How to Quote a Roofing Job That Wins the Work

What a roofing quote needs to include

A roofing quote is a small contract-in-waiting, and because access, weather and hidden damage all move the goalposts, it needs to be explicit about what happens if any of them do. Nine things, every time:

1. 1Your business details — name, logo, contact details, and any trade body membership (NFRC, CompetentRoofer, or similar) worth stating for a job customers can't easily inspect themselves once it's finished.
2. 2The customer's name and the site address — roof pitch, access, and property height all affect scaffolding and timing.
3. 3A quote number and date — makes the "did you get my quote?" follow-up simple.
4. 4Itemised line items — never one lump sum for "roof work" (more on this below).
5. 5What's not included — internal decorating for water-damage marks, guttering unless specified, work beyond the surveyed area.
6. 6Scaffolding and access costs as their own line — tower, scaffold, or ladder access, and who pays if more scaffolding is needed once work starts.
7. 7What happens if hidden damage is found — rotten decking or timber found once tiles are stripped is priced as a provisional sum, with a rate per metre or per sheet agreed up front rather than negotiated on the day.
8. 8Subtotal, VAT (if applicable), and the total — no arithmetic left to the customer.
9. 9A valid-until date and payment terms — 14 to 30 days is standard, since material and scaffold hire prices move; deposit for materials, balance on completion.

Most quotes that turn into arguments halfway through are missing the hidden-damage clause — customers assume "fixing the roof" covers whatever's found, and when it doesn't, that's where the goodwill runs out.

How to price a roofing job before you send a number

The document is the easy half. Pricing is where the job stays profitable — or quietly turns into a loss once the scaffold's up and the weather's against you.

Break the job into what it actually costs

List every stage separately: access and scaffolding, strip-off and waste removal, decking and timber repairs, the new covering (felt, membrane, tiles or slates), flashing and pointing, and clean-up. Itemising does two things. First, it forces you to price the parts that are easy to fold into a guess, especially access. Second, itemised quotes get accepted more readily — customers trust a breakdown, and if the budget's tight they can ask about phasing the work (this year's worst section first) rather than rejecting the whole quote.

Three things roofers routinely forget to charge for

• Scaffolding and access. A week's scaffold hire is a real, sizeable cost on most re-roofs and full re-felts — price it as its own line rather than absorbing it into the day rate, and say how many weeks it's costed for.
• Waste removal and disposal. Old tiles, felt and timber are heavy and often need licensed disposal — a skip or a tip run is a genuine cost, not a rounding error.
• A contingency rate for hidden damage. Rotten decking or timber under old felt is common enough that it should have an agreed £-per-metre or £-per-sheet rate in the quote itself, so a bad surprise doesn't turn into a renegotiation.

Add a margin on top of your costs — 15–20% is typical — to cover quotes that don't convert, van and tool costs, and the weather days that push a job back without paying you for the wait.

A worked example

Partial re-roof with flashing renewal, quoted the right way:

Excludes internal decorating for any existing water staining. If decking is found to be rotten once tiles are stripped, replacement is charged at £28/m² and confirmed with photos before work continues. Quote valid for 21 days. 30% deposit to book scaffold and materials, balance on completion. To accept, reply to this email or tap Accept on the quote.

That's the whole thing — itemised, honest about access and hidden damage, and nothing left for the customer to assume.

Five details that get roofing quotes accepted faster

• Send it within 48 hours of the survey. A leaking roof is stressful for the customer — the roofer who responds fast looks like the safer choice, not just the cheaper one.
• Make it look like a document, not a text message. A branded PDF with your trade body logo does more to justify the price than a number in a WhatsApp message, especially for a job the customer can't easily check themselves once it's finished.
• Name the materials, not just the job. "Code 4 lead flashing" and "breathable roofing membrane" are specific, reassuring lines that "sort the roof out" isn't.
• Put a number on the unknown. A clear £-per-metre rate for hidden decking damage, agreed before work starts, turns the worst conversation in roofing into a formality instead of a dispute.
• Follow up once, professionally. A short "happy to talk through the scaffold timing or answer any questions on the quote" a few days later recovers jobs that simply got buried under two other quotes.

The fastest way to do all of this

Building the document above from scratch — line items, provisional sums, VAT, a valid-until date — takes 30–45 minutes in a Word template each time. Fine for the odd job; a real cost once you're quoting several roofs a week between call-outs and surveys.

This is exactly why QuoteRocket exists. You describe the job in plain English — "strip and re-felt 25 square metres, renew chimney flashing, re-point the ridge, one week's scaffold" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute: line items, prices you can adjust, VAT, valid-until date, the lot. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click. It's free to try, and while it started life quoting landscaping jobs, tradespeople across roofing, electrical and painting work have been adopting it fast since.

Whatever tool you use to produce it, the principles hold: itemise everything, price access and scaffolding honestly, put a number on hidden damage before it's found, and make saying yes effortless. Get those right and you'll win more of the jobs you quote — without absorbing the surprises for free.

Frequently asked questions

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