Roofing company owners report taking home anything from a side income to a six-figure salary. A part-time roofer said his side business nets about $25,000 to $45,000 a year, and the legal owner of a family roofing, siding and window company paid himself $150,000. Your pay comes out of what is left after commissions and job costs, so the size of your salary says nothing on its own about whether the company made money.
A $150,000 salary in 2023 didn’t show whether the company made money
The family company behind that salary grew from $800,000 in sales to a projected $3.6 million in one year. One brother legally owns it and took the salary, while the brother who posted on r/smallbusiness made $52,000 plus. Even with an accountant, they couldn’t tell whether the business was profitable, and he titled the post “I Can’t Tell If We’re Making Money.”
Another roofing owner wrote that he had spent about three years looking for help understanding his company’s financial performance. Keep your own pay on its own line in the books, and check what each job made after materials, labor, commission and disposal. Bookkeeping and QuickBooks for a Roofing Company, Including Job Costing shows how to set that up.
What you would pay a manager is the floor for your own pay
A different roofing, siding and window company, also at $3.6 million in yearly sales, was hiring a project manager in 2023 at $80,000 to $120,000 depending on bonuses. If you run the crews and sell the jobs yourself, you are doing that job and more.
Write down what a hire would cost to do your job. Count your pay up to that number as wages, and call only what is left over profit.
Owner-reported margins run from 30% to 50%, and gross and net get mixed up
A solo roofer and exterior contractor on r/Construction reported bringing in $30,000 to $40,000 a month from March to November, working alone or with one helper, at about a 50% profit margin. Those months are his busy season, so his monthly figure doesn’t multiply out to a year.
A roofing owner in Denver who does his supplementing and metal work in-house asked in a YouTube comment, “Is 40-50% profit margin normal?” He didn’t say whether he meant gross or net.
Another owner described a company policy of at least 30% net profit on every job. A commenter on r/Construction told a new roofing company to aim for a 35% to 40% gross profit margin.
Gross margin is counted before overhead and net margin after it, so compare your number only with one of the same kind. The two get mixed up in pricing as well: one contractor asked whether to add 15% to 20% overhead on top of labor and materials and then a 20% margin, or apply the margin alone. Work out your overhead as its own number before you choose a margin. Roofing Profit Margins: What Gross and Net Margin Look Like goes through both.
Commissions and job costs come out before your pay
A home-improvement rep selling roofing, windows and siding was paid 10% commission on jobs that profited 45% or more. His owner was switching to a sliding scale that pays the rep a smaller share on thinner jobs.
Another roofing rep said he and his fellow reps get 5% commission, which comes to about $400 a roof. Whatever rate you pay, tie it to the job’s margin so a thin job doesn’t pay the rep as much as a healthy one.
The same r/Construction commenter told that new company to budget $500 to $800 per roof for dumpster and landfill fees and to set aside 3% of every job for callbacks. The comment also named workers’ comp and general liability insurance as the costs that eat margin.
A roofing owner who does insurance work wrote that supplementing staff, Xactimate software and meeting adjusters on roofs can’t be added directly to the insurance estimate, so contractors have to raise their gross margin to cover them. If you work claims, count those salaries and hours as overhead before you set your margin.
Leads that don’t close eat the profit your pay comes from
A contractor who cancelled Angi said only about 2 of every 10 leads panned out, so on small, low-margin jobs the bad ones could cost the profit of a job or two.
A roofing lead-gen operator on r/PPC put the limit plainly: “Nobody is making money on $200+ leads unless the close rates are near 100%.”
Judge each lead source by the jobs it signed, and drop any source that costs more per signed job than the job leaves you.
Two owners asked how LLC or S-corp status changes their pay
The part-time roofer, who works full time as a firefighter, asked whether to elect S-corp status and how to pay himself if he stayed an LLC. A sales rep about to open a roofing company with a 51/49 partner asked whether an S-corp would mean he could only pay himself a salary.
Take both questions to a CPA before you set your pay, and bring job-by-job figures so the answer fits your company. Taxes for a Roofing Company: Sales Tax, Deductions, Quarterly Payments and the Year-End Bill covers what comes due at year end.
Set your pay after these five checks
- Write down what a manager would cost to do your job, and count your pay up to it as wages.
- Find out whether the margin you quote is gross or net.
- Cost each job after commission, disposal, insurance and a callback reserve.
- Judge each lead source by the jobs it signed.
- Settle LLC or S-corp pay with a CPA.
Your pay comes out of signed jobs, and some of those start with a homeowner searching Google Maps near your office. Run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see where you rank at 49 points around your office.