How to price siding jobs

Pricing a siding job comes down to the same equation as any job: price = materials + labor + other job costs + overhead + profit. With siding, the wall area is the easy part.

The panels go up fast. The time goes into everything that frames them: corners, channel around every opening, flashing, soffit, fascia and each light, vent and spigot that comes through the wall.

This guide shows where your hours per unit come from, then prices a vinyl re-side on a one-story ranch. Wages and material prices vary by metro and by week, so every dollar figure is yours to fill in. For the general method, see how to price a construction job; for software built around siding work, see the siding industry page.

How siding work is measured

Siding is measured three ways:

• Wall area, by the square foot: tear-off, sheathing repair, house wrap and the siding itself. Siding is also sold by the square, 100 square feet, the same square roofers use.
• Trim, by the linear foot: starter, corners, J-channel, drip cap, trim boards, fascia and caulked joints.
• Details, by the piece: vent caps, mounting blocks for lights and outlets, and anything else that comes through the wall.

Measure the walls by hand

There is no siding calculator. Multiply each wall's length by its height to the eave. Add each gable as a triangle: half the width times the height to the peak.

Subtract large openings. Measure trim separately in linear feet: wall bottoms for starter, corner heights and opening perimeters.

The formula for a siding price

Every line follows the same pattern:

1. Quantity × labor hours per unit = labor hours for that line.
2. Labor hours × your full hourly labor cost = labor cost. That is the wage plus labor burden: payroll taxes, workers' compensation and benefits.
3. Materials at what you will pay near the job now, with waste added.
4. Other job costs: dumpster, permit, staging or lift rental, and a sheathing allowance.
5. Overhead for every labor hour: a year of overhead divided by the hours your crew bills.
6. Profit, as a markup on the total cost or a target margin.

The labor rate guide and the labor rate calculator build your real hourly cost from pay, burden and billable hours.

Where your labor hours per unit come from

Only you can supply the hours per unit, because they belong to your crew. A published table can't know how fast your installers hang panels or how much staging your houses need. Your own jobs can.

Job costing is how you get them. On every siding job, record the hours each stage took and the quantity it covered, then divide.

Do it per 100 square feet for wall area and soffit and per 100 linear feet for trim. After a handful of houses you have hours you can price from, split by wall height and product.

Track each line, not one siding rate

Keep a separate number for each line:

Count labor hours, not crew hours

A three-person crew working an eight-hour day is 24 labor hours. Then compare the units.

A foot of J-channel takes longer than a square foot of panel, and a house with many windows has hundreds of feet of it. Soffit is slower per square foot than the walls, because it goes up overhead.

Trim, openings and the siding choice

Trim and openings hide the labor

Every outside corner gets a full-height post. Every window and door gets J-channel and a drip cap over the head, so water does not run behind the siding. Every wall bottom gets starter, and gable rakes get channel.

Then the details: a mounting block for each light, outlet and spigot, and a vent cap for each dryer or fan. None of this shows in the wall area. Count it from photos of all four sides.

Price fiber cement apart from vinyl

Fiber cement lap is heavier, slower to cut and slower to hang than vinyl panels, so its hours per square foot run well above vinyl's. Its trim is board, not channel, and unless the boards are prefinished, painting is an extra line.

Cutting it makes silica dust, so plan dust control. Price it as its own estimate or option, never as a percentage bump on vinyl.

Carry an allowance for the sheathing

Sheathing condition is unknown until tear-off, so carry an allowance. On a house built before 1978, disturbing painted trim or siding brings in the EPA lead rules and the lead-safe setup line.

Taking off siding materials

Turn each quantity into what you buy, with waste added and rounded up to the purchase unit.

• Panels: wall area plus waste, then boxes from the box coverage. Many corners and gables mean more waste.
• House wrap and tape: by the roll, from the roll's coverage.
• Trim pieces: divide each run by the piece length and round up.
• Soffit and fascia: soffit by area plus its channel; fascia by the foot.
• Fasteners and caulk: nails by the pound and caulk by the tube.

Price everything near the job this week.

Worked example: a vinyl re-side on a ranch

Example: A homeowner wants old vinyl siding stripped and replaced on a one-story ranch. The footprint is 40 x 28 feet with 9-foot walls. The ridge runs the long way, so the two 28-foot ends are gables, at a 6/12 pitch.

The openings:

• 8 windows at 3 x 5 feet and one 4 x 4 kitchen window
• A front door and a side door at 3 x 7 feet
• A 6 x 7 patio door

12 squares of wall, 262 feet of J-channel

• Walls: perimeter 2 × (40 + 28) = 136 feet × 9 = 1,224 square feet.
• Gables: each rises 14 × 6 ÷ 12 = 7 feet. Each triangle is ½ × 28 × 7 = 98 square feet, so 196 for two.
• Openings: windows 8 × 15 + 16 = 136; doors 21 + 21 + 42 = 84. Total 220 square feet.
• Net wall area: 1,224 + 196 − 220 = 1,200 square feet, or 12 squares.
• Starter: 136 feet of wall bottom minus 12 feet of door openings = 124 feet.
• Outside corners: 4 corners × 9 feet = 36 feet.
• J-channel: windows 8 × 16 + 16 = 144 feet; doors (sides and head) 17 + 17 + 20 = 54 feet; four gable rakes at about 16 feet = 64 feet. Total 262 feet.
• Drip cap: window heads 8 × 3 + 4 = 28 feet, door heads 3 + 3 + 6 = 12 feet. Total 40 feet.
• Old trim to remove: the old corners, opening channel and rake channel, 36 + 198 + 64 = 298 feet.
• Soffit: two eaves at 42 feet, counting a 1-foot overhang at each end, with 15-inch-deep soffit: 2 × 42 × 1.25 = 105 square feet.
• Fascia: eaves 2 × 42 = 84 feet plus four rakes at about 17 feet = 68 feet. Total 152 feet.
• Details: 2 vent caps (dryer and bath fan), 4 mounting blocks (two lights, an outlet and a spigot), and 60 feet of caulking at the door surrounds and penetrations.

Labor: 117 hours

Say your crew's own records show the hours per unit below. They are example inputs to show the arithmetic, not a standard: use your own.

The check: 24 + 8.94 + 12 + 3.72 + 2.16 + 13.1 + 1.6 + 30 + 4.2 + 9.12 + 2 + 2 + 1.2 + 3 = 117.04 labor hours. For a three-person crew, that is about 39 hours each, a working week.

Trim and details outweigh the panels

The panels are 30 hours, about a quarter of the job. Tear-off and wrap are another 36. The new trim, soffit, fascia and details come to 39.1, more than the panels.

Materials: round each item up

With around 10% waste on the panels, a common starting point for plain walls, and the rest from piece lengths and the coverage printed on each product:

• Panels: 1,200 × 1.1 = 1,320 square feet, or 13.2 squares. Convert to boxes from the product's coverage and round up. Track what you throw away.
• House wrap: a 9 × 100 foot roll covers 900 square feet, so 1,200 is 1.33 rolls, or 2. Seam tape for every lap and opening, from the roll length.
• Starter: 124 feet. In 12-foot pieces, 10.33, so 11.
• Outside corners: four corners at 9 feet, so four 10-foot posts.
• J-channel: 262 feet. In 12.5-foot pieces, 20.96, so 21, plus 3 for miters and laps: 24.
• Drip cap: 40 feet. In 10-foot pieces, 4, plus 1 for cuts: 5.
• Soffit: 105 square feet plus waste, in panels from the product's coverage, with F-channel along the wall on both eaves, about 84 feet.
• Fascia cover: 152 feet. In 12-foot pieces, 12.67, so 13, plus 1 for laps: 14.
• Caulk: 60 feet, from the bead coverage on the tube, rounded up.
• Accessories: 2 vent caps and 4 mounting blocks, plus siding and cap nails from each line.

Price each item near the job and add them up. Call the total M.

Add five cost lines, then markup

A 25% markup is a 20% margin; a 20% markup is only about 16.7%. The markup vs margin guide explains the gap, and the job cost calculator adds the lines up.

Then divide the price by 12 for a price per square, and compare it with similar houses. If it is far off, find the missing or doubled line.

Fiber cement adds 24 panel hours

Example: In fiber cement, say your records show 4.5 hours per 100 square feet for lap siding. The panel line becomes 1,200 × 0.045 = 54 hours, 24 more than vinyl. If painting runs you 1.25 hours per 100 square feet, it adds 1,200 × 0.0125 = 15 hours unless the boards are prefinished.

Common siding pricing mistakes

• Pricing by the square alone. Two houses with 12 squares can differ by 20 windows and two gables.
• Forgetting the gables. Measure the triangles; the footprint perimeter misses them.
• Leaving out the details. Every light, outlet, spigot and vent is a line with hours.
• No sheathing allowance. Rot behind old siding is common and invisible until tear-off.
• Treating fiber cement as vinyl plus a percentage. It changes the panels, the trim and the paint.

How to present a siding estimate

• Group the lines into tear-off and prep, walls, trim and openings, soffit and fascia, and details.
• Name the system: siding profile and color, house wrap, trim and soffit material.
• Put the sheathing allowance in writing, with the area included and your price beyond it.
• List exclusions: window replacement, gutters, painting, and repairs beyond the allowance.
• State the warranty, the manufacturer's and your workmanship warranty.
• Set the deposit and payments. A deposit before the material order and a progress payment after the walls are up are common. The progress billing guide covers how.

The siding estimate template lays these sections out, and the siding invoice template bills the deposit and balance. For a one-off, the free estimate generator makes a clean PDF.

Pricing siding with BuildWell

BuildWell builds a siding estimate from a description of the job, such as "strip old vinyl on a 40 by 28 ranch, 9-foot walls, two gables, new house wrap, vinyl siding, soffit and fascia," or from photos of each side. The AI decides what work the job needs and how much; it does not set prices.

BuildWell prices materials at stores near the job and labor at the metro's median wage for each trade on the job, plus your overhead and markup. You can change any quantity, hour or price, or add a line of your own. The homeowner signs on their phone.

A siding pricing checklist

• Walls measured by hand, gables as triangles, openings subtracted
• Trim in linear feet: starter, corners, J-channel, drip cap, fascia
• Details counted: vents, mounting blocks, penetrations
• Labor hours line by line, adjusted for height and access
• Materials with waste, at current prices near the job
• Disposal, permit, staging and a sheathing allowance
• Lead-safe setup on pre-1978 houses with painted surfaces
• Overhead on every hour, then profit and a per-square check