Roofing punishes a weak setup faster than most trades. The work is high-dollar, weather-dependent, insurance-entangled, and performed by crews on someone's largest asset, which means the paperwork around the work matters as much as the work. This guide is the setup, in order, for the experienced roofer who can already run a tear-off and now needs a company around it.
The honest caveat: licensing, bonding, and insurance requirements for roofing vary more by state than almost any other trade, and several states regulate roofing specifically because of storm-fraud history. Anything that quotes exact requirements without knowing your state is guessing. Where it varies, this guide names who to ask.
Licensing: check before you quote, not after
Some states license roofing as its own contractor classification with an exam and documented experience. Others fold it into general contracting above a dollar threshold, so small repairs are unlicensed work and a full replacement is not. A few leave it to cities and counties entirely. States with heavy storm history often add roofing-specific rules: registration, bonding minimums, and restrictions on what you may say to a homeowner about their insurance claim.
The only reliable source is your state contractor licensing board. Read the classifications on the official site, note the dollar threshold if there is one, and note the advertising requirements, because your license number often has to appear on the truck, the estimate, and the website. Local permit offices are a second call worth making: roofing permits and inspection rules are frequently municipal.
The company, the bank account, and the accountant
Before the first contract: an LLC or similar entity, an EIN from the IRS (free, online), and a business checking account that never touches personal spending. An accountant who works with contractors pays for themselves in year one, on the entity choice and again on how equipment, the dump trailer, and vehicle costs get treated.
Pick a name a homeowner can spell after hearing it once, confirm it is free in your state registry, and buy the domain before the wrap goes on the truck.
Insurance is the part roofing cannot improvise
Roofing carries the highest workers' compensation rates of the common trades, and that is not a pricing detail you can discover later. Get real quotes before you set your price per square.
The stack: general liability at limits that satisfy the builders and property managers you want to work for, commercial auto, a contractor bond where the state requires one, and workers' compensation from the first employee. Homeowners and general contractors will ask for certificates, and the ones worth working for will verify them. Budget the premium as a permanent monthly line, then price above it.
A word on subcontracted crews: if you use subs, your insurer and your state both have opinions about it, and getting that structure wrong is how a shop discovers an uncovered claim. Ask the agent directly, in writing, before the first sub sets foot on a roof.
Price per square, for a wet spring
Roofing pricing looks simple (a number per square) and hides everything: tear-off layers, decking replacement, pitch, stories, access, disposal, and the weather that decides how many days the crew actually bills.
- Derive your hourly floor from your own costs using the method in the hourly floor, then let the hourly rate calculator do the division. Your floor has to carry workers' comp at roofing rates, the dumpster, and the rain days.
- Find your monthly break-even and treat it as the starting line every month, including February.
- Build a price book for the repeatable work (pipe boots, small repairs, standard architectural shingle replacement per square by pitch and story) and quote genuinely unknown work with the unknowns written down. Flat rate without the religion is the honest version of that argument.
- Write decking replacement as a per-sheet adder in the contract, agreed before the tear-off. Discovering rot is normal. Discovering it without a signed number is how a good job turns into an argument.
- Use the job pricing calculator to sanity-check a bid against your own margin before you send it, not after the crew is on site.
Storm work, without the storm-chaser reputation
Storm work is real work, and it is also the reason roofing carries a trust problem in most markets. The shops that build lasting names in storm season do a few things consistently: they show up local and stay local, they document damage honestly with photographs attached to the job record, they never tell a homeowner what their insurance will or will not cover as though they were the adjuster, and they follow their state's rules about insurance claims to the letter, because those rules exist specifically because of roofers.
The long-term play is being the company still answering the phone in year three, when the out-of-state trucks are gone and the repairs come due.
The first jobs, and the name that follows them
Set up Google Business Profile before you need it, with real photographs of your own completed roofs, your license number, and your service area. Local Services Ads require a background check and license verification, which takes time, so start early if you want them.
Then do the unglamorous version of marketing: every completed job gets photographs, a clean site at the end of the day, and an ask for the review while the homeowner is still happy. Referrals in roofing come from the neighbors who watched your crew work, so treat the jobsite itself as the advertisement, magnetic nail sweep and all.
What to run the business on
You do not need software on day one. You need it before the fifth job, because the pattern is always the same: the measurements are in one person's phone, the material order is in a text, the change order is verbal, and the invoice goes out late because someone has to reconstruct what happened.
One record per job, carrying the photographs, the measurements, the signed contract, the change orders, and the invoice, is the difference between a shop that grows and a shop that fights its own paperwork. Thorbis is $99 per company per month with unlimited people, so adding a crew never adds a software bill. See what it looks like for roofing, or join the waitlist.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a license to repair a roof?
It depends on your state and often on the dollar value of the job. Several states set a threshold below which repairs are unlicensed and above which a contractor license is required. Your state contractor licensing board answers this definitively; do not take a competitor's word for it.
How much does roofing insurance cost?
Enough that you must price around it. Workers' compensation rates for roofing are among the highest of any trade, and general liability limits are often dictated by the customers you want. Get real quotes from a commercial agent who writes roofing before you publish a price per square.
Should I chase storms?
Storm work is legitimate and can build a company quickly. The reputational risk is real, and several states regulate what a roofer may say to a homeowner about an insurance claim. Follow those rules exactly, document damage honestly, and plan to be the local shop that is still here next year.
How do I handle rotten decking I could not see?
Write it into the contract as a per-sheet price agreed before tear-off. Every experienced roofer finds bad decking. Only the ones who priced it in advance avoid the argument.
The short version
Confirm your state's roofing classification and threshold with the licensing board. Form the entity, separate the bank account, get an accountant who knows contractors. Get real insurance quotes before you set a price, because roofing comp rates change the math. Build a price book, write decking as an adder, and know your monthly break-even. Do storm work honestly or not at all. Then keep one record per job, so the fifth job does not cost you a weekend to invoice.