A roofing yard sign goes in the yard of a customer whose roof you’re working on, with their OK. Print your company name and a phone number used only on signs, plus your license number if your state requires it on ads. Keep signs off the roadside and out of intersections: in Texas a sign there breaks state law, and whoever paid to put it out can be fined.
Signs cost little to print. A rep on r/RoofingSales passed along a vendor’s Black Friday deal of 100 signs for $375, with stakes and shipping included. Someone buying an established Austin roofing company says 90% of its sales come from referrals, past clients, postcards and yard signs. To weigh signs against the other printed options, see Yard Signs, Door Hangers and Postcards: What Offline Roofing Marketing Still Works.
Texas fines roadside signs and whoever paid to put them out
Texas law bars any sign on the right-of-way of a public road unless state law allows it, and it defines a sign as any outdoor sign, display, poster or other thing used to advertise or inform. Whoever places or commissions one can owe a civil penalty of $500 to $1,000 per violation, with each day counted as a separate violation. A roofer who pays someone to plant signs at intersections is liable along with the person who planted them, and local government attorneys can sue and recover their fees.
A roadside sign is also a Class C misdemeanor. County law officers and county-approved volunteers can take the signs, and any you don’t reclaim within 21 days of paying the fines go to auction.
An owner commenting on a 2026 YouTube video about roofing marketing says police contacted him about yard signs he had put at intersections and told him it was against the law. He got a warning, with fines starting at $1,000 a sign after that. He doesn’t say which state he works in.
None of these rules cover a sign in a customer’s own yard. Keep every sign on private property where the owner said yes, and give anyone who puts signs out for you that rule in writing.
City sign codes can rule out the spot by the curb
Inside the yard, your city’s sign code applies. In Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015), the Supreme Court struck down a town sign code that treated signs differently by what they said. Justice Alito’s concurring opinion listed rules a city can still set without reading the message, among them size, location, lighting and time limits for signs about a one-time event. Expect your city’s rules on a roofing sign to cover its size, how far it sits from the street, how many you can put up and how long they stay.
Grapevine, a DFW suburb, shows how specific a code can get. It treats a sign naming the contractors on a project as a construction sign, allowed only on the site and only while work is under way. In residential districts that sign has to stand 15 feet back from the front lot line, and the city allows one per ten platted lots and no more than four in a subdivision. The setback rules out the usual spot by the curb, and the count limit can stop you from signing every job on a street where you’ve sold several roofs.
Grapevine also requires a zoning permit for any sign missing from its exempt list. Real estate signs up to 8 square feet are on that list and can stand 5 feet from the lot line, so the realtor’s sign next door can sit 10 feet closer to the street than yours. The city wants a construction sign gone before the first Certificate of Occupancy, which a reroof never gets, so ask when yours has to come down.
Before your first sign goes up in a new city, search its zoning code for “construction sign” and “temporary sign,” or call the planning office. Ask how far back the sign has to sit, how many you can put up, whether it needs a permit and when it has to come down.
Print a sign-only phone number, and your license number where the state asks
After your company name, the sign needs a phone number used only on yard signs. An owner on r/Roofing who spends over $15,000 a month on marketing, signage included, puts every source on its own number to count the leads each one brings and what each lead costs. The rest of that tracking is in How to Track Which Marketing Brings In Your Roofing Jobs.
Some states also want your license number on it. Florida requires a contractor’s registration or certification number on every advertisement, whatever the medium, and California requires the license number in all advertising. A yard sign advertises, so check your state licensing board’s rule before you order a batch.
Here is the sign, top to bottom:
- Your company name
- The phone number you use only on signs
- Your license number, where your state requires it on ads
- On a finished job, a QR code that opens your Google review form
A QR code on the sign can count scans and ask for reviews
If a QR code opens your website, tag the link with utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, the three tags Google Analytics says to use together to see which campaigns send visitors. Your reports then count the scans, and the sign’s phone number counts the calls.
Google Business Profile can make a QR code that opens your review form. Go to Read Reviews, then Get more reviews, from a computer browser, because the code can’t be made on a phone. Google suggests displaying the printed code, so the sign on a finished job can carry it. Keep any reward for a review off the sign, since Google counts free or discounted work in exchange for reviews as fake engagement and bans it.
Texas and Florida law limit what a sign can say about deductibles and claims
In Texas, advertising or promising to pay, waive, absorb or rebate a homeowner’s insurance deductible without the insurer’s consent is a Class B misdemeanor. A sign reading “We pay your deductible” or “Deductible covered” is the offense itself.
Texas also bars a contractor from acting as a public adjuster, or advertising to adjust claims, on any property it works on or may work on. The Texas Department of Insurance says a contractor may prepare an estimate and explain the scope of work. Its examples of wording that goes too far:
- offering to negotiate the settlement or file the claim for the homeowner
- promising to recover every dollar the insurer owes
- advertising help avoiding incorrect settlement pricing
- claiming to represent the homeowner on coverage questions
A line like “Insurance claim specialists” sits close enough to that list to keep off a Texas sign.
Florida law bars a contractor ad that encourages a homeowner to contact it about a roof insurance claim unless the ad carries two notices: the homeowner owes the deductible, and waiving it is insurance fraud. The notices must be in 12-point type or larger and at least half the size of the biggest type on the piece. The same law bans offering a gift card, cash, a coupon, a deductible waiver or anything else of value for letting you inspect a roof or file a claim, with fines up to $10,000 per violation.
On a Florida sign, leave storms and insurance off, or print both notices at that size. The rest of the claim rules are in What a Roofer Can Legally Do on an Insurance Claim, From Deductibles to Contingency Agreements.
A sign up before install day can bring a rival roofer to the door
An owner on r/Roofing wrote, “My company stopped putting out yard signs until day of install,” because competitors were knocking those doors and badmouthing his company. Another roofer there said three customers texted him the same evening after a rival company knocked their doors, and it had knocked only the houses with his signs.
Other roofers have posted worse: one r/Roofing post describes a company putting its own signs on a competitor’s job mid-project, then knocking the door to collect the final payment. A roofer on Facebook shared a local post that caught a competing company stealing yard signs.
Put the sign out on install day. When the homeowner signs the contract, tell them other roofers may knock once the sign is up, and ask them to call you if anyone does.
Check these before the next sign goes in a yard
- It stands in a customer’s yard with their OK, well back from the road and any intersection.
- You’ve checked the city’s code for setback, count, permits and when it comes down.
- It carries a phone number you use only on signs.
- It carries your license number if you work in Florida, California or another state whose board requires it on ads.
- It promises nothing about deductibles or claim handling, and any Florida insurance wording carries both notices.
- It goes up on install day.
- It offers nothing in return for a review or an inspection.
Signs cover the streets around your jobs. To see how far your Google listing reaches past them, open 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.