What the roof loan actually costs, measured against the cash price
A stated APR is calculated on the amount financed. If the financed price is higher than the cash price for the same roof, the difference is a cost of the financing that the stated rate never sees. This solves for the rate you are really paying.
+4.19 ptseffective over stated, at a 15% price gapHYRE calculation: $15,000 financed at a stated 11.86% over ten years, against a $12,750 cash price, is a 16.05% loan. The 15% gap is a sensitivity step, not a measured roofing markup: no such measurement is published and we hold none.
The short answer
At the defaults the calculator returns a gap of 0.00 points, and that is the honest answer, not a broken tool. With no cash price entered it assumes the roof costs the same in cash as on finance, so a $15,000 amount financed at 11.86% over ten years is a 11.86% loan at $214 a month.
Enter the cash price for the identical roof and the number moves. Against a $13,500 cash price the same contract is 14.54%; against $12,750 it is 16.05%; against $11,250 it is 19.54%: a rate no roofing contract would print. The one input that decides all of this is the one a monthly-payment quote never contains.
And the tool does not always say no. A genuine 0% over five years, carrying a 15% price gap, solves to a 6.59% effective rate and still comes out $695 cheaper than an 8.5% home equity line on the cash price. Contractor financing is not automatically bad. It is automatically unmeasurable until you have the cash price in writing.
Solve the rate against the cash price
Enter what the loan document says, then the cash price for the identical roof. Nothing is sent anywhere.
—Effective APR against the cash price
—Above the stated APR
—Markup inside the financed price
—Monthly payment
—Paid above the cash price
—Payment borrowing the cash price yourself
—Interest on that alternative
—Cheaper over the full term
What this assumed—
An estimate from the figures you entered, never a quote, never a finance offer, and not legal, insurance or tax advice. It does not assess whether any roof needs replacing, and nothing here is an instruction to perform roofing work. HyreRoof does not sell roofs, broker loans or take a referral fee.
How to read the two rates
Both numbers are true and they measure different things. The stated APR is computed under Regulation Z on the amount financed. The effective APR here is computed on the cash price, what the same roof costs with no financing attached. When the two differ, the difference is the price of the financing, restated as a rate.
A low headline rate is usually bought, not given. Somebody pays for a below-market rate, and in a contractor-arranged loan the usual mechanism is a payment from the contractor to the lender that arrives back in the contract price. That is why "0% financing" and "here is our cash price, it is the same number" rarely appear on the same quote.
The question this answers is not "is my loan bad". It is "what would this roof cost me in cash, and have I been shown that number". A homeowner holding the cash price can compare quotes on a like-for-like basis and can shop the financing separately. A homeowner holding only a monthly payment cannot do either.
Three bands, and what to do in each
Gap between effective and stated APR
What it usually means
What to do about it
Under 1 point
Either there is genuinely little markup, or you entered a cash price you were given rather than one you inferred.
Confirm the cash price is for the identical scope. Then compare the stated rate against the alternative row and pick on rate alone.
1 to 4 points
The ordinary consequence of a mid-sized markup sitting inside the price. Not evidence of anything improper.
Worth knowing before signing. Ask whether buying at the cash price with your own lender is cheaper: the comparison row does that arithmetic.
Above 4 points
The financing is a substantial part of what you are buying, not an accessory to it.
Get a second quote priced in cash and shop the loan independently, credit union, home equity, or your own bank. See the equity section below for what you give up in exchange for a better rate.
HYRE interpretation, not a regulator’s classification. The band boundaries are editorial and published here so you can disagree with them.
None of these bands is an accusation. A markup inside a price is lawful in ordinary circumstances and the stated APR that excludes it is generally computed correctly. The bands describe how much the financing is costing you, which is a separate question from whether anyone did anything wrong.
Every input, and where you find it
1
Amount financed
The principal the lender is actually lending, not the contract price, not the total of payments. Where: the Truth in Lending box on the loan document, labelled "Amount Financed". It sits on the same page as the APR.
2
Cash price for the identical roof
The whole point of the tool. Leave it at zero if you were not given one, and the calculator will tell you it has no information rather than guess. Where: ask the contractor in writing for the price of the same scope with no financing. If they decline, that is itself an answer.
3
Stated APR
The annual percentage rate printed on the loan document. Use the APR, not the interest rate, if the paperwork shows both. The tool does not second-guess it. Where: the TILA disclosure box labelled "Annual Percentage Rate".
4
Term in years
How long the loan runs. Roof loans are commonly 3, 5, 7, 10 or 15 years, and the term moves the effective rate more than most people expect. Where: the loan agreement, usually given as a number of monthly payments, divide by 12.
5
Your alternative rate
What you could borrow the cash price at yourself, over the same term. Where: a rate sheet from your credit union or bank, or your existing HELOC. Set it to 0 to price the roof as a cash purchase. The default is the Federal Reserve G.19 personal-loan benchmark, which is a national average and not an offer to you.
6
Insurance deductible inside the amount financed
Optional, and it changes no arithmetic. Entering a figure switches on a warning about state deductible rules, because whether a deductible may be absorbed, rebated or financed is a legal question. Where: the declarations page of your homeowners policy, on the wind-and-hail line.
7
Read the gap and the verdict together
The gap tells you what the financing costs as a rate. The verdict tells you whether borrowing the cash price yourself would cost less in total dollars. They can disagree, and when they do the verdict is usually the one that decides money.
The formula that runs
payment = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)−n), where P is the amount financed, r the stated APR ÷ 12 and n the term in months. Where the stated APR is zero, payment = P ÷ n.
markup = P − cash. Where no cash price is entered, cash = P and the markup is zero by construction.
The effective APR is the monthly rate i solving cash = payment × (1 − (1 + i)−n) ÷ i, found by bisection over 200 iterations and reported as i × 12. Two hundred iterations is exact well past the two decimal places printed.
The comparison row is the same amortisation formula applied to cash at your alternative rate over the same n. The verdict compares payment × n against altPayment × n and reports the difference in dollars.
This is the formula the calculator above runs, not a simplified description of it. If the two ever disagree, the published formula is the bug report.
A worked example: the 0% offer that is not 0%, and is still the better deal
A hail-damaged roof, replaced on a contractor-arranged plan advertised as "0% for 60 months". The homeowner asked for the cash price in writing and got one, which is the only reason any of the following can be computed.
Line
Figure
Amount financed
$15,000
Cash price for the identical scope, in writing
$12,750
Stated APR
0.00%
Term
5 years, 60 payments
Alternative rate available to this homeowner
8.50% home equity line
Markup inside the price
$2,250 (15.0% of the amount financed)
Monthly payment on the contractor plan
$250/mo
Effective APR against the cash price
6.59%
Paid above the cash price over the term
$2,250
Payment borrowing $12,750 at 8.50% instead
$262/mo
Interest paid on that alternative
$2,945
Verdict
Contractor plan: $695 cheaper
Every figure computed by the calculator on this page at those inputs. Recomputed 5 September 2026.
Read this example carefully, because it is the one that matters. The 0% offer is not 0% (it is 6.59% once the markup is counted) and it is still the cheaper of the two options available to this homeowner. HYRE analysis: the value of knowing the cash price is not that it lets you reject financing. It is that it lets you decide. Had the alternative been a 5% credit union loan, the same contract would have lost.
One input changed at a time
Base case: $15,000 financed at a stated 11.86% over ten years, against a $12,750 cash price: a 15% gap, with a 11.86% alternative. Every figure below is produced by running the calculator on this page, not written by hand.
Change
Markup
Payment
Effective APR
Gap
Verdict against borrowing it yourself
Base case$15,000, 11.86%, 10 yr, $12,750 cash
$2,250 (15.0%)
$214/mo
16.05%
+4.19 pts
Borrow it yourself: $3,852 cheaper
No cash price entered
$0
$214/mo
11.86%
+0.00 pts
Level, within a rounding error
Cash price $14,250: a 5% gap
$750 (5.0%)
$214/mo
13.15%
+1.29 pts
Borrow it yourself: $1,284 cheaper
Cash price $13,500: a 10% gap
$1,500 (10.0%)
$214/mo
14.54%
+2.68 pts
Borrow it yourself: $2,568 cheaper
Cash price $12,000: a 20% gap
$3,000 (20.0%)
$214/mo
17.71%
+5.85 pts
Borrow it yourself: $5,136 cheaper
Cash price $11,250: a 25% gap
$3,750 (25.0%)
$214/mo
19.54%
+7.68 pts
Borrow it yourself: $6,420 cheaper
Cash price $10,500: a 30% gap
$4,500 (30.0%)
$214/mo
21.57%
+9.71 pts
Borrow it yourself: $7,704 cheaper
Stated 0.00% instead of 11.86%
$2,250 (15.0%)
$125/mo
3.32%
+3.32 pts
Contractor plan: $6,827 cheaper
Stated 4.99% instead of 11.86%
$2,250 (15.0%)
$159/mo
8.64%
+3.65 pts
Contractor plan: $2,744 cheaper
Term 5 years instead of 10
$2,250 (15.0%)
$333/mo
19.27%
+7.41 pts
Borrow it yourself: $2,993 cheaper
Term 15 years instead of 10
$2,250 (15.0%)
$179/mo
15.03%
+3.17 pts
Borrow it yourself: $4,824 cheaper
Term 20 years instead of 10
$2,250 (15.0%)
$164/mo
14.55%
+2.69 pts
Borrow it yourself: $5,893 cheaper
Alternative rate 8.00%: a home equity line
$2,250 (15.0%)
$214/mo
16.05%
+4.19 pts
Borrow it yourself: $7,116 cheaper
Alternative rate 20.94%: a credit card
$2,250 (15.0%)
$214/mo
16.05%
+4.19 pts
Contractor plan: $4,849 cheaper
0% over 5 years with a 25% gap
$3,750 (25.0%)
$250/mo
11.96%
+11.96 pts
Borrow it yourself: $33 cheaper
HYRE calculation. Every row is an output of the engine behind the calculator above, recomputed 5 September 2026.
Two rows deserve a second look. The 5-year row shows a shorter term producing a higher effective rate, 19.27% against 16.05%, because the same fixed markup is recovered over fewer payments. It is still cheaper in total dollars. And the last row is the cleanest statement of the whole page: a 0% offer over five years, carrying a 25% price gap, is an 11.96% loan, which is almost exactly the national personal-loan rate. The advertised zero bought nothing at all.
What actually moves the answer
1. The gap between the financed price and the cash price
Dominant, and the input a monthly-payment quote is least likely to contain. Moving from no gap to a 30% gap takes an 11.86% contract to 21.57% without changing one number printed on it. Everything else on this list is secondary to obtaining this figure.
2. The stated APR, and whether it is real
Moves the effective rate roughly in step but not proportionally, because the markup adds its own spread. A 0% headline with a 15% gap is 3.32% effective; the same gap at 11.86% is 16.05%. HYRE analysis: the lower the advertised rate, the more suspicious you should be that a gap exists, because somebody paid for that rate.
3. The term, and it works backwards
Counter-intuitively powerful. A fixed markup spread over more payments is a smaller rate: 15% is 19.27% effective over five years and 14.55% over twenty. The longer loan has the better effective rate and the worse total cost, $26,538 above cash against $7,206. Do not optimise one and ignore the other.
4. Your alternative rate
Decides the verdict, and decides nothing else. It has no effect on the effective APR: the calculator’s own arithmetic is untouched by it, but it flips the recommendation entirely. At an 8% equity line the contractor plan loses by $7,116. At a 20.94% credit card it wins by $4,849. Enter a rate you have actually been quoted, not one you hope exists.
What is deliberately absent
No dealer-fee percentage input. Deliberate. See the section above on what is documented and what is not.
No promotional-rate step-up and no deferred interest. Both are common in home-improvement lending and both are outside a flat-rate comparison. If your offer has one, this tool understates the cost and you need the lender’s own amortisation schedule.
No insurance proceeds. The settlement is modelled as something you subtract before you arrive here, not as a cash flow inside the loan.
No tax treatment. Interest on a loan secured by the dwelling may be treated differently from unsecured interest. That is a question for a tax adviser and it is not modelled.
The real ways people get this wrong
Comparing one financed price against another financed price
Two quotes carrying different, undisclosed markups are not comparable however carefully you line up the monthly payments. You would be comparing financing products while believing you were comparing roofs.
Entering the total of payments as the amount financed
Different TILA boxes, and the difference between them is the interest. Using the total of payments produces a nonsense markup and a meaningless rate.
Treating a guessed cash price as a measurement
If you inferred the cash price rather than being given it, the effective APR is a hypothesis. It is still useful (it shows how much the answer depends on a number nobody would give you) but do not take it to a negotiation as a finding.
Assuming the shorter loan is always better
In total dollars it is. As an effective rate against a fixed markup it is worse, because the markup is recovered over fewer payments. Both are true at once and the scenario table shows them side by side.
Financing the contract price when a settlement is coming
On an insurance job you should be borrowing the shortfall. Financing the full contract price and then receiving a settlement cheque is the standard route to being over-borrowed on a roof.
Signing the financing before the adjuster has scoped the loss
The Texas department’s storm guidance is to make only temporary repairs and not permanent ones until the claim is settled. Financing signed on the day of the sales call does not wait for that.
Asking for the cash price in writing, before anything else
The one behaviour that makes every calculation on this page possible, and the one that costs nothing.
What this model ignores
The markup is derived from your cash price, not measured by us
HyreRoof holds no dataset of roofing quotes, loans, dealer fees or settlements. If your cash price is wrong or covers a different scope, every output is wrong with it.
Promotional and deferred-interest structures
A rate that steps up, or a structure that backdates interest if any balance survives a promotional period, is a different loan. This model runs one flat rate for the whole term.
Charges outside the price gap
Origination, documentation, filing and prepayment charges are not modelled. Neither are variable rates.
Insurance proceeds and their timing
Recoverable depreciation paid eighteen months into a five-year loan changes the real cash-flow path. The model does not attempt it.
Whether the roof needs replacing at all
Entirely outside this tool. That question belongs to an inspection, and to the repair-versus-replace test.
It is arithmetic, not advice
Not a quote, not a finance offer, and not legal, insurance or tax advice. Whether a particular disclosure complied with Regulation Z, or a particular deductible arrangement complied with your state’s law, is a question for a lawyer or your state regulator.
The fee is documented in solar. It is not documented in roofing.
The dealer fee is the most important thing on this page, so it goes first: we can show you a federal regulator describing this mechanism in detail, and that regulator was describing solar loans, not roofs.
HYRE calculation. Effective APR on a $15,000 amount financed at a stated 11.86% over ten years, as the cash price falls away from the financed price. At a 15% gap the 11.86% contract is a 16.05% loan.Computed by the calculator on this page. The 11.86% stated rate is the Federal Reserve G.19 personal-loan benchmark, not a roofing quote.
Source fact. In its Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing of 7 August 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau described lenders that "frequently bake these fees into a loan’s principal without including them in the stated annual percentage rate (APR)", and said such fees "often increase the loan cost by 30% or more above the cash price of a solar project". Both of those are quotations about residential solar lending.
What we will not do. We will not restate that 30% figure as a roofing number, put it in a headline, or use it as a default in the calculator above. It was measured in a different trade with a different sales channel, a different ticket size and a different tax-credit structure. Borrowing it would be exactly the kind of invented average this site exists to argue against.
HYRE analysis, and it is an analysis rather than a finding. What transfers
between the two trades is not the number but the structure: a contractor who arranges
the loan, a lender who pays the contractor for the introduction or for the right to advertise a
low rate, and a price that is quoted only as a monthly payment.
Roofing shares all three features, and it shares the fourth that makes them consequential: the
sale is frequently made at the door, under time pressure, after a storm. Whether the resulting
markups look like solar’s is an open empirical question, and the honest position is that we do
not know.
What follows from not knowing. It is why this calculator has no dealer-fee
percentage input. Asking you to guess a fee, and then reporting the consequences of your guess
to two decimal places, would dress an assumption as a measurement.
Instead it asks for the one number that settles the question: the cash price for the
identical roof, in writing. If the two prices are the same, there is no markup and the
stated APR is the real one. If they differ, the difference is the price of the financing and the
calculator converts it into a rate.
The bars are a sensitivity ladder. They tell you how much the answer depends on a number your quote may not disclose, they do not tell you what that number typically is, because nobody has published it for roofing.
If the roof is an insurance claim, financing is the second question
Most large residential roof replacements in hail and wind states are settled through a policy, not bought outright. That changes what you are financing, and it puts a state statute between you and some of the offers you will be shown.
You are usually financing the gap, not the roof
On a replacement-cost policy the insurer pays to "repair or replace the roof with materials of similar quality, the cost of labor, permits, and inspections are included, less the policy’s deductible", Iowa Insurance Division’s wording. On an actual cash value policy it pays "replacement cost minus depreciation" (Texas Department of Insurance). Either way, the amount you need to borrow is the contract price minus what the policy will pay, and that is a much smaller number than the roof.
Do the claim arithmetic before the finance arithmetic. Our hail claim estimator works through depreciation, actual cash value, recoverable depreciation and flat versus percentage deductibles, and it exists because the first cheque is routinely far smaller than people expect. Run that first, then bring the shortfall here.
A contractor offering to "cover your deductible" may be committing an offence
Source fact, Texas. The Texas Department of Insurance states plainly: "It’s also illegal in Texas for a contractor to offer to waive, rebate, or absorb a property policyholder’s deductible." The statute behind it, Texas Insurance Code §707.002, says "A person insured under a property insurance policy shall pay any deductible applicable to a first-party claim made under the policy."
Source fact, Minnesota. Minnesota Statutes §325E.66, subdivision 1(a)(1), prohibits a residential contractor, "as an inducement to the sale or provision of goods or services to an insured", from advertising or promising "to pay, directly or indirectly, all or part of any applicable insurance deductible".
What we are not saying. There is no national rule here, and we are not going to invent one. These are two states we retrieved and read on 5 September 2026. Many states have something comparable and some have nothing. The only reliable answer is your own state’s insurance department. Treat a "we’ll eat your deductible" pitch as a reason to check the law where you live, not as a bargain.
Financing the deductible is a different thing from waiving it
Source fact. Texas Insurance Code §707.004 lets an insurer withhold recoverable depreciation until it receives "reasonable proof of payment by the policyholder of any deductible applicable to the claim", and lists what counts: "a canceled check, money order receipt, credit card statement, or copy of an executed installment plan contract or other financing arrangement that requires full payment of the deductible over time."
HYRE reading. That is a statute contemplating exactly the thing this calculator
prices (a homeowner borrowing the deductible and repaying it in full over time) and treating it
as legitimate proof of payment.
Borrowing a deductible you will genuinely repay and having a contractor quietly absorb one are
not the same transaction, even when the monthly payment looks identical. The tool has a
deductible field for this reason: flagging it changes no arithmetic, and changes the warning.
The claim clock and the finance clock run at different speeds
The Texas department’s storm guidance is to "make only temporary repairs to protect your house and belongings… Don’t make permanent repairs" until the claim is settled. A financing agreement signed on the day of the sales call does not pause for that.
HYRE recommendation. Do not sign financing before the adjuster’s scope and the settlement basis are in hand. Once the settlement is known, the amount you need to borrow is a fact rather than an estimate, and the cash price you ask for is the cash price for the actual scope. HyreRoof holds no dataset of claims, settlements or adjuster decisions, and does not act as a public adjuster or contractor. Nothing here is legal, insurance or engineering advice; your policy language and your state’s regulations are the binding version.
The comparison case: your own money, or your own lender
The calculator prices the contractor plan against borrowing the same cash price yourself, over the same term. That is the only comparison that holds the roof constant, and it is only possible if you have the cash price.
Home equity is secured on the house, and that cuts both ways
Source fact. The Federal Trade Commission describes a home equity loan as "a loan that’s secured by your home" and a HELOC as "a revolving line of credit, similar to a credit card, except it’s secured by your home", with the blunt consequence that "if you don’t repay the outstanding balance, the lender can take your home as payment for your debt."
A secured product will normally price below an unsecured contractor loan, which is why it usually wins the comparison row in the calculator. It wins on rate because you have put the house up. That is a real trade, not a free lunch, and a roof is a poor reason to make it badly.
The rescission right that only comes with the secured product
Source fact. Under Regulation Z, 12 CFR §1026.23(a)(1), "each consumer whose ownership interest is or will be subject to the security interest shall have the right to rescind the transaction", and under (a)(3) may do so "until midnight of the third business day following consummation, delivery of the notice required by paragraph (b), or delivery of all material disclosures, whichever occurs last". Where the required notice or disclosures were never delivered, that right can extend to three years.
HYRE analysis. Notice the asymmetry. A home equity line taken out against your
house to pay for a roof carries a federal three-day right to walk away. An unsecured
contractor-arranged instalment loan generally does not, because §1026.23 attaches to a security
interest in the dwelling rather than to home-improvement lending as a category.
The product that sounds scarier carries the cooling-off period; the one signed on a tablet at
the kitchen table often does not. Separately, some door-to-door sales carry their own state or
FTC cooling-off rights: a different rule, with different triggers, worth asking about by name.
PACE: a financing route that becomes a lien on the property
Source fact. The CFPB’s Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing rule under Regulation Z, effective 1 March 2026, treats PACE financing, which covers "the costs of home improvements that results in a tax assessment on the real property of the consumer", as credit under the Truth in Lending Act, and applies ability-to-repay requirements and standard mortgage-style disclosures to it.
HYRE reading. PACE is available for roofing work in some programmes and not
others, and the repayment arrives on the property tax bill rather than as a loan payment.
If a contractor offers it, the useful consequence of the 2026 rule is that you should now be
receiving TILA-style disclosures you can compare against the other quotes, including a stated
APR you can put into the calculator above. Check what your programme actually covers with the
programme administrator, not with the salesperson.
Paying cash is a comparison, not a virtue
Set the alternative rate to zero and the tool prices the roof as a cash purchase: you pay the cash price and nothing else. Every financed option is then measured against that, which is the correct framing, financing is a product you are buying alongside the roof, and it has a price.
And sometimes the contractor plan wins. At a genuine 0% over five years, even carrying a 15% price gap, our worked example comes out $695 cheaper than an 8.5% home equity line on the cash price. This tool is not an argument that contractor financing is bad. It is an argument that you cannot tell without the cash price.
HyreRoof analysis: two policy lines decide most of the money in a roof claim, and neither is the damage. The first is whether the roof settles at replacement cost or actual cash value, on a fifteen-year-old covering that difference can be most of the settlement. The second is whether the wind/hail deductible is a dollar figure or a percentage of the insured value, because a percentage deductible is not proportional to the loss. Both are printed on the declarations page, both can be read before a storm, and almost nobody reads them until after one.
What to ask for, in writing, before you sign anything
The cash price for the identical scope
Same tear-off, same underlayment, same shingle line, same flashing scope, same warranty, no financing. This is the single request that makes every other comparison possible, and the calculator above is inert without it.
The Truth in Lending disclosure, not the payment
Amount financed, APR, finance charge and total of payments are separate boxes. A salesperson who can produce a monthly payment instantly and a TILA box slowly is telling you which one the sale depends on.
Whether the rate is promotional, and what it becomes
A rate that steps up after a promotional period, or a deferred-interest structure that backdates interest if a balance survives the period, is a different loan from the one you were quoted. The calculator models a flat rate and cannot see either.
The lender’s name, separately from the contractor’s
You are entering two contracts, frequently with two companies. Ask who holds the loan, whether it will be sold, and what happens to your obligation if the roofing company ceases trading before the work is finished.
What the settlement pays and what you are actually borrowing
If this is a claim, borrow the shortfall, not the contract price. The insurer pays its share directly into the job; financing the whole contract price and then receiving a settlement cheque is how people end up over-borrowed.
Do not accept an offer to absorb or rebate the deductible
In some states that offer is unlawful for the contractor to make. It is also a signal about the price: money to cover your deductible has to come from somewhere, and it comes from the contract.
Do not sign financing on the first visit
A price that is only available today is a sales technique, not a market condition. Roofs are replaced year-round and the arithmetic on this page will still be here tomorrow.
Questions this calculator answers
Why does this calculator not ask for a dealer fee percentage?
Because we would have to give it a default, and no primary source publishes a distribution of roofing finance markups. CFPB documented capitalised dealer fees in solar lending, saying they "often increase the loan cost by 30% or more above the cash price of a solar project", that is a solar finding and we will not restate it as a roofing one. Asking for the cash price instead gives you a number you can actually obtain, and the markup falls out of it.
What is a dealer fee, and does roofing have them?
It is a payment the contractor makes to a lender for the right to offer you financing, or a particular rate, generally capitalised into the loan principal rather than billed to you as a line item. CFPB has documented the structure in solar. HYRE analysis: roofing shares the same three features: a contractor who arranges the loan, a lender who pays for the introduction, and a price quoted as a monthly payment, so the mechanism is available. Whether your quote carries one is a question the cash price answers and we cannot.
Is my stated APR wrong or illegal?
Almost certainly not. Under Regulation Z the APR is computed on the amount financed, and a markup already inside the price is part of the principal rather than a finance charge. The disclosure can be entirely accurate and still not tell you what the roof costs. The gap this tool reports is arithmetic, not an allegation about your lender.
How do I get the cash price if the salesperson will not give one?
Ask in writing for the price of the identical scope, same tear-off, underlayment, shingle line, flashing and warranty, paid in full, with no financing attached. If it comes back the same as the financed price, there is no markup and the stated rate is the real one. If it comes back lower, enter it above. If it does not come back at all, you have learned something about the quote.
Why does a shorter term show a higher effective rate?
Because the price gap is a fixed number of dollars recovered across the payments, so fewer payments concentrate it. HYRE calculation: a 15% gap on our defaults is 16.05% effective over ten years and 19.27% over five. The five-year loan still costs less in total dollars ($7,206 above the cash price against $12,929) so both statements are true and they answer different questions.
My roof is an insurance claim. Does any of this change?
Yes, substantially. You are usually financing the shortfall between the settlement and the contract price, not the roof, so run the hail claim estimator first and bring the gap here. Separately, some states regulate what a contractor may do with your deductible: the Texas Department of Insurance states that "it’s also illegal in Texas for a contractor to offer to waive, rebate, or absorb a property policyholder’s deductible", and Minnesota §325E.66 subd. 1(a)(1) bars advertising or promising to pay one as a sales inducement. There is no national rule and we are not going to state one, check your own state’s insurance department.
Can I finance my deductible?
That is a different transaction from a contractor absorbing it, and at least one state addresses it directly. Texas Insurance Code §707.004 lists, among acceptable proof that a deductible was paid, "a copy of an executed installment plan contract or other financing arrangement that requires full payment of the deductible over time". The calculator has a deductible field that changes no arithmetic and changes the warning, because whether this is permitted where you live is a legal question and not a mathematical one.
Should I use a HELOC or a home equity loan instead?
Run the comparison row and see. A secured product usually prices below an unsecured contractor loan, and the FTC is blunt about the reason it can: "if you don’t repay the outstanding balance, the lender can take your home as payment for your debt." One asymmetry is worth knowing: a loan secured by your dwelling generally carries a federal right to rescind "until midnight of the third business day" under 12 CFR §1026.23, and an unsecured contractor loan generally does not.
What about 0% financing offers?
They can be genuinely good and they can be a price increase wearing a rate. Our worked example, 0% over 60 months with a 15% price gap, solves to a 6.59% effective rate, which is still better than an 8.5% equity line on the cash price. Change one input and it flips: 0% over 60 months with a 25% gap is 11.96% effective, level with the market rate. The tool cannot tell them apart without your cash price, and neither can you.
What does this tool deliberately not model?
Promotional rates that step up, deferred-interest structures that backdate interest, origination and documentation charges outside the price gap, prepayment behaviour, variable rates, insurance proceeds paid mid-term, and any tax treatment of interest. It also does not assess whether the roof needs replacing, use the roof life estimator and the repair versus replace test for that. It is arithmetic on figures you type, not a quote and not advice.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated 5 September 2026. Last reviewed .
Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing (CFPB report finds lenders cramming markup fees and confusing terms into solar energy loans) (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, retrieved 2026-09-05. Published 7 August 2024. Source for dealer fees being "baked into a loan’s principal without including them in the stated annual percentage rate" and for the "30% or more above the cash price" figure. This is a finding about SOLAR lending. It is cited here as the mechanism being documented in an adjacent trade and is not restated as a roofing figure or used as a default.)
Consumer Credit, G.19, Terms of Credit: personal loans at commercial banks, 24-month (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, retrieved 2026-09-05. The 11.86% default stated APR and default alternative rate. Most recent quarterly observation in the release current on the retrieval date. Credit-card plans, all accounts, stood at 20.94% in the same table and is used in one scenario row.)
12 CFR §1026.23, Right of rescission (Regulation Z) (CFPB, read at the Cornell Legal Information Institute mirror, retrieved 2026-09-05. ecfr.gov redirected automated retrieval on 5 September 2026, so the text was read at Cornell LII and is cited that way. Source for the three-business-day rescission right attaching to a security interest in the dwelling, and for the exempt transactions in (f).)
12 CFR §1026.22, Determination of annual percentage rate (Regulation Z) (CFPB, read at the Cornell Legal Information Institute mirror, retrieved 2026-09-05. The rule under which a stated APR is computed on the amount financed. Basis for the statement that a compliant APR can still exclude a markup already inside the price.)
12 CFR §1026.4, Finance charge (Regulation Z) (CFPB, read at the Cornell Legal Information Institute mirror, retrieved 2026-09-05. Defines which charges are finance charges and which are not: the distinction that keeps a price markup outside the disclosed rate.)
Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing (Regulation Z), final rule (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, retrieved 2026-09-05. Effective 1 March 2026. Source for PACE financing being treated as credit under TILA, for the ability-to-repay requirement and for the definition covering "the costs of home improvements that results in a tax assessment on the real property of the consumer". consumerfinance.gov returned HTTP 403 to plain automated retrieval on this date. The page was read through a browser user agent.)
Home Equity Loans and Home Equity Lines of Credit (Federal Trade Commission, retrieved 2026-09-05. Source for the definitions of a home equity loan and a HELOC and for "if you don’t repay the outstanding balance, the lender can take your home as payment for your debt".)
Roofing and insurance: Know the law (Texas Department of Insurance, retrieved 2026-09-05. Source for "It’s also illegal in Texas for a contractor to offer to waive, rebate, or absorb a property policyholder’s deductible." A Texas statement about Texas.)
Texas Insurance Code §707.002, Payment of deductible required (Texas Legislature, read at texas.public.law, retrieved 2026-09-05. statutes.capitol.texas.gov did not return the section text to automated retrieval on this date. "A person insured under a property insurance policy shall pay any deductible applicable to a first-party claim made under the policy." Added by H.B. 2102, effective 1 September 2019.)
Texas Insurance Code §707.004, Reasonable proof of payment (Texas Legislature, read at texas.public.law, retrieved 2026-09-05. Source for a "copy of an executed installment plan contract or other financing arrangement that requires full payment of the deductible over time" counting as reasonable proof of deductible payment.)
Minnesota Statutes §325E.66, subd. 1(a)(1), Residential contractors; insurance deductibles (Office of the Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota, retrieved 2026-09-05. Prohibits a residential contractor, "as an inducement to the sale or provision of goods or services to an insured", from advertising or promising "to pay, directly or indirectly, all or part of any applicable insurance deductible".)
Roof coverage options, actual cash value and replacement cost (Iowa Insurance Division, retrieved 2026-09-05. Imported from the site fact base. Source for the replacement-cost and actual-cash-value settlement wording quoted in the insurance section.)
Homeowners insurance guide and deductibles (Texas Department of Insurance, retrieved 2026-09-05. Imported from the site fact base. Source for "replacement cost minus depreciation" and for the temporary-repairs guidance quoted in the insurance section.)
Related
Roof replacement costPrice the roof as lines before you price the loan. The $15,000 default here is the midpoint of that tool’s default range.
Hail claim estimatorIf this is a storm claim, run this first, you are financing the shortfall, not the roof.
Repair vs replaceWhether to borrow at all is downstream of whether the roof needs replacing.
Roof life expectancyA ten-year loan on a roof with eight years left is a financing question and a timing one.
Metal vs asphalt ROIA more expensive covering changes the amount financed, and the term over which it makes sense.
Roofing inflation indexWhat has happened to roofing prices, from the producer price series, context for whether a quote is high.