A newer roofing company earns trust before the first call by being easy to check: a bid with your address and phone number on it, proof of insurance, your listings in manufacturer directories, and a website that agrees with all of it. My examples come from Texas, where we work and where the state licenses no roofers, so a homeowner has no license number to look up. The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) tells homeowners to hire local contractors, get written bids on company letterhead with a phone number and an address, check references, and call the Better Business Bureau about complaints. Apart from references, a company can meet that list with its first bid, in Texas or anywhere else, and where your state or province does license roofers, the license number belongs on the bid too.
You may already hold some of that proof without showing it. Five DFW roofers we’ve looked at held a manufacturer credential their own websites never mentioned, one of them GAF Master Elite. Owens Corning lists no minimum time in business for its Preferred tier, and the first roofer we built a website for held it at about two years old.
Some proof does take time: six months of selling for BBB accreditation, and two years as a principal for the voluntary license from RCAT, a Texas roofing trade association. I haven’t found a survey of how much a BBB rating or a manufacturer badge changes which roofer a homeowner calls, so I can’t promise either one wins you a job. I’d make every claim on your bids and your website one a homeowner can look up and find true.
Texas licenses no roofers, so answer the license question with paperwork
The state licensing agency, TDLR, licenses dozens of occupations, from air conditioning contractors to water well drillers, and roofing isn’t one of them. “Anyone can call themselves a roofer in Texas,” RCAT says. An owner on r/RoofingSales put a new company’s problem plainly: “People don’t want to hand over $50k to an unheard of company.”
So when a homeowner asks whether you’re licensed, the straight answer in Texas is that the state doesn’t license roofers, followed by what homeowners are told to check. RCAT’s page for property owners lists six things: experience and project history, general liability insurance, references and reputation, a permanent business address and contact information, a written scope with pricing, and warranty terms. Experience and reputation build with each job, and the other four can be on paper before your first bid goes out.
Outside Texas, check what your state requires in Roofing License Requirements by State, and How Qualifiers Work. GAF’s certification and Google’s Local Services Ads screening both ask for a license wherever the law requires one.
Put your street address on every bid, even if Google tells you to hide it
TDI wants an address on the bid’s letterhead, and RCAT tells homeowners to look for a permanent business address. Google’s Business Profile rules tell a service-area business to hide its address, with a contractor working from home as the example, and they rule out P.O. boxes and virtual offices. If you run the company from home, print the address on bids and contracts and leave it off Google.
A newer DFW roofer whose profile hid its address ranked outside the top 20 at all 169 points of our grid, on both searches we ran. A grid shows where you rank and never why, and Google says to hide the address, so I won’t tell you to show yours. There’s more on map rankings in Why Your Roofing Company Disappears on Google Maps Outside Your Hometown.
In Texas the address also counts after a storm. After a declared disaster, chapter 58 of the Business and Commerce Code bars a contractor from requiring payment before repair work starts, unless it has kept a physical business address in that county, or one next to it, for at least a year. As I read it, that treats a company in its first year at an address like an out-of-town crew, but check my layman’s reading with a lawyer.
BBB accreditation takes six months of selling, and RCAT’s license takes two years
Each of these makes you wait, whatever you spend:
- BBB accreditation. A rating of B or better and six months of actively selling before you apply, unless you’ve run a similar business with a track record BBB accepts. BBB’s national site publishes no fee, and your local BBB quotes it.
- RCAT membership (Texas). A year in Texas roofing, a fixed Texas business location, two sponsors and $300,000 of general liability for residential work. RCAT doesn’t publish its dues and says its directory gets more than 30,000 searches a year.
- RCAT’s license (Texas). Two continuous years as a principal of a Texas roofing company right before you apply, so a first-time owner waits until the company turns two. The two exams take 70% to pass and cost $550 to $1,050, and renewal is $250 a year.
- Haag Certified Inspector, Residential Roofs. 100 residential steep-slope inspections as the primary inspector, then an open-book exam at 70%. Haag’s store lists the course at $925 on demand or $1,000 in a classroom, and the certificate belongs to the inspector and lapses after a year unless renewed.
- Google Verified. Local Services Ads screening checks the business and its insurance and takes three to four weeks on average once your documents are in. The badge replaced Google Guaranteed, so take any Google Guarantee promise off your site.
BBB’s letter grade counts time in business, accredited or not, and if BBB doesn’t know your start date it counts from the day it opened your file. It also marks you down for an address it can’t determine, so give BBB your real start date and street address now.
Five DFW roofers held a manufacturer credential their own websites never mentioned
In September 2026 GAF’s directory listed a Dallas roofer as Master Elite, its top residential tier, while the roofer’s own site mentioned GAF only as its shingle brand. We’d read that site and missed it until ChatGPT, asked about the company, cited GAF. Four more DFW roofers held GAF Certified or CertainTeed ShingleMaster without saying so on their sites.
Owens Corning lists no time in business for any level, and its Preferred and Platinum Preferred tiers, the ones that can offer its extended warranties, ask for at least $1,000,000 of general liability and a business credit rating Owens Corning accepts. GAF says it considers years of experience and customer reviews, without publishing a minimum for either.
On the first site we built for a roofer, Owens Corning Preferred sat at the top of the homepage for weeks before we confirmed it from the certificate, because Owens Corning’s public listing showed an empty space where the badges go. The program renews every year, and a contractor who drops out disappears from the finder, so a badge on a website can go false while nobody touches the site.
Three other roofers had the reverse problem. One chamber of commerce profile claimed four manufacturer credentials and only two were in the manufacturers’ records, while two other companies showed tiers or logos the locators didn’t back up. Lapsed memberships may explain some of this as well as overclaiming does, and to a homeowner who checks, a lapsed badge looks the same as an invented one. We haven’t counted how common either case is.
Homeowners can look up any GAF contractor by name at gaf.com/en-us/roofing-contractors/verify, so look yourself up in every manufacturer’s finder before they do, and link your listing from the badge on your site. Leave off any percentage the manufacturer doesn’t print: the “top 2%” people repeat about Master Elite isn’t on any GAF page I’ve read. One owner told me they’d been handed an award by an outfit that then wanted money for it, so before you pay for any badge, find out where a homeowner would look it up.
Homeowners are told to check phone numbers, and some roofers’ sites get theirs wrong
TDI’s hail page tells homeowners to check references and phone numbers. A sales rep vetting a roofing company on r/RoofingSales wrote: “Very few reviews despite company supposedly being 14 years old. No BBB accreditation.”
Some roofers’ own sites would fail a check like that. One FAQ said “over 20 years” while the same site’s About page said “over six years”, and its call button showed one number and dialed another a digit off. Another homepage claimed 300+ verified reviews, more than its Google profile showed. On a third, a website generator had written that the company was “licensed, bonded and insured” and printed the phone number (555) 123-4567 twice.
Before you add another badge, read your site the way a stranger would, and check every phone number, your founding year, your review count and your street address against your Google profile. If a website builder wrote any page with your name on it, read every line.
ChatGPT gave one DFW roofer 11 reviews when Google showed 196
A homeowner may ask ChatGPT before calling anyone. In September 2026, with web search on, ChatGPT named a Southlake roofer second in its map card, then gave it 4.6 stars from 11 reviews, taken from a directory called Homversa, against 4.9 from 196 on Google. Its place card said the company was closed. In Cleburne, a roofer with 262 reviews came second behind one with 3. Each was a single run and answers change from run to run, so ask it about your company the way a homeowner would and see which numbers it quotes.
Faking reviews or paying for good ones breaks an FTC rule in force since 2024
A newer company competes with listings that look more established than it does. In September 2026 we went through 1,061 DFW roofing profiles rated 4.8 or higher with at least 30 reviews. Fifty were lead-gen fronts from one network, listings that exist to collect calls and sell them on, and one of those had 4.9 stars from 119 reviews.
Seeding your own count to catch up is riskier now. The FTC’s rule on reviews and testimonials, in force since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews, reviews bought on condition that they’re positive or negative, undisclosed reviews from insiders such as officers and managers, and suppressing reviews through threats. The FTC can seek civil penalties against anyone who breaks it knowingly.
Your replies sit on the profile too. We read the low reviews on 298 of those roofers’ profiles, each with at least one review of one or two stars. On 35 the owner had answered with contempt, about one in eight, and on 70 the owner had never replied. There’s more on getting reviews in How Roofers Get More Google Reviews (and Deal With Fake Ones).
Start with the records a homeowner can look up today
You can do most of this without an agency, us included, roughly in this order:
- This week: look your company up in every manufacturer’s finder and link any listing from your site, then read your site against your Google profile until every phone number and year matches.
- On every bid: your street address, one phone number, a written scope and price, the warranty terms, and your license number wherever your state or province issues one.
- After a declared disaster in Texas, until your address is a year old: ask for no money before the work starts.
- At six months of selling: apply for BBB accreditation.
- In Texas, at one and two years: apply to join RCAT, then for its license.
- At 100 inspections as primary inspector: whoever inspects for you can apply for Haag’s certification.
Every check above starts with a homeowner finding you. To see where your Google profile comes up when they search, try our free Google Maps heatmap: pick your profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.