Roofing Business Plan: What to Include and How to Write One

In this article

Do you need the long version or the short one?
What to put in a roofing business plan
Find your break-even point
Mistakes that make a plan useless
Where to get free help
Questions about roofing business plans

A roofing business plan is a written answer to one question: how does this company make money, and what has to happen for it to work? Most templates online bury that under pages of mission statements. The plan that helps you is shorter and more specific. It names the work you’ll take, the towns you’ll cover, where the calls will come from, what a job costs you, and how many jobs a month it takes to cover the bills.

You may need a long, formal version if a bank or investor is involved. If you’re funding the company yourself, a few pages you revisit every quarter will do more for you than forty pages nobody opens again.

The short answer

Write a plan that covers what work you’ll do, your market and competitors, who runs what, your pricing, where leads will come from, and your numbers, including a break-even point. The SBA describes two formats: a traditional plan for lenders and investors, and a one-page lean plan. Start lean, and expand it only if someone you’re asking for money wants the full version.

Do you need the long version or the short one?

The SBA lays out two ways to write a plan. A traditional plan follows a standard set of sections and often runs dozens of pages, and it’s the format lenders and investors commonly ask for. A lean startup plan is a high-level summary, usually one page, that the SBA says can take as little as an hour to write (SBA guide to writing a business plan (opens in a new tab)).

	Traditional plan	Lean plan
Length	Often dozens of pages	Usually one page
Who it’s for	Banks, investors, partners buying in	You and anyone helping you run the company
Financials	Five-year forecasts, monthly or quarterly for year one	Your costs and how money comes in
When to write it	You’re asking someone for money	You’re starting out or planning the next year

Most one-truck roofers starting on their own savings don’t need a traditional plan. They need the lean one, with real numbers behind it. If you apply for a loan later, the lean plan becomes the outline for the long one.

What to put in a roofing business plan

These eight sections follow the SBA’s traditional outline, with the roofing-specific questions each one should answer. For a lean plan, write a few lines under each instead of a few pages.

1. Executive summary

This is the page a banker reads first, so write it last. Say what your company does, where, who runs it, and (if you’re borrowing) how much you need and why. If you can’t explain the business in half a page, the rest of the plan isn’t finished yet.

2. Company description: the work you’ll take and the work you won’t

Be specific about your mix. Residential reroofs, repairs, storm and hail work, metal, low-slope commercial, gutters? Each one needs different crews, equipment, insurance, and selling. A plan that says “all roofing services” hasn’t made any decisions.

Also write down what you won’t do, at least at first. A new company that turns down commercial bids for its first year so it can get good at residential replacements is making a real choice, and the plan should show it.

3. Market analysis: your towns, your customers, your competition

The SBA suggests looking at demand, market size, where customers are, how crowded the market is, and what customers already pay (SBA on market research and competitive analysis (opens in a new tab)). For a roofer, that turns into a few practical jobs:

List the towns you’ll actually drive to, and roughly how old the housing is in each. Older neighborhoods often mean more replacement work.
Search Google Maps for “roofer” in each town. Write down who shows up, how many reviews they have, and what they seem to focus on.
Note your weather. Hail and wind seasons drive storm work, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that in northern states, roofing work may be limited during the winter months (BLS Occupational Outlook for roofers (opens in a new tab)).

For the industry outlook, the BLS projects roofer employment to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations, and expects demand to come from replacing and repairing roofs as well as new installs (same BLS page).

4. Organization and management

Say how the company is set up (sole proprietorship, LLC, or something else) and who does what. Who estimates? Who sells? Who runs crews on site? Who does the books? On a small team, one person may wear three hats, and that’s fine. The plan should still say so, because it shows where you’ll hire first.

If you’ll use subcontractors, explain how. Then talk to an accountant, since worker classification has real tax consequences. Our guide on how to start a roofing company covers structure, licensing, and insurance in more detail.

Check your state and local rules

Licensing, insurance, and permit requirements for roofers vary by state, county, and city. Before you put any of them in the plan as settled, check with your state’s contractor licensing board and a licensed insurance agent. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice.

5. Services and pricing

For each type of job, write down how you’ll price it. Materials with waste, labor hours, disposal, permits, equipment, overhead, and profit. The point isn’t to publish a price list. It’s to make sure you understand what a typical job of each type costs you to do, because the financial section is built on those numbers.

6. Marketing and sales plan

This is where a lot of roofing business plans go vague (“we’ll use social media and word of mouth”). Make it concrete. For each lead source, write down what it costs and how long it takes to start working:

Google Business Profile and reviews: free, but builds over months.
A website with a page for each service and town: a build fee or a monthly plan. See our roofing website design page for what it needs.
Search engine optimization: ongoing work, usually months before it moves. Our roofing SEO page explains how it works for roofers.
Google Ads and Local Services Ads: can start within days, and stop when the budget does.
Referrals and yard signs: cheap, and they belong on every job.

Then describe how a lead becomes a signed job: who calls back, how fast, how the inspection runs, and how you follow up on estimates. Our article on roofing sales walks through that process, and how to get roofing leads covers ten lead sources in more depth.

7. Funding request (only if you’re borrowing)

Skip this if you’re paying your own way. If you’re not, the SBA says this section should cover how much you need over the next five years, whether you want debt or equity, the terms you’d like, and exactly what the money will pay for.

One thing to know before you walk into a bank: the SBA doesn’t lend directly. It guarantees loans made by approved lenders, and each lender sets out its own eligibility requirements (SBA loans overview (opens in a new tab)). Ask your lender early what they want to see in a plan.

8. Financial projections

This is the section that decides whether the plan is worth anything. The SBA’s traditional format asks for five years of forecasts, with monthly or quarterly detail in the first year. Even for a lean plan, do the first year by month. Roofing is seasonal and lumpy, and an annual total hides the months where cash runs thin.

Start with your startup costs. The SBA notes that working them out helps you estimate profits, run a break-even analysis, and apply for loans (SBA on calculating startup costs (opens in a new tab)). Then split your monthly costs into two groups:

Fixed costs stay about the same every month: insurance, truck payments, software, your own pay, office or yard rent.
Variable costs rise with each job: shingles and underlayment, labor, dumpsters, permits.

Plan for the cash gap too. On many jobs you pay for materials and labor before the final payment comes in. Show where the money to cover that gap comes from.

Find your break-even point

The SBA gives a simple formula: fixed costs divided by (price minus variable costs) equals the number of sales you need to break even (from the SBA’s startup costs page above).

Here’s a made-up example, just to show the math. Say your fixed costs run $10,000 a month. An average repair job brings in $1,200, and the materials and labor for it cost you $700. Each job leaves $500 to put toward fixed costs. $10,000 divided by $500 is 20, so you’d need 20 of those jobs a month to break even, before you’ve made a dollar of profit.

Run that with your own numbers for each kind of job you’ll do. Then compare it to your capacity. If one crew can realistically handle 12 jobs a month and break-even is 20, the plan has a problem, and it’s much cheaper to find it on paper than in month six.

If the break-even number is bigger than what your crews can physically do, the plan is telling you something.

Mistakes that make a plan useless

A few patterns show up again and again in roofing business plans that never get used:

Copying a template word for word. If you could swap in a plumber’s name and nothing changes, it isn’t your plan.
Revenue with no math behind it. “Year one: $1 million” means nothing without the number of jobs, the average ticket, and the close rate behind it.
No plan for slow months. Winter and dry spells come every year. Show how you’ll cover fixed costs through them.
Writing it once. Check it every quarter against what actually happened.

Where to get free help

You don’t have to write it alone. The SBA says it and its partners offer free or low-cost counseling and training, and its local assistance page lists Small Business Development Centers, SCORE mentors, Women’s Business Centers, and Veterans Business Outreach Centers (SBA local assistance (opens in a new tab)). An accountant who works with contractors is worth paying for a review of your numbers.

If you’d rather not build the marketing side of the plan yourself, our plans start at $500 a month with a roofing website included.

Questions about roofing business plans

Do you need a business plan to start a roofing company?

Not always, but lenders and investors commonly ask for one. Even if you’re self-funded, writing one forces you to work out your pricing, your break-even point, and where your first leads will come from before you spend money. A one-page lean plan is enough to start.

What should a roofing business plan include?

The SBA’s traditional outline covers an executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management, services, marketing and sales, a funding request, and financial projections. For a roofer, the most important parts are the job mix, the service area, the lead sources, and a monthly first-year forecast with a break-even point.

Is there a roofing business plan template?

The SBA’s business plan guide is a free outline you can follow, and it covers both the traditional and lean formats. Use it as a checklist, not a script. Fill each section with your own towns, prices, and numbers, because a plan that reads like anyone’s won’t help you run your company.

How much money does it take to start a roofing business?

It depends on your state’s licensing and insurance costs, whether you already own a truck and tools, and how many jobs you’ll carry at once. Price each item with real quotes, then add enough working capital to cover payroll and materials until customers pay. Our guide on how to start a roofing company lists the costs to price out.