A roof replacement runs $9k to $25k, and a homeowner whose roof fails after a storm rarely has that in a checking account. Insurance covers some jobs. For the rest, a monthly payment option is often the difference between a signed contract and a homeowner who patches it and waits. This guide is for a roofing company that wants to offer financing without becoming a lender.
Financing costs you in one of two ways: a percentage of each financed job, called a dealer fee or merchant fee, or a flat subscription with no per-job fee. The seven tools on our list split between the two models.
Understand dealer fees before you compare lenders
Most contractor financing is paid for by the contractor. When a homeowner finances a roof on a 0% promotional plan, the lender deducts a dealer fee from your payout, so you receive less than the contract price. The fee rises with the length and generosity of the promotion. GreenSky publishes dealer fees from 0.99% to 15% depending on the plan. Service Finance Company, a Truist subsidiary, runs dealer-based home improvement lending. Financeit quotes the dealer fee per merchant. Synchrony Home is card-based consumer financing widely used by HVAC dealers. On a 15% plan, a $20,000 roof returns $17,000 to you. Price the fee into the job or steer the homeowner to a standard-rate plan with a low fee. The drawback is complexity. Each lender has a menu of plans, and a salesperson who picks the wrong one gives away margin.
Compare a flat merchant fee for simple pricing
Wisetack charges a 3.9% flat merchant fee on standard plans and 5.5% on 24-month 0% promotions, finances $500 to $25k, and integrates with Jobber, Housecall Pro and Workiz among 17+ operations software integrations. The $25k cap covers most residential replacements. A flat fee is easy for a salesperson to remember and easy to build into a price book: add 4% to every financed quote and you are whole. The drawback is the ceiling. A $25k loan does not cover a large or premium roof, and Wisetack does not list AccuLynx or JobNimbus among its integrations, so a roofing-specific CRM may mean sending the application link by hand.
Consider a subscription marketplace with no dealer fees
Hearth takes the other route: a $1,499 a year Essentials plan plus a $99 setup fee, listed from $125 a month, with a multi-lender marketplace and no dealer fees. The homeowner applies once and sees offers from several lenders; the interest is theirs to pay. Hearth integrates with QuickBooks. For a roofing company that finances a few jobs a month the math is simple: $1,499 a year equals a 3.9% fee on about $38,000 of financed work, so above that volume the subscription wins on fee alone. The drawback is that the homeowner pays the interest, so you cannot advertise a 0% monthly payment the way a dealer-fee lender allows. A 0% offer from a competing roofer can look cheaper on the monthly payment even when its contract price is higher.
Put a monthly payment on every quote
Financing only closes jobs if the salesperson uses it. Put a monthly payment next to the cash price on every quote, for all three options. Train the salesperson to ask whether a payment of around that amount works before the homeowner says the total is too high. Ask each lender whether prequalification uses a soft credit check, and if it does, run it at the kitchen table. The drawback is that financing can mask a weak price. A roofer who always leads with the payment stops defending the value of the roof, and some homeowners resent being steered to a loan when they planned to pay cash. Make the offer once and leave the choice with the homeowner.
Use small loans for insurance deductibles and upgrades
Many roofing jobs are insurance claims where the homeowner owes the deductible plus any upgrade the carrier will not pay for, such as a better shingle or new gutters. That gap is often a few thousand dollars, and a lender with a low minimum covers it; Wisetack’s floor is $500. Offer it when you present the scope, since the upgrade conversation is where the extra margin on an insurance job lives. The drawback is paperwork on an already slow claim. Adding a loan application to a job that is waiting on an adjuster adds another approval to the timeline, so start it the day the claim is approved.
The full list of agencies and tools for this is at roofers: finance jobs.