Key facts
- Google Ads management runs 10% of your ad budget, with a $600 CAD or $450 USD monthly floor, and every dollar you spend with Google stays untouched by markup.
- SEO is billed per page at $50 CAD or $38 USD, with a required minimum of 10 pages a month to get a program moving.
- A roofing site is priced once, as a project, typically somewhere between $1,500 and $20,000 or more, entirely separate from monthly ad or SEO spend.
- LocaliQ and WordStream's 2026 benchmark data shows Home & Home Improvement, roofing's category, converting at 8.05% with a $90.92 average cost per lead on Google Ads.
- For most homeowners a full roof replacement is a five-figure decision, so one closed lead in this trade can be worth many times its acquisition cost.
Setting Aside the Right Amount by Crew Size
One crew trying to keep a calendar full needs enough Google Ads spend near the $600 floor to hold a spot for "roof repair near me" and "roofing company near me" without going dark for stretches, since a gap in visibility during a busy week costs real estimates.
Two or three crews wanting demand between storms usually land around $2,500 to $5,000, pairing spend that ramps up after weather events with an SEO program past the ten-page floor that slowly builds out replacement, repair, and neighborhood pages.
A larger regional operation, or one deliberately building a brand independent of storm chasing, often needs $6,000 or more, since covering a wide territory at a competitive bid on terms like "roof replacement cost" takes real media budget rather than a bigger management fee alone.
Why Timing Changes What Each Dollar Buys
Right after a storm, a homeowner comparing quotes today is worth chasing with paid search immediately, since that's when the decision actually happens. This is the fastest-moving money in a roofer's budget and the reason ad spend should be able to flex up on short notice.
SEO builds patiently instead. At $50 CAD a page with a ten-page floor, it typically covers shingle replacement, specialty work like metal or flat roofing, and location pages for each town served, built around phrases like "storm damage roof repair." None of it costs a click once it ranks.
A website's price mostly hinges on whether it needs a photo-heavy project gallery, financing or insurance-claim information, and an instant estimate form, versus a simpler site built to support phone calls above everything else.
What the Category Average Is and Isn't Good For
The $90.92 figure covers everything from minor home-improvement jobs to full renovations across every market in the study, so it's a rough backdrop, not a promise for a specific city. A tightly targeted post-storm campaign in a smaller market can easily beat it; a wide campaign in a metro full of national roofing brands can land well above it.
Use it to question a number, not to demand one. If a proposed spend implies a cost per lead far above that with no clear reason, out-of-town storm-chasing crews and lead-resale sites bidding on the same weather event are a common culprit worth asking about directly.
What Actually Changes a Roofer's Number
Weather is the single biggest swing factor in this trade, full stop. A hailstorm can spike search volume overnight, and companies that raise spend for a couple of weeks right after weather hits typically get more estimates per dollar than ones running a flat budget regardless of what's happening outside.
How you compete with insurance-claim shoppers matters just as much. Storm-prone markets draw out-of-town crews and aggregator sites bidding up the very keywords a local roofer needs, which pushes cost per click above the category number no matter how well an individual account is built.
Whether the goal is a replacement-focused brand or fast storm response shapes the mix. Replacement buyers research for weeks, favoring a heavier SEO investment, while storm response needs a budget that can jump within days of a weather event.
Related questions
It's easier to apply once a full season has closed and the real numbers are known. Most roofers get more value working backward from a goal instead, like a target number of replacements this quarter, then sizing spend to match, especially since revenue in this trade swings hard with the weather.
Ads usually win right after a storm, when homeowners are comparing quotes within days. SEO is worth running the rest of the year alongside it, since it captures steady, non-storm replacement and repair demand that would otherwise require paying for every single click.
Campaign setup and targeting, call and form tracking so you know which storm or search produced each estimate request, ongoing bid management, and a monthly report. The media spend itself is billed separately and directly by Google, with nothing added by the agency.
Right after a weather event, when local search volume spikes and crews have room to take on more work. Outside of that window, raise spend once existing campaigns are already converting well and the schedule has capacity for the extra replacement jobs it would bring in.
A fast, simple site with clear service pages and a click-to-call number can carry a lot of early growth. A fuller custom build earns its cost once a real project gallery, financing or insurance-claim details, and a site structured for years of SEO content become worthwhile.
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