Ask five roofing companies what they pay for marketing and you will hear $1,200 a month and $25,000 a month described with the same confidence. Both can be correct. Roofing is not one business - retail replacement, insurance and storm restoration, and commercial re-roofing buy leads on completely different terms, and a quote that ignores which one you run is a guess dressed up as a proposal.
Here is what the market actually charges, what a lead should cost, and how to judge a number before you sign.
First, know which roofing business you are buying leads for
| Model | Typical job value | Lead behavior | What marketing has to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail residential replacement | $9,000-$30,000 | Quote shopping, 2-6 week decision | Qualified estimates, financing clarity, proof and reviews |
| Repair and maintenance calls | $400-$2,500 | Urgent, same-day, price sensitive | Cheap volume, map pack, phone coverage |
| Insurance and storm restoration | $12,000-$45,000 | Event-driven spikes, canvassing overlap | Fast local presence, credibility, claim education |
| Commercial and industrial re-roof | $50,000-$1M+ | Bid and relationship driven, 3-18 months | Credibility, references, outbound and nurture support |
| Metal, tile, and specialty | $20,000-$80,000 | Low volume, design-led, long consideration | Portfolio, niche content, higher cost per lead tolerance |
A repair-heavy company needs low cost per lead inside tight geography. A commercial re-roof company can pay $800 for one qualified conversation and still win. Mixing them into one campaign is the most common and most expensive mistake in this category.
Agency fee bands
These are monthly management fees. Media spend is separate and belongs in ad accounts in your name.
| Company profile | Agency fee / mo | Media / mo | What that buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner-operator, under $1M revenue | $1,000-$2,500 | $1,000-$3,000 | Google Business Profile, reviews, basic local SEO, small paid search |
| $1M-$5M retail replacement | $2,500-$6,000 | $4,000-$12,000 | Local SEO plus paid search and LSA, call tracking, landing pages, review system |
| $5M-$15M, multi-crew or multi-market | $6,000-$12,000 | $12,000-$40,000 | Per-market campaigns, paid social, financing offers, CRM integration, sold-job reporting |
| $15M+ or commercial and residential mix | $12,000-$25,000+ | $40,000+ | Multi-location programs, commercial demand gen, brand, consolidated attribution |
One-time costs sit outside those bands. A real roofing website build runs $8,000-$30,000, and drone plus project photography, which does most of the selling on a replacement page, runs $1,000-$4,000 a shoot.
Sanity check: healthy roofing companies spend roughly 5-10% of revenue on marketing all in, fees plus media. Storm chasers and companies entering a new metro run higher for a season, often 12-15%, and should treat that as a launch cost rather than a permanent line.
What a lead should cost
Working bands most operators see, before adjusting for market competitiveness and season:
- Repairs: $40-$120 per lead.
- Retail residential replacement: $120-$400 per lead, $250-$700 per booked inspection in competitive metros.
- Storm and insurance work: $60-$250 per lead during an active event, far higher outside one.
- Metal and specialty: $250-$800 per qualified inquiry.
- Commercial re-roof: cost per lead stops being useful. Judge it on bid invitations, walk-throughs, and contracts won.
Two numbers matter more than the headline cost per lead: lead to signed contract rate and average job value. A $150 lead that signs 8% of the time is worse than a $400 lead that signs 35%. If an agency cannot report both, it is reporting activity, not results.
Where the money actually goes
Ordered by return per dollar for a typical residential roofer.
1. Google Business Profile and local SEO. The map pack carries most "roof repair near me" and "roofers near me" demand. Categories, service areas, weekly photos, and review velocity. Cheapest qualified demand in the category.
2. Review velocity. A rate, not a total. Fifteen new reviews a month beats 600 from four years ago, and it moves both map pack ranking and close rate.
3. Local Services Ads. In most markets LSA sits above paid search and bills on leads. For repair and replacement demand it is usually the fastest reliable channel.
4. Paid search, segmented by job type. Separate repair from replacement from commercial, with separate budgets. Otherwise cheap repair clicks eat the budget meant to find replacements.
5. Replacement and material pages with real photography. Asphalt, metal, tile, flat, and storm damage each deserve their own page with real job photos and pricing context. Stock imagery hurts.
6. Paid social and retargeting for replacement and financing offers. Long consideration window, visual proof, financing messaging. Weak fit for urgent repairs.
7. Past customer and neighborhood marketing. Direct mail or door hangers around completed jobs, tied to a tracking number, is one of the few offline channels that still measures cleanly in roofing.
What generally underperforms: shared lead marketplaces at scale, unsegmented broad-match search, untracked mass mail, and social posting with no offer.
Storm work changes the budget shape
Storm restoration rewards speed, not steady spend. When an event hits your market, demand appears for six to twelve weeks and disappears. That means holding a reserve you can deploy inside 48 hours, having storm and claim pages already built rather than written after the hail, and keeping phone and inspection capacity ready to absorb the spike.
The failure mode is spending storm-level budget year round in a market with no event, then having nothing left when one arrives. If a proposal shows a flat twelve-month spend and you do meaningful insurance work, the agency does not understand the category.
How to tell a fair quote from a bad one
Ask for these five things in writing:
- Fee and media split, with media in accounts in your name.
- Deliverable quantities: how many pages, ads, and hours, not "ongoing optimization."
- A named strategist and who actually does the work day to day.
- Reporting that ends in signed contracts and revenue by source, not clicks and impressions.
- Exit terms: notice period, and written confirmation that the site, domain, Google Business Profile, ad accounts, call tracking, and data are yours.
For the cross-category version of this checklist read what should a marketing retainer include and how much a marketing agency costs.
When not to spend the money yet
- You cannot answer the phone or get on a roof within 48 hours in season. Fix that first. It is free and it doubles the value of every lead.
- You have no crew capacity for more work. Buy capacity before demand or you will burn reviews finishing jobs late.
- You do not know your close rate or average job value. Without those, nobody can judge whether the program worked.
- You have fewer than 25 reviews. Run a review system for 60 days before paying for traffic.
- Your whole budget is under $1,500 a month. Do Google Business Profile and reviews yourself for a season and reinvest the proceeds.
The short version:
- Repair, retail replacement, storm, and commercial roofing have different economics. Price and budget them separately.
- Expect $1,000-$2,500/month in agency fees for an owner-operator and $6,000-$12,000 for a $5M-$15M company, with media separate and owned by you.
- Total marketing spend of 5-10% of revenue is the normal healthy range.
- Cost per lead means little alone. Judge it with signed contract rate and average job value.
- If you do insurance work, hold a deployable storm reserve instead of a flat monthly line.
- Compare the Top Roofing Marketing Agencies, read how to hire a roofing marketing agency, and see the methodology behind our rankings.