Metal Roof Shingles Cost Calculator

Bids on the same roof land far apart, and the spread is rarely about greed. It's about what each contractor assumed.

The second bid isn't there to confirm the first. It's there to reveal what the first one left out.

Ask all three the same four questions: Does this include tear-off and disposal? What's your rate per sheet if we find bad decking? What metal is the flashing? Is the warranty transferable to a buyer?

Then photograph the bare deck before the new roof goes on, and keep the material invoice. Warranty claims 20 years out get denied over missing paperwork more than over bad product.

The sticker gap is real. It is also the wrong number to compare.

Metal shingles are built to last 40 to 70 years. Asphalt gets you 15 to 25. Spread an $18,000 metal install across 50 years and you're at roughly $360 a year. A $6,000 asphalt roof across 20 years is $300 a year.

The gap shrinks from triple to about 20 percent.

That math only holds if you stay. If you sell in year eight, you paid metal money and used asphalt-length service. The real question isn't which roof is better. It's how long you plan to own the house.

Here's the part a roofer won't lead with: for a seller, asphalt is usually the correct financial call. Metal wins on the long hold, not on the flip.

Three products share one price range, and the cheapest one is not always the wrong pick.

Bare steel shingles sit at the bottom of the $5.5–$7 material band. They shed weather as well as anything on the list. What they lack is the granule layer.

Stone-coated steel adds that layer, which is what buys the impact resistance, the UV protection, and the 30 to 50 year warranties. It lands at the top of the material range for exactly that reason.

Aluminum costs a little more than steel and weighs roughly a third less. It doesn't rust, which is why it shows up on coastal jobs where salt air eats galvanized coatings. The weight matters on older framing that was sized for one layer of asphalt.

Change the metal shingle type dropdown above. Each type moves the material half of the estimate, and on an 1,800 sq ft roof the spread between bare steel and stone-coated runs into four figures.

Pitch doesn't change how much material you buy. It changes how fast a crew can move.

On a walkable low slope, roofers carry bundles and set courses standing up. Past about 8/12 they're on toe boards, roped off, and hauling material one armload at a time. Same square footage, far more hours.

Run the numbers on 1,800 sq ft. Labor at $3–$5 is $5,400 to $9,000 flat. The medium-pitch multiplier (4/12 to 8/12) adds 15 percent, or $810 to $1,350. Steep pitch adds 30 percent, or $1,620 to $2,700.

Set the roof pitch input above to match your actual slope before you compare the on-screen total to a bid. A contractor quoting the same flat rate for a ranch and a steep two-story is padding one job and losing money on the other.

Labor looks like a made-up number until you build it. Here it is, one line at a time.

The base wage comes from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics median for roofers. Burden covers taxes, insurance, and benefits. The 21 percent markup is standard residential overhead and profit, not a gouge.

Read the bottom row. A billed labor rate near $4.94 per sq ft sits at the high end of the $3–$5 estimate range, which is what you should expect from a licensed, insured crew rather than a two-guy operation.

Use it as a floor. A bid well under this line is either using thinner material, skipping insurance, or planning to find extra work once the old roof comes off.

Metal shingles are more DIY-friendly than standing seam. They come as individual pieces, so a bad course is a bad course, not a ruined 30-foot panel.

Skill isn't what stops most people. Pitch is. A low slope of 4/12 or less on a single story is workable for a careful DIYer with real fall protection. Anything steep or two-story is professional-only, because falls kill more residential roofers than any other cause.

Check the warranty before you buy a single bundle. Stone-coated steel warranties almost always require licensed contractor installation, and a DIY install voids the coverage on day one.

The money side: federal wage data puts roofers at a $26.65 median hourly wage, which becomes roughly $4.94 per sq ft billed after burden, crew size, and overhead. On 1,800 sq ft that's a labor line worth about $8,900.

State cost levels tracked in the BEA Regional Price Parities move that $3 to $5 labor band 20 to 30 percent either way, so the DIY savings are bigger in high-cost metros and thinner in cheap ones. Two people working weekends will take five to six full days on a simple roof.

Before you commit, pull a corner of the old roof and look at the deck. If the plywood is soft, that's a separate job with its own price, and the replace plywood roof cost calculator will tell you what it adds before you're standing on a stripped roof at 4pm.

Verdict: low pitch, single story, no warranty requirement means DIY is viable. Any other combination, hire it out. The labor savings don't survive one denied warranty claim.