Roof Inspection Cost Calculator
A roof inspection runs about $590 in Atlanta — $368 to $813 — for somebody walking a 2,000 square foot single-storey roof and writing it up. The five methods run from free to $959. ⚠️ The free one is a sales visit rather than an inspection, which does not make it useless but does make it partial: what a paid one buys is a dated report from somebody who is not going to do the work. It is the cheapest figure on this site and it decides the most expensive one.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the inspection
$608
typical · range $385 to $831 · 2.9 trade hours · about 24 squares of roof · you get a written report
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 74% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
Somebody goes up and looks at the flashings, the penetrations, the valleys and the condition of the covering, then writes it down. It is the standard against which the others are judged, and it is the only one that finds soft decking underfoot.
1 / 3
The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
Every way of looking at a roof, and what each one buys
| How it is done | Written report | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A contractor’s free inspection | ⚠️ no | free |
| Visual, from the ground and inside the attic | yes | $415 |
| Walked, on the roof | yes | $608 |
| Drone survey | yes | $612 |
| Infrared moisture survey | yes | $980 |
“Should I get a free roof inspection?” is one of the questions Google shows alongside this search, and the honest answer needs the second column rather than the third. A free inspection is a sales visit — which does not make it useless, it makes it partial: the person deciding whether you need work is the person who gets paid for the work. What the paid ones buy is the thing in the middle column, a dated written report from somebody who is not going to do the job. That document is yours: you can hand it to a second contractor, to a buyer, or to an insurer. ⚠️ Be particularly careful with the free inspections that knock on the door after a hailstorm, and never let anybody who arrived uninvited go up alone.
The 25% rule, calculated instead of quoted
| Share of roof damaged | Repair costs | Per year, repairing | Per year, new roof |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5% | $676 | $97 | $661 |
| 10% | $1,353 | $193 | $661 |
| 25% | $3,382 | $483 | $661 |
| 40%⚠️ replacing wins here | $5,411 | $773 | $661 |
“What is the 25% rule for roofing?” also comes up in that list, and it is two different rules wearing one name. The one calculated here is the economic one: past some share of the roof, patching costs more per year of roof bought than starting again. On a 15-year-old roof of this size that crossing happens at about 40% damaged, from this site’s own roof repair and roof replacement models at the same BLS wages. ⚠️ The other rule is a code one — many jurisdictions cap how much of a roof may be repaired before the whole thing has to be brought up to current requirements — and its threshold and its period are local. That one is a phone call to your building department, and there is no national number worth publishing.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inspection fee — Walked, on the roof1 for this method | 1each | $190–$480 | estimated±43% |
| Walked, on the roof — time on site2 hours × (half fixed, half by roof area) × access factor | 2hour | $103–$111 | sourced |
| Written report with photographs1 when a written report is produced | 1each | $45–$190 | estimated±62% |
| Written report — preparing it0.9 hours, 1.8 for an insurance claim | 0.9hour | $47–$50 | sourced |
| Total | $385–$831 | ±37% |
Where these numbers come from
- What a free inspection is actually buying you
- “Should I get a free roof inspection?” is one of the questions Google shows alongside this search, and it deserves an answer from somebody who does not sell roofs. A free inspection is a sales visit, and that is a description rather than an accusation: the person deciding whether you need work is the person who gets paid for the work. Use it as a second opinion or an early look and it is genuinely useful. Use it as your only opinion and you have taken a recommendation from an interested party. ⚠️ What the paid ones buy is the middle column of the table above — a dated written report with photographs, from somebody who is not going to do the job. That document belongs to you: it goes to a second contractor for a comparable quote, to a buyer, or to an insurer. Here it is $160 of $590. And a practical warning that is worth more than any of these numbers: after a hailstorm, neighbourhoods fill up with people offering free inspections door to door. Nobody who arrived uninvited should be on your roof unsupervised, because a roof is a place where damage is easy to create and impossible to date.
- The 25% rule, calculated instead of quoted
- The other question that comes up on this search is the 25% rule, and it is two rules wearing one name. The code version — how much of a roof may be repaired before the whole thing has to be brought up to current requirements — is local, and its threshold and its period vary by jurisdiction. There is no national figure worth publishing and inventing one would be the least reliable thing on this page; it is a phone call to your building department. The economic version can be calculated, and this page does it with our own roof repair and roof replacement models at the same wages. ⚠️ The result is worth stating because it does not match the name: on a 15-year-old roof of this size, 25% damaged still favours patching — $467 per year of roof bought against $634 — and the crossing happens at about 40%. What moves that answer far more than the percentage is how much life the roof has left, which is exactly what an inspection is for. Repair cost is scaled linearly from our patch model, where a tenth of the roof is one ordinary repair; that is a declared assumption, not a measurement.
- Height beats area, and nobody should go up there themselves
- The by-house table shows something counterintuitive that took a correction to get right in this model: a two-storey house has less roof than a single-storey house of the same floor area, and still costs more to inspect — $590 against $617. The reason is that the time and the risk are in the ladder work rather than in the walking about, so this model multiplies for height and pitch by more than it scales for area. Past about a 7:12 pitch a roof stops being walked and starts being climbed with fall protection, which is where a drone survey at $596 starts to make more sense than a person — it sees every slope without anybody going up, and the one thing it cannot do, feel the deck flex underfoot, matters less when nobody should be standing on it anyway. ⚠️ And the free option nobody should take: going up yourself. Falls are among the most common causes of serious injury in American homes — CDC, Older Adult Falls Data (retrieved 2026-08-24) — and most of what a roof is hiding can be seen from a ladder at the eaves or from inside the attic, which is what the $402 option is. After severe weather, wait for the roof to dry and for somebody insured: Ready.gov, Thunderstorms and lightning (retrieved 2026-08-24).
- Infrared, insurance, and where the numbers come from
- Two options here are right for one question each and overkill for everything else, and saying so costs us the more expensive sale. ⚠️ An infrared survey at $959 finds wet insulation under the covering as it releases heat after sunset, which answers exactly one question well — where is water actually getting into this flat or low-slope roof — and on a pitched shingle roof it rarely tells you more than walking it does. Documenting for an insurance claim takes the total to $843, and it is a different job rather than a more thorough one: marked and dated evidence organised the way an adjuster reads it. This page prices work and does not advise on claims; what is worth knowing is that most policies turn on the distinction between sudden accidental damage and wear, and that an independent report carries more weight than one from the company that wants the job. Wages are official — BLS OEWS for roofers, May 2025, retrieved 2026-08-20, adjusted to your metro area and benefit-loaded from BLS ECEC. 77% of the total is estimated, with every band and its reasoning on the dataset page and the whole approach on the method page. The 5 methods are modelled separately rather than as one averaged fee, because they are not the same product.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-24.
What this figure does not include
- Fixing anything that is found
- An inspection tells you what is wrong. Our roof repair page prices patching it and our roof replacement page prices starting again — and the whole argument for paying for an inspection is that it tells you which of those two you actually need.
- What your insurer will pay
- ⚠️ Most policies distinguish sudden accidental damage from wear and deterioration, and which one a worn roof counts as is decided on your roof and in your wording. This page prices the inspection; it does not advise on a claim, and a report from somebody independent carries more weight than one from the company that wants the job.
- Going up there yourself
- It is free and it is the single most dangerous thing a homeowner can do to save a couple of hundred dollars. Falls are the leading cause of injury among older adults. Most of what a roof is hiding can be seen from a ladder at the eaves or from inside the attic.
- The rule about how much can be patched
- Many jurisdictions limit how much of a roof may be repaired before the whole thing has to be brought up to current code, and the threshold and the period vary locally. The economic version of that question is calculated on this page; the code version is a phone call to your building department, and there is no national number worth publishing.
- Anything under the roof
- A roof inspection looks at the roof. Attic insulation, ventilation and any moisture already in the structure are separate questions with their own pages here, even though an inspector standing in your attic will very likely mention all three.
Questions people actually ask
How much should a roof inspection cost?
About $590 in Atlanta — $368 to $813 — for somebody walking a 2,000 square foot single-storey roof and writing a report. The five ways of doing it run from free to $959: a visual from the ground and inside the attic is $402, a drone survey $596, an infrared moisture survey $959. ⚠️ Size barely moves it — $571 on a small single-storey house against $632 on a large two-storey one — because an inspection is mostly the cost of somebody turning up, going round and writing it down. Height moves it more than area does.
Should I get a free roof inspection?
As a second opinion, yes. As your only opinion, no — and the reason is not that it is worth nothing. ⚠️ A free inspection is a sales visit: the person deciding whether you need work is the person who gets paid for the work, which makes it partial rather than useless. What you are not getting is the thing worth paying for, a dated written report from somebody who is not going to do the job. That document is yours to hand to a second contractor, a buyer or an insurer, and it is $160 of the $590 on this page. Be particularly careful with free inspections that knock on the door after a hailstorm, and never let somebody who arrived uninvited go up alone.
What is the 25% rule for roofing?
Two different rules share the name. The code one: many jurisdictions limit how much of a roof may be repaired in a period before the whole thing has to be brought up to current requirements — the threshold and the period are local, and there is no national number worth publishing. The economic one is calculated here: past some share of damaged roof, patching costs more per year of roof bought than replacing. ⚠️ On a 15-year-old roof of this size that crossing is not at 25% — at 25% patching still wins, $467 a year against $634 — it is at about 40%. The rule's number is a rule of thumb; this one comes from our own roof repair and roof replacement models at the same wages.
Is $30,000 too much for a roof?
For an ordinary asphalt shingle roof on an average American house, yes, by a lot: our own replacement model puts that job at $13,945 in Atlanta. ⚠️ But the number alone does not settle it, and three things genuinely reach that figure — slate or tile rather than asphalt, a large or steep or complex roof, and decking that turns out to be rotten once the covering is off. That last one is why the answer is an inspection rather than an argument: $590 buys you somebody independent saying what is actually up there, which is the cheapest way to find out whether a $30,000 quote is describing your roof or describing their margin.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 2026-08-24, not invented.
Other cost calculators
The first of these are the jobs closest to this one — the ones that turn up in the same quote, or instead of it.
- Gutter replacement cost
Gutters are sold by the linear foot of eave, not by the square foot of house, so this works out your eave length and sizes the downspouts to the roof draining into them.
- Chimney repair cost
Prices eight jobs that all get called chimney repair, and works out how tall the chimney has to be instead of just quoting the rule.
- Laminate floor installation cost
Prices class and thickness separately, shows the 43% a square-foot quote leaves out, and puts laminate against vinyl plank grade for grade.
- Garage door spring replacement cost
Springs are rated in cycles, not years. This turns that into how long yours will last at your own usage, and what the high-cycle upgrade really costs per year.
- The full roof inspection cost dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.