What a Roof Replacement Actually Costs in 2026

Start with how far apart the estimates are

Ask four 2026 cost guides what a new roof costs and you get four answers with daylight between them.

HomeGuide puts replacement at $5,700 to $16,000. Angi's average is $9,607, against a low of $5,902 and a high of $46,000. Fixr says $10,000, with most projects between $7,500 and $14,000. This Old House surveyed 1,000 homeowners and got $15,439, most of them paying $6,885 to $23,993.

Per square foot the pattern holds. Angi says $4 to $11. Fixr says $3.75 to $11 and averages it at $4.75. Both are asphalt-shaped numbers, and the moment the covering changes they stop describing your roof.

None of them is wrong; they're measuring different mixes of house, covering and region. So one number pulled out of that spread tells you little. Scope is what you're comparing.

Per square, and why labor is the larger half

Roofs get quoted per square, and a square is 100 square feet. HomeGuide prices a new roof at $300 to $600 per square installed.

Labor is the larger half — about 60 percent of the total, by Fixr's accounting — and HomeGuide puts roofing labor at $150 to $300 per square. Hold on to that 60 percent: the pitch and complexity percentages a contractor quotes land on the labor side, not on the whole bill.

Then the line items thin bids leave out. Tear-off runs $1 to $3 per square foot for shingles or metal, and $2 to $5 for slate or tile. Two layers of old shingles don't only take longer to strip, they cost twice as much in dumping fees. Settle the layer count before anyone quotes a number.

The covering sets the ceiling

NerdWallet's installed prices by material: asphalt $4.25 to $12.25 per square foot, wood $6 to $13, composite $8 to $14, clay $12 to $25, slate $12 to $30, metal $10 to $35.

HomeGuide's own material pages come in lower on two of those. Metal is $5 to $16 per square foot, or $7,500 to $40,000 for the job, with standing seam at the top of it at $9 to $16 per foot or $13,500 to $40,000. Clay tile is $8 to $25 per square foot, or $20,000 to $55,000. Where two guides disagree, the wide range is the honest one: metal is $5 to $35 a foot until you know which product a bid means.

In whole-job dollars HomeGuide also separates the asphalt grades that per-foot figures blur together — three-tab at $5,700 to $12,000, architectural at $7,500 to $16,000.

Now divide by service life. This Old House gives three-tab 15 to 20 years, architectural up to 30, tile 25 to 100, slate 150 or more, and metal 40 to 60 — up to 100 when it's installed and maintained well.

Per year of roof, the expensive covering usually wins. Only if you're still in the house to collect, though.

What the gutters and the attic tell you

You don't need a ladder. Ground level and the attic tell you most of what a first look can tell anyone.

• Check the gutters. Granules after one storm are ordinary wear. Granules at every downspout is the roof telling you it's finished.
• Flashlight into the attic, lights off. Daylight through the decking and dark stains on the sheathing say more than the view from the curb.
• Count the layers already up there. A second one changes the tear-off, the disposal and sometimes the answer.

When a repair still beats a replacement

Repair pricing splits by scale, and the guides split with it.

HomeGuide's repair page puts minor work at $150 to $1,000: a few missing shingles, or a small leak caught early. A handful of shingles is $100 to $300, or $200 to $600 for a full 100 square feet, and most roofers hold a $150 to $300 minimum call-out. Once water has been moving, a larger leak that takes a section of underlayment with it runs $1,000 to $3,000.

Here the sources part company outright. Angi's average repair is $1,172, across a range of $150 to $8,000. That isn't a contradiction so much as a different scope: one count reaches into structural and water damage, the other stops at shingles. So when a contractor says a repair "usually" costs something, ask which of those two jobs he means.

Repair wins when the damage sits in one place and the decking beneath it is sound. Replacement wins when the evidence is systematic rather than local.

Steepness and geography move the number

Two factors barely visible in a photograph. The first lands on the labor half of the bill.

Pitch to start. HomeGuide reports that roofs steeper than 6:12 raise labor costs 15 to 30 percent, and that steep or complex roofs — dormers, valleys, skylights, planes running four directions — push the labor portion up 30 to 50 percent. Run those through the 60 percent labor share and the effect on the whole job is smaller than the headline: 15 to 30 percent on labor is 9 to 18 percent of the bill, and 30 to 50 percent is 18 to 30 percent. On a $16,000 architectural job, a cut-up roof means roughly $2,900 to $4,800 more, not the $8,000 the raw percentage suggests. If a bid adds half again for complexity across the whole number, ask which half of the bill that percentage was applied to.

Location is the other one. This Old House's data puts Western states 20 to 30 percent above the national picture on stricter regulations, and Southern states about 10 percent below on fewer permitting requirements.

What your insurer thinks of the roof's age

Worth knowing before a storm, not after. Bankrate reports that once a roof passes roughly 15 to 20 years, an insurer may stipulate actual cash value coverage rather than replacement cost — the depreciated value of what is up there, not what a new roof costs today. Where that applies, a covered claim pays a fraction and leaves you the rest. Read the roof settlement basis on your declarations page while nothing is wrong, and weigh it beside the repair quotes.

Four questions that make two bids comparable

Ask all four of every bidder, in the same words, and write down the answers. Bids that answer alike are comparable on price; bids that answer differently are not.

• What's the rate per square foot if the decking underneath turns out rotten?
• How many layers are coming off, and is disposal for all of them inside this price?
• Is the crew yours or subcontracted, and who is on my roof on day one?
• Who pulls the permit, and is that fee in this number or added later?

The trucks that show up after a hailstorm

After a hailstorm, trucks with out-of-state plates appear within days and the pitch barely varies: an inspection at no charge, we'll handle your insurer, sign here. What gets signed is often a contingency agreement tying you to that contractor for whatever the insurance pays, before a price exists.

• Nobody gets on your roof to inspect it before you have said yes.
• A discount that expires when the salesman leaves your kitchen was never a discount.
• A large cash deposit before any material is delivered is a reason to stop.
• A bid far under the others is usually missing tear-off, flashing or the decking allowance.
• You don't owe an answer inside your own home. Take the written scope and read it once the truck is gone.