GAF’s tiers and Owens Corning’s warranty levels start with liability insurance and any license your state requires. CertainTeed starts with installers it has trained and tested, while Atlas lets anyone sign up free. What the higher tiers win you is the right to sell the warranties GAF, Owens Corning and CertainTeed hold back for them, and no study I could find measures whether a badge raises close rates. Pick a program by the warranty you want to sell and whether your yearly volume on that maker’s shingles can hold the tier that carries it.
GAF starts with insurance, and keeping Master Elite takes steady GAF volume
GAF has three residential tiers, GAF Certified, Certified Plus and Master Elite, and its Residential Program Guidelines (last updated March 2025) set the same entry requirements for all three. Those are a state license where the state requires one, $1 million in liability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance. GAF “may also consider factors including, but not limited to, years of roofing experience, and customer reviews,” and prints no minimum for either, or any fee. Texas doesn’t license roofers, so there the license line asks nothing and the insurance is the real cost of entry.
GAF fills the tiers by invitation. The wording it approves for contractors says only 2% of roofers in North America are invited to become Master Elite and 7% to become GAF Certified.
GAF Certified contractors can offer System Plus, which GAF describes as “a 50 year non-prorated coverage period for single family detached homes.”
Certified Plus adds Silver Pledge, with 10 years of workmanship coverage, and only Master Elite contractors can offer Golden Pledge, with “25 - 30 years of workmanship coverage on qualifying roofing systems.”
Under the current guidelines, keeping Master Elite takes 1,000 Rewards Squares of GAF shingles a year, 500 squares registered under GAF’s enhanced warranties and 10 of GAF’s Learning Credits.
A square is 100 square feet of roof, so the shingle quota comes to roughly 30 to 40 average reroofs a year, all on GAF. Count last year’s GAF roofs before you build your proposals around Golden Pledge.
Owens Corning’s warranty levels are by request, and Platinum adds an inspection
As of October 2026, Owens Corning’s Roofing Contractor Network has three levels, and the first, Contractor Rewards, is open to anyone who sells Owens Corning roofing. Preferred and Platinum Preferred are by request. They need the same liability floor as GAF, any licenses and insurance the law requires, and a business credit rating Owens Corning finds satisfactory. Platinum also needs a passed inspection of your installation work. Only those two levels can offer Owens Corning’s extended warranties, and neither lists a time-in-business rule.
One DFW roofer about two years in business showed us its Owens Corning Preferred certificate in August 2026, a member since June 2025.
An owner on r/Roofing who sells mostly Owens Corning wrote that “OC is known to be stingy on promoting contractors to their platinum contractor.” Other manufacturers hand out their top awards faster, the same owner said, which lets a contractor offer the higher warranties sooner. If Platinum’s warranty is the one you want to sell, ask an Owens Corning rep what the inspection checks before you commit your volume.
CertainTeed’s credentials start with installers who pass its own shingle test
CertainTeed’s current credential page lists three company tiers, MASTER, PRO and PREMIER, with PREMIER the highest, plus credentials for installers who pass its Shingle Applicator Manual test, and it publishes no entry rules for the company tiers.
CertainTeed’s 2022 contractor brochure, under the older names ShingleMaster and SELECT ShingleMaster, did print entry rules. The entry tier took either of two setups, and the owner signed a code of ethics:
- a Shingle Quality Specialist plus a crew holding CertainTeed’s Master Shingle Applicator credential: one job supervisor and at least two installers
- a completed ShingleMaster Credential Course plus one Master Shingle Applicator
It set no years-in-business or insurance minimum, and it came with the 3-Star and 4-Star SureStart PLUS warranties and $2,000 of free extended warranties a year.
The top tier, SELECT ShingleMaster, started with a meeting where the CertainTeed territory manager pre-qualified the company, and then asked for:
- five years in business, one year as a ShingleMaster, or comparable industry experience
- Master Shingle Applicators as every job supervisor and half the shingle installers, plus a Shingle Quality Specialist
- an owner who passes a Business Fiscal Responsibility exam
- proof of workers’ comp, where the law requires it, and liability insurance
It came with $4,000 of free extended warranties a year and the sole right to offer the 5-Star warranty, the only SureStart PLUS level that covered workmanship, for 25 years. Under those rules a company could reach the top tier a year after the entry tier.
CertainTeed has since moved from two company tiers to three, so ask your territory manager for the current MASTER, PRO and PREMIER rules before you send installers to training.
Atlas PRO+ is free to join and ranks you by squares installed
Atlas says registering on the Atlas Pro website is “absolutely FREE,” and its guide to PRO+ lists no insurance, years-in-business or training requirement. Status comes in yearly levels, Silver, Gold and Platinum, earned by installing Atlas squares, Signature Select Roofing System jobs included, and Atlas says it “cut in half” the squares needed for Silver. Rewards run from EagleView credits and co-op collateral at Silver to gift cards and tablets higher up.
Atlas gives no square counts for the levels, so get them from your Atlas rep or supplier before you plan around a reward.
A top-tier warranty does not protect your price
A roofing sales rep on r/RoofingSales bid an Owens Corning Platinum-level system at about $30K, with their own cheapest option near $24K, and the homeowner hired a competitor at about $22K. “It seems in the industry the dollar has the most impact,” that rep wrote.
A rep at a GAF Master Elite company said that after a 10% price rise, to about $600 to $700 a square, every customer told them they were far higher.
Write the warranty’s terms next to the price, workmanship years included, because a roofer outside the program can’t offer that coverage under the maker’s name. How to Win Roofing Jobs Without Being the Cheapest Bid covers the rest of that conversation.
Anyone can check your badge against the maker’s directory
GAF’s verify page at gaf.com/en-us/roofing-contractors/verify lets anyone look up a contractor by name, and Owens Corning and CertainTeed run contractor locators of their own. CertainTeed’s 2022 brochure also said it surveys the homeowner on every registered SureStart PLUS job and shows the contractor’s review count and rating on its Find-a-Pro site.
Among Dallas-Fort Worth roofers, directories and websites disagree in both directions. GAF lists one Dallas roofer as Master Elite with a President’s Club award and FORTIFIED Roof certification, while its own site mentions GAF only as the shingle it installs. Four others hold GAF Certified or CertainTeed ShingleMaster status that their sites never mention.
Others claim more than the directories show. One roofer’s chamber of commerce profile listed credentials from four makers, and only two appeared in the makers’ records, with no GAF record of the company anywhere in the country. Another claimed Owens Corning Platinum Preferred without appearing in Owens Corning’s locator, and a third showed GAF and CertainTeed logos that no locator backed up.
Some gaps are tiers that lapsed, since these programs run year to year. Locators can also miss a real tier: for the DFW roofer above, Owens Corning’s locator showed an empty badge area, and only the certificate confirmed its Preferred status.
GAF’s guidelines require you to name your current tier in advertising, use the matching badge, keep the claim truthful and put #GAFMasterElite, #GAFCertified or #GAFCertifiedPlus ahead of other links or hashtags in social posts. Your ads must also carry a disclosure that certified contractors aren’t GAF employees or agents and “may receive benefits, such as loyalty rewards points and discounts on marketing tools” for offering GAF’s enhanced warranties.
Check each maker’s directory and your certificate every year, and show only the tier on your current certificate, with GAF’s disclosure wherever its badge appears.
Pick the program whose next tier you can reach this year
All four programs reward volume in the maker’s own shingles, so climbing a tier means steering your roofs to one brand. A badge is one part of the case a newer company makes before a homeowner calls, and How a Newer Roofing Company Earns Trust Before the First Call covers the rest.
Before you put a year of roofs on one maker’s shingles:
- Get the current tier rules and square counts from the maker’s rep in writing.
- Count last year’s squares on that maker’s shingles against the next tier.
- Price the insurance GAF and Owens Corning require; Roofing Contractor Insurance: What Coverage a Roofing Company Needs and What It Costs has the costs.
- Match your website to the maker’s directory, GAF’s disclosure included.
- Recheck the badge on your site every year.
The badge on your site does its work once a homeowner finds you, and on Google Maps that depends on your rank near your office. Run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office, no call needed.