your Repair Department?
Stop letting leak calls become missed replacements.
Download the free Repair Labor Template below. 40+ common repairs are pre-loaded with starting time estimates. You plug in your sub’s wage and your margin, the rate sheet recalculates itself, and you have a published pay sheet you can hand to your sub this week.
Download The Free Repair Labor Template → https://start.roofcoach.net/repair-pricing-template
– Aaron Santas, Founder of RoofCoach
