A lender on the dealer-fee model takes a percentage of every loan it writes for your customers. Of those I checked, only Wisetack publishes its fee: 3.9% on a standard plan and 6.9% when the homeowner gets 12 months at 0%. GreenSky’s last annual report put its average fee at 6.47% in 2021, across all its merchants, healthcare included. It also said lower rates and longer promotions generally meant higher fees, so the plans homeowners like best usually cost you the most.
An owner on r/RoofingSales asked in 2025 why roofers pay to offer financing when the finance company makes money from the homeowner. GreenSky, for one, earned most of its revenue from merchants’ fees, according to the CFPB’s 2021 order against it. Another owner in that thread said his lender makes nothing from the homeowner on the twelve months same as cash he offers. “The reason I pay for it is I close more deals with it,” he wrote.
Platforms that advertise no dealer fee charge you a subscription or nothing, and the homeowner pays through the loan’s rate. The only figures I found on how much financing helps you close come from companies that sell it, and we haven’t measured that for any roofer. If homeowners ask you for monthly payments, decide who carries the fee before a rep quotes 0%, then count the financed jobs you sign against what the fees cost you.
At least 21 of the 63 DFW roofers we’ve built sample websites for advertise financing. We don’t arrange financing ourselves, so the fees and rules below come from lenders’ own pages, US federal rules, Texas law and what owners report. Check the rules where you work.
A 0% plan usually costs you more than a standard loan
On every $10,000 financed through Wisetack, you pay $390 on a standard loan and $690 when the homeowner gets 12 months at 0%, with no setup or subscription cost. Its loans go up to $65,000 over 3 to 120 months at 0% to 35.9% APR.
GreenSky’s annual report describes a one-time fee on every financed sale, a percentage from a schedule it gives each merchant and doesn’t publish, so ask any lender for its schedule. I couldn’t find a published fee for Service Finance, Synchrony, GoodLeap, Momnt or ContractorLoan PRO either. Enhancify, which sells against dealer fees, puts them at 8% to 10% of each job, though that’s one company describing its rivals.
No-dealer-fee platforms charge you a subscription or leave the cost to the homeowner
Hearth advertises 18 or more lenders and no dealer fees. Contractors pay for one of three subscription tiers instead, none with a published price, and the homeowner pays for the loan through its APR. An owner on r/Roofing called Hearth’s fees crazy in 2026, and another said he won’t pay Hearth to send it his customers.
Enhancify advertises no dealer fees and 30 or more lenders covering credit scores from 550 to 850. It also advertises a revenue share for the contractor and shows no prices for its plans. Acorn Finance says it’s free for contractors because its lending partners pay Acorn when a loan is made.
Any of these works only when the homeowner is approved at a rate they’ll accept. An owner who uses Enhancify wrote on r/Roofing in 2025 that one homeowner was approved the year before, enough to cover what Enhancify cost, and 99% of the rest were turned down. Wisetack puts its own approval rate around 70%, a number worth checking against your own approvals in the first month.
The only close-rate numbers I found come from companies that sell financing
Enhancify claims a 21% average increase in deals closed, which it marks as self-reported, and a 16% increase in average deal size. An owner on r/Contractor wrote in 2025 that a lot of homeowners on his larger bids were looking into finance options. A rep on r/RoofingSales who sells 70% retail wrote in 2026 that an actual cash value payout covers about a third of the roof, so the homeowner puts it down and he sets up financing for the rest. Selling Retail Roofs When Insurance Work Slows goes further into retail jobs.
Decide who pays the fee before anyone quotes 0%
Unless you raise the price, the fee comes out of your margin or your rep’s commission. Someone on r/RoofingSales, apparently a rep, asked in 2026 whether it’s standard for a rep on 100% commission to eat the whole dealer cost, and Wisetack’s pitch calls commission deductions a common frustration with other lenders. Settle it in the pay plan before reps quote payments. How to Pay Roofing Sales Reps: 10/50/50, Profit Splits and Draws covers the plans owners use.
Raising the price for financed customers is where the law gets unclear. A CFPB study of solar loans, the closest match I found, says hidden dealer fees typically run 10% to 30% of the cash price and lenders usually leave them out of the cost of credit they show the buyer.
Regulation Z, the US Truth in Lending rule, points both ways. When a charge in a credit sale runs higher than in a comparable cash sale, its commentary calls the difference a finance charge, and the rule counts discounts that steer buyers away from credit as finance charges too. Yet it leaves out fees a lender puts on the seller, even when they’re passed on to the buyer in a higher price. Before you quote a financed homeowner more than a cash one, or offer a cash discount, ask a consumer-finance lawyer which reading fits.
Lenders check the roofer, and some pay only after the homeowner signs off
Under the FTC’s Holder Rule, if you refer homeowners to a lender or have a business arrangement with one, you can’t take the loan money unless the contract says whoever holds it is subject to the homeowner’s claims and defenses against you. A complaint about the roof can follow the loan to the lender, which is one reason lenders vet roofers.
In 2021 the CFPB fined GreenSky $2.5 million and ordered up to $9 million in refunds or loan cancellations after some merchants submitted loan applications without the customer’s consent, sometimes with their own email address so the documents went to them. GreenSky’s merchants included home-improvement contractors, though the order doesn’t say how many of those applications came from roofers. Have the homeowner apply with their own email.
An owner on r/RoofingSales wrote in 2026 that many lenders want 12 months or more in business before opening some of their better plans. An owner who subs out his installs wrote on r/Contractor in 2024 that Synchrony told him he had to do the work himself, which he didn’t believe.
GreenSky pays a few days after the homeowner signs a completion document in its portal, an owner on r/Roofing wrote in 2024. Another owner’s lender paid in one lump sum once the customer approved the finished work, and he went looking on r/RoofingSales for one that pays up front or in draws. If your crew and supplier get paid first, plan for that gap. Roofing Cash Flow: Depreciation Checks, Final Payments and Liens covers the rest of the wait.
Financing a roof yourself can make you a creditor
An owner on r/RoofingSales asked in 2025 whether anyone finances jobs in-house to skip dealer fees and credit checks. One of those 21 DFW roofers runs its own financing program for customers its outside lender turns down.
Under Regulation Z you’re a creditor if you regularly extend consumer credit that carries a finance charge or is payable by written agreement in more than four installments. Regularly means more than 25 times in the previous calendar year, or more than 5 for credit secured by a home. A short same-as-cash plan with no finance charge and four or fewer payments may fall outside that, which a lawyer should confirm.
In Texas, a 2022 bulletin from the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner says a business must register, at $10 per location a year, if it sells through a retail installment contract with a finance charge, even one it signs and immediately assigns to another creditor. Ask an attorney whether that covers a loan the homeowner takes directly from a lender. Outside Texas, ask what your own state or province requires before you finance a job yourself.
Texas bans promising to cover a deductible, and that law says nothing about financing one
Since September 2019, Texas Insurance Code 707.002 has made the insured pay the deductible on a property claim. Under Business and Commerce Code 27.02, a seller who advertises or promises to “pay, waive, absorb, or otherwise decline to charge or collect” it, or offsets it with a rebate or credit, commits a Class B misdemeanor. Three of the 21 DFW roofers market financing aimed at the deductible, and one pitches it as a legal solution on a site that cites the 2019 law against waiving deductibles. I haven’t checked whether an ad for deductible financing could still run into 27.02, so have a lawyer read yours first. If you work outside Texas, find out how your own state or province treats deductible waivers before you advertise anything about the deductible.
A monthly payment in your ad means the APR has to be there too
Under Regulation Z, an ad that states a down payment, the number of payments or repayment period, the amount of any payment, or a finance charge must also give the down payment and repayment terms, plus the APR, and any rate has to be called an “annual percentage rate.” That catches an ad saying “$152/month” or “0% for 12 months,” while a plain “Financing available” states none of those terms.
Five of the 21 roofers name their lender: Wells Fargo, Synchrony, Service Finance, Wisetack, and Momnt with ContractorLoan PRO. One spells out the full terms on its Wisetack page, and another’s financing page gives two different loan ceilings, $55,000 and $75,000. If you offer financing, name the lender and link to its terms, so your page carries one set of numbers.
Google bars consumer finance ads in the US and Canada from targeting by gender, age, parental status, marital status or ZIP code, though a city or a radius of at least 1 km still works. Whether a roofing ad with financing in it counts depends on the ad, so check before you aim a payment offer at the ZIP codes a storm hit.
Get each lender’s fees in writing, then count your own financed jobs
Get these from each lender in writing before you sign:
- its fee on every plan you’d offer, standard and promotional, plus any setup or subscription cost
- when it pays you, and whether it pays anything before the homeowner signs off
- what it requires of you, such as time in business or doing your own installs
- what share of roofing applicants it approves, and the data behind that figure
Then mark every signed job that used financing, so after a season you know your own close rate.
A payment plan comes up only after a homeowner has found you. To see where you show up on Google Maps, 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.