What is my roofing company worth? Roofing company valuation multiples in 2026

Buyers value a roofing company as a multiple of its earnings. Which earnings figure they use depends on whether the owner still shows up in the numbers. Owner-operated roofers are priced on seller discretionary earnings (SDE), which is net profit plus one owner's full compensation plus documented add-backs. Larger roofers are priced on EBITDA, which is SDE minus a market-rate salary for the manager who replaces you. Apply an SDE multiple only to SDE and an EBITDA multiple only to EBITDA.

How a buyer finances the deal sets the multiple it can pay. Five groups buy roofing companies, and each one fits a different size.

Buyers who price on SDE

• SBA-financed individual owner-operators and search funds. Advisor estimates put their target range at $1M to $10M of revenue and $300K to $1.5M of SDE. That range describes what these buyers look for. It is not a closed-deal statistic. They finance with an SBA 7(a) loan capped at $5M. For buying a business, SOP 50 10 8.1 requires at least 1.25x debt service coverage on historical results, meaning the last fiscal year or a two-year average. That coverage test caps what they can pay, however much they want the company.

Buyers who price on EBITDA

• Regional roofing groups in the $2M to $15M EBITDA range. They buy to add crews, branches, or a new market.
• Residential PE platforms: Vertex Service Partners (Alpine Investors), Infinity Home Services (Freeman Spogli and LightBay Capital), Omnia Exterior Solutions (CCMP Capital), and Ridgeline Roofing & Restoration (Bertram Capital, which targets $3M to $7.5M of EBITDA).
• Commercial PE platforms: Tecta America is backed by Altas Partners and Leonard Green. It has made 35 acquisitions in a decade, six of them in 2025.
• Public strategics: FirstService, through Roofing Corp of America.

PE platforms and public strategics fit roofers whose EBITDA runs into the millions, and their pricing assumes a management team that stays after you leave. The full breakdown of each group is on who buys roofing companies. If your SDE falls between $300K and $1.5M, your likely buyer is an individual or a search fund, so prepare your books for an SBA lender's 1.25x historical coverage test.

One valuation firm's published average puts small owner-operated roofing companies at 1.88x to 2.73x SDE. Advisor estimates put larger roofers at 3.75x to 7x EBITDA, and commercial-maintenance platforms at 8x to 11x. The EBITDA quartiles, the platform band, and the storm cap are all advisor estimates for roofing. They are not closed-deal statistics, and no national sold-transaction benchmark for roofing could be found to check them against.

One deal-marketplace estimate puts the observed range at 4.3x to 7.0x EBITDA, which falls inside the quartile band above. The valuation firm that publishes the SDE range also publishes an average EBITDA range of 2.47x to 3.55x. That figure comes from a smaller, older dataset, so read it as a view of the smallest EBITDA-priced roofers and do not blend it with the quartiles.

Two cautions. First, you cannot compare an SDE multiple with an EBITDA multiple, because SDE still includes the owner's pay. Second, your profile places you in a row as much as your size does. Two roofers with the same EBITDA land in different rows if one does single-market residential reroofs and the other runs commercial maintenance contracts. Find the row that matches your EBITDA, revenue mix, and number of markets, then check it against your own numbers using the two worked examples below.

The multiple goes up with commercial maintenance revenue, an owner who can be replaced, and a multi-market footprint. It goes down with storm dependence, warranty exposure, and customer concentration. Advisor estimates assign each factor a range of adjustment:

Twelve or more months of visible commercial backlog, manufacturer certifications, and a documented labor warranty history also support the price. Open claims, frequent callbacks, and water-intrusion or workmanship claims count against it.

Storm revenue

Advisor estimates single out storm-year EBITDA spikes as the most contested add-back in roofing diligence. Buyers separate structural earnings, meaning recurring reroof, retail, and maintenance work, from storm-cycle revenue that depends on hail and wind. SBA lenders normalize the same way. SOP 50 10 8.1 measures coverage on the last fiscal year or a two-year average and does not allow projections to meet the floor, so a buyer cannot borrow against another storm season. If storm work drives your numbers, the realistic decision is to sell on a normalized year within the 3x to 4.5x storm cap, with part of the price likely deferred into an earnout.

What diligence asks for

A roofing buyer's diligence list goes well past the P&L. Expect requests for:

• your warranty claims history and callback logs
• any open water-intrusion or workmanship claims
• your EMR and OSHA record
• your manufacturer certifications
• your commercial maintenance agreements and their terms
• revenue by customer, to check against the 20% concentration line

If your claims documentation is missing, buyers price it as uncapped warranty exposure. Your add-backs get the same scrutiny, so check which add-backs a buyer will accept before you put a number in front of anyone.

The license

Seventeen of 51 jurisdictions require a statewide roofing license. Three require state registration, 13 depend on the scope of work, and 18 have no statewide license, though local rules may apply. Florida requires a Certified Roofing Contractor (CCC) license, and California uses the CSLB C-39 classification. Texas, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Colorado have no statewide roofing license. Where a license is required, it belongs to a qualifying individual and does not transfer in an asset sale. If you personally hold the qualifying license in Florida or California, line up a licensed project manager who will stay, because the buyer needs a qualifier in place at closing.

At the published range of 1.88x to 2.73x SDE, a roofing company with $1,500,000 of revenue and $400,000 of SDE is worth about $752,000 to $1,092,000. Here is how the SDE is built and how the multiple applies to it.

Where you land in that range depends on the factors in the table above. If you write every estimate yourself, expect to land near the bottom. Each of the $50,000 in add-backs needs a document behind it, and any part that comes from a storm-year spike will be challenged. If diligence turns up capital items, such as trucks or equipment due for replacement, they come off the price dollar for dollar after the multiple is applied. They never come off SDE.

Here is how the financing works. Above a $350,000 business purchase price, the buyer's SBA lender must order an independent valuation from a Qualified Source holding an ASA, CBA, ABV, CVA, or BCA credential. The valuation is prepared for the lender, not for you or the buyer. Total acquisition debt, meaning the SBA loan plus any seller debt not on full standby, cannot exceed that valuation. Any part of your price above it has to come from buyer equity or debt on full standby.

A roofer with $1,600,000 of EBITDA

The second company has $6,000,000 of revenue and $1,600,000 of EBITDA after paying a general manager $150,000. A manager already runs it, so it is priced on EBITDA.

At $1,600,000 of EBITDA, this company sits above the $500K to $1.5M median band and below the $2M+ top-quartile band. Advisor estimates credit an owner-replaceable business with +1.0x to +2.0x, so having a general manager in place adds value. The company does not qualify for the 8x to 11x platform band, which requires $2M+ of EBITDA and at least 40% of revenue under long-term maintenance agreements. Here is the decision. If you can realistically reach both thresholds, it may pay to grow before you sell. If you cannot, sell on the profile you have now.

At the median value, the price exceeds the $5M SBA 7(a) loan maximum, so an individual buyer would need other capital alongside the loan. An SBA-financed acquisition by an outside buyer (an Initial Acquisition or Business Expansion) with a business purchase price of $3,000,000 or more now needs a Quality of Earnings report. It must include a cash proof for the trailing twelve months and the last two fiscal years, it cannot be prepared by or for you as the seller, and the lender sizes the loan on its normalized earnings. Before you go to market at this size, reconcile your bank deposits to reported revenue for those twelve months and two fiscal years, because the buyer's QoE provider will.

A roofing sale combines cash at closing with some mix of a seller note, an earnout, an escrow, and, with PE buyers, equity rollover. The mix follows the risk the buyer sees in your numbers.

• Cash at close. This is buyer equity plus senior debt. When an SBA buyer makes a complete change of ownership, the equity injection is 10% of total project cost, and up to half of it may be a seller note on full standby. A common structure is 5% buyer cash plus a 5% standby note.
• Seller note. A note on full standby receives no principal or interest payments for the entire life of the SBA loan. Interest may accrue and is paid after the SBA loan is repaid, so treat it as long-dated money. A note that is not on standby counts toward the debt cap set by the valuation and toward debt service in the 1.25x test. If it is interest-only, the lender amortizes it over no more than 10 years for that test.
• Earnout. When storm or insurance work exceeds 60% of the last three years of revenue, advisor estimates describe earnouts of 15% to 25% as common. Negotiate how it is measured: revenue or gross profit, the length of the period, and who controls pricing during it.
• Escrow. Uncapped warranty exposure or missing claims documentation can trigger a holdback against future claims. Capping warranty terms and documenting your claims history before you market the company reduces the holdback.
• Rollover. A PE platform may ask the seller to reinvest part of the proceeds in the combined company. Value the rolled equity as a second sale with its own timing risk, not as cash.

Whether the deal is an asset sale or a stock sale changes what moves at closing. In an asset sale, the roofing license does not transfer, customer and maintenance contracts may need assignment, and warranty liabilities stay with you unless the buyer agrees to assume them. The tax and liability tradeoffs are covered in asset sale vs stock sale.

We represent sellers from $1M to $30M in enterprise value. We never list your company publicly. Buyers see a blind profile first, and only buyers who have signed an NDA and been vetted for capital and fit see the full company. If your company matches one of our active buyer clients, the buyer pays our fee. If we run a confidential buyer search, the fee is a success fee paid at closing, with no monthly retainer and a $5,000 engagement deposit credited against it. Expect 3 to 6 months from the decision to sell to a signed LOI, then 60 to 90 days to close, depending on the buyer's financing and diligence.