Tender & Estimating Software for Roofers

A roofing takeoff is the measured area and length of every roof and roof plumbing item shown on the plans, broken down so each can be priced with materials and labour. A complete takeoff typically covers:

• Roof sheeting area — the actual pitched area of every roof plane, not the flat plan area, measured by sheeting profile.
• Ridge capping, barge and fascia — the lineal metres of trim along every ridge, hip, barge and fascia line.
• Guttering and downpipes — gutter length by profile, plus the number and length of downpipes and their stormwater connections.
• Flashings — valley, apron, chimney and penetration flashings at every roof junction and service penetration.
• Insulation and safety items — sarking or blanket insulation area, safety mesh, and roof vents or whirlybirds.

My Trade Hub’s estimation engine reads your roof plan and elevations and performs the measured takeoff automatically — converting plan area to true pitched roof area, measuring guttering and flashing lengths, and counting penetrations and vents — instead of you calculating pitch factors and scaling drawings by hand.

Because the takeoff is automated rather than manual, it is 60-75% faster than estimating the same job by hand, so you can turn a set of plans into priced quantities the same day you receive them rather than setting aside a weekend.

The output is a structured, itemised list of roofing quantities — not a black-box total — so you can review every line, roof plane by roof plane, before it goes anywhere near a client.

Once the areas and lengths are measured, pricing a roofing job means applying a materials rate and a labour rate to every roof plane, gutter run and flashing, then adding overheads and margin on top — the takeoff only gets you halfway to a number you can stand behind.

Labour is usually driven as much by access and safety as by area — pitch, roof height, and whether scaffolding or harness anchor points are needed all add cost that a flat rate per square metre will not capture, so your rates need to reflect the real site conditions.

On top of materials and labour, add your overheads and margin, and factor in a realistic sheeting wastage allowance for cutting to hips, valleys and penetrations, plus the cost of safety access and any weather-day risk.

With the roofing quantities measured and priced, the next step is turning that pricing into a document a client or head contractor can actually act on — a clear, professional quote for direct work, or a complete tender submission for competitive commercial jobs.

My Trade Hub turns the priced takeoff straight into a client-ready quote or tender, with your branding and terms attached, so you are not re-keying the same numbers into a separate Word document or spreadsheet.

Because the slow part — the takeoff — is already done, producing the quote itself takes minutes, which means you can turn quotes around the same day a roof plan lands in your inbox.

Most roofing contractors move between two very different pricing situations, and knowing which one you are in changes how you should price the job.

A straightforward quote — a reroof, a new-home roof, a storm damage repair — is usually priced directly for the homeowner or head contractor as a fixed price with a short list of inclusions and exclusions. A commercial or multi-unit tender is more formal: you are usually pricing against a building designer’s or architect’s roof plan and specification, sometimes with a Bill of Quantities, alongside other roofing subcontractors.

The estimating principle is the same in both cases — measure the roof accurately, then price it — but a tender demands more supporting documentation and a tighter, more competitive rate, since you are one of several contractors bidding the identical scope.

Most roofing under-quotes come down to a short list of recurring mistakes, all of which are avoidable with a consistent takeoff process.

• Measuring the flat plan area instead of the true pitched area, which under-counts sheeting on anything steeper than a low pitch.
• Missing valley and apron flashings at roof junctions, which are easy to overlook next to the more obvious sheeting area.
• Underestimating access and safety costs — scaffolding, harness anchor points and safety mesh — on steep or high roofs.
• Forgetting stormwater connections for downpipes, which can add unexpected civil works cost if not priced up front.
• Pricing from an outdated roof plan revision, so the sheeting profile or roof shape in the quote no longer matches what is being built.

On most residential and small commercial jobs, the roofer who will do the work also prices it — reading the plans, measuring the roof and building the quote themselves, since a separate estimator is rarely justified for a job of that size.

On larger commercial and multi-unit projects, a dedicated estimator or contracts manager inside the roofing contracting business usually prepares the tender, often working from a head contractor’s program and a designer’s roof plan rather than site knowledge alone.

Either way, the same bottleneck applies: someone has to manually convert plan area to pitched area and scale every gutter and flashing length off a drawing before a single rate can be applied, which is exactly the step My Trade Hub automates.