For roofing contractors 1–3 years from selling

See what a buyer would really pay for your roofing business.

Connect QuickBooks, answer 7 questions, and get a buyer's-eye valuation built from your actual books — what your business is worth, what a buyer would argue down (insurance-AR aging, single-storm dependence, crew-chief risk), and what to fix first. The free preview takes minutes; the full memo is $499.

Read-only access to your books. We never share with anyone.

2.2–4.7×
What roofing contractors typically sell for
× normalized EBITDA · blended LMM, marketplace & Pepperdine data (2026-Q1)
10%
Recurring-revenue benchmark buyers reward
The single biggest multiple lever in the trade — most owners sit below it
$499
vs. $25K–$75K for a formal CPA Quality of Earnings
One-time. The owner-facing version of the same workup — delivered in 24–48 hrs
What a buyer would negotiate down

The questions a buyer asks to pay you less.

A buyer's diligence team runs this analysis on every deal. Here's what they look for in a roofing business — and the diagnostic tells you exactly where you stand on each, from your own books.

A single storm year is propping up the run-rate

If 30%+ of last year's revenue came from a single hail or wind event in your metro, a buyer treats that revenue as one-time and prices off the non-storm baseline. Storm-restoration revenue isn't bad — but if you can't show 3+ years of steady non-storm trend underneath, the buyer assumes the storm year was the peak, not the floor. This is the single biggest discount applied to roofing businesses with strong recent years.

The business is really just you (estimator + insurance supplement specialist)

If you write the estimates, file the insurance supplements, and hold the top property-manager relationships personally, a buyer sees risk rather than a business. Roofing is uniquely owner-concentrated because the insurance-supplement knowledge (which carriers respond to which language, what photo documentation works) often lives in one person's head. Without a documented Sales Manager + Production Manager, search-fund and SBA-backed buyers discount hard for it.

Insurance-restoration AR aging looks worse than it is

Insurance work ages on a fundamentally different schedule than retail (60–180 days while carriers process supplements), so your DSO appears broken when it's actually normal for the segment. If you can't show insurance-AR separately, the buyer assumes collection problems and discounts working capital — even if your eventual collection rate is 95%+.

Top Sales Reps walk with the book

Roofing Sales Reps build personal books worth $500K–$2M in annual revenue. Without non-solicit agreements signed BEFORE deal talks, a buyer prices the leakage risk — what happens when your top closer goes to a competitor with the customer list. This is one of the most fixable buyer attacks, and one most owners haven't addressed.

Workers-comp EMR is over 1.0

Roofing has the highest workers-comp rates of any trade (residential fall risk + commercial low-slope hazards). An Experience Modification Rate (EMR) above 1.0 directly increases your insurance cost AND signals safety culture issues to a buyer. EMR is benchmarked against your peers — under 0.85 is excellent, over 1.0 is a red flag a sophisticated buyer will price.

What raises your price

The levers that move the multiple — and how much they're worth for you.

Build a commercial low-slope maintenance book

TPO/EPDM/modified-bit maintenance contracts at $0.08–$0.18/sqft/yr are the recurring-revenue story that reroof-only shops can't show a buyer. A 50,000 sqft commercial install can carry $4,000–9,000/yr of maintenance that renews 15+ years. Buyers pay a 1–2x multiple premium for the recurring base.

Separate Production Manager + Sales Manager from the owner

Roofing requires three separated functions to read as buyer-ready: a Production Manager (runs crews + schedules + safety), a Sales Manager (estimating + supplements + sales coaching), and the owner. Owner-operators who conflate at least two get priced at the bottom of the range.

Document the insurance-supplement playbook

Most roofers leave $1,500–$5,000 per insurance job on the table by not filing supplements consistently. Documenting the playbook (carrier-specific language, photo standards, escalation paths) raises both your gross margin and your buyer-readiness — the institutional knowledge is now portable, not a key-person risk.

Get books buyer-grade with insurance-AR aged separately + rebates accrued monthly

Roofing-specific bookkeeping (insurance AR separately aged, manufacturer rebates accrued monthly, accrual-basis with construction revenue recognition) protects the earnings number a buyer will pay you for. This is the most under-rated lever — a few weeks of bookkeeper work can prevent a 5–15% diligence re-trade.

Where you'll be measured against the Roofing benchmark.

The KPIs that move buyer multiples the most. The diagnostic scores your business against each, computed from your actual books.

Recurring / contracted revenue
Higher is better — the top multiple lever
10% of revenue
Gross margin
Pricing and job-costing discipline
~30%
EBITDA margin
What flows to the bottom line
~12%
Healthy customer-concentration ceiling
Above it, buyers price the risk
top customer under 20%
Typical industry growth
Beating it can add to your multiple
~5% / yr

Benchmarks are blended industry composites (lower-middle-market transaction data, trade-association reports, main-street marketplace insights), service businesses $1M–$10M revenue, 2026-Q1. Directional, not a precise bar — your memo measures you against your own books.

What $499 gets you

A real work product, in three formats — not a chat reply.

The full memo is delivered as three files, so you can read it, edit it, and model with it.

PDF memo

A polished, forwardable 5–10 page memo you can hand to a buyer, a lender, or your accountant the same day.

Editable Word doc

The same memo as an editable working copy, so you can adapt the story as your business changes.

Live Excel model

A working model — EBITDA bridge, add-back schedule, working capital, financeability — with real formulas you can flex.

Inside the memo:
  • A documented add-back defense — every personal expense, family wage, and one-time item, each traceable to the actual QuickBooks transaction behind it
  • Every red flag a buyer would raise, ranked by severity with an estimated dollar impact on your price
  • A prioritized 3–12 month plan to raise the price, each move sized against your real numbers
  • A buyer landscape — which platforms, search funds, and strategics would actually buy a business your size, and how each tends to structure the deal

Who actually buys roofing contractors.

Roofing is one of the most actively consolidated trades in the country, with private-equity-backed platforms acquiring established shops as add-ons across nearly every major metro. The biggest consolidation activity is in residential reroof + insurance restoration; commercial low-slope (with its maintenance-contract recurring story) attracts a premium. Independent sponsors and search funds also buy owner-operated shops they intend to professionalize (typically $1–3M EBITDA range), and regional strategics buy for crew capacity and route density. The memo maps which would actually look at a company your size and how each tends to structure the deal.

How it works

1
Connect QuickBooks

Sign in through Intuit. Read-only — every call we make is a read, never a write. About 5 minutes.

2
Answer 7 questions

Quick context a buyer would ask about that your books don't show. About 3 minutes.

3
See your free preview

Your buyer-readiness score, normalized EBITDA, value range, and top red flags — instantly, no signup.

4
Unlock the $499 memo

The full memo and all three deliverables, delivered within 24–48 hours.

One-time · $499

Honest about what it is.

The $499 memo bundles a documented add-back defense, a quality-of-earnings-style workup of the issues a buyer's team raises, and three deliverables (PDF, Word, Excel).

A formal Quality of Earnings from a CPA firm runs $25,000–$75,000 and adds proof-of-cash testing we don't do. This is the owner-facing version — the same questions, answered from your own books, at a price that makes sense before you've sold. We won't pretend it's more than that; the honesty is the point.

Start your diagnosticSee a sample memo

Free preview first. Pay only when you want the full memo.

Roofing sale questions, answered

What multiple of earnings do roofing contractors sell for?

Most Roofing businesses in the $1M–$10M revenue range trade at roughly 2.2× to 4.7× normalized EBITDA, with a typical deal near 3.2×. Smaller, owner-dependent shops sit at the low end; larger, manager-run businesses with recurring revenue reach the top. Your actual number depends on your books — that's what the diagnostic computes. The range blends recent lower-middle-market closings, main-street marketplace sales, and the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report.

How do you value a roofing business?

The same way a buyer's diligence team does: we start from your real earnings, normalize them for owner add-backs and one-time items (storm-event revenue gets handled carefully here), and apply a defensible EBITDA multiple grounded in recent lower-middle-market and main-street roofing transactions. We don't guess off a revenue rule of thumb — every number ties back to your QuickBooks data.

What raises the multiple a buyer will pay for a roofing company?

Commercial low-slope maintenance contracts (recurring revenue), a Sales Manager + Production Manager layer separating the owner from day-to-day, a documented insurance-supplement playbook, low workers-comp EMR (under 0.85), and clean books with insurance-AR aged separately. The diagnostic scores where you sit on each and shows what moving up would be worth.

We had a huge storm year last year. Does that help or hurt the valuation?

Both. The storm-event revenue makes the top line look great but a buyer will normalize it out and price off the non-storm baseline. The fix isn't to hide it — it's to show 3+ years of steady non-storm trend underneath so the baseline is clearly the floor and the storm year reads as upside. We model this directly in your memo.

Do I need QuickBooks Online to use this?

Yes, at launch. We connect to QuickBooks Online read-only to build the analysis from your actual transactions — that's what makes it buyer-grade instead of a guess. QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, and FreshBooks are on the post-launch roadmap.

Is this a Quality of Earnings report?

No — and we won't claim it is. A formal QoE from a CPA firm runs tens of thousands of dollars and includes proof-of-cash testing we don't do. This is the owner-facing version: it bundles a defensible valuation, a documented add-back defense, and a quality-of-earnings-style workup of the same issues a buyer's team will raise — so nothing in real diligence surprises you.

How long does it take?

The free preview is instant once your QuickBooks is connected. The full $499 memo is delivered within 24–48 hours.

I'm not ready to sell for a few years. Is it still useful?

That's the best time to run it. The issues buyers attack — single-storm concentration, owner dependence, missing Production Manager — take 6 to 24 months to fix. Seeing them now is what lets you go to market once, from strength, instead of discovering them mid-diligence.

Is my financial data safe?

Yes. We connect to QuickBooks read-only — every call we make is a read, never a write. Your data is encrypted, never used to train AI, and never shared with brokers or buyers. You can disconnect QuickBooks and delete everything at any time.

A different trade?

See what your roofing business is worth.

Connect QuickBooks, answer 7 questions, and see your buyer's-eye preview — no signup, no email.

Start your diagnostic