Roofing sales is one of the highest-variance jobs in the American economy, and one of the least documented. A rep can earn $28,000 or $280,000 doing what is nominally the same work, and there is almost no published data a contractor can use to build a pay plan or a rep can use to judge an offer. What exists is anecdote: a number somebody heard at a conference, a screenshot of one big commission check, a recruiting ad promising six figures with no context.
This report replaces that with numbers. It draws on a survey of 247 roofing companies running insurance restoration work and tracked production and pay data from 340+ sales reps across the HailMate network during 2025. We report earnings as percentiles rather than averages throughout, because a single average in a field this skewed is actively misleading — one rep with a monster year drags the mean somewhere no real person lives.
Use it to build a pay plan you can defend, or to judge one you have been offered. Every structure below has a version that works and a version that quietly transfers risk onto the rep, and the difference is usually in a detail nobody reads until the first dispute.
What Reps Actually Earn
Total compensation, including commission, base, draw, bonuses and overrides, for reps who worked a full 12 months in 2025.
| Percentile | Total 2025 compensation |
|---|---|
| 10th | $19,400 |
| 25th | $33,800 |
| 50th (median) | $78,200 |
| 75th | $148,600 |
| 90th | $241,000 |
| 95th | $318,500 |
The distribution is not a bell curve — it is a long tail with a crowded floor. The gap between the median and the 90th percentile is roughly $163,000, which is larger than the entire earnings of every rep below the 75th percentile. That shape is the honest answer to "can you make six figures in roofing sales?" Yes, and about one rep in four does.
It also explains why recruiting in this industry is so noisy. A company advertising "$150K+ potential" is quoting a real number from its own roster; it is simply the 75th percentile, and the ad rarely mentions that the 25th percentile of the same roster earned $33,800. For the homeowner-facing version of this question see how much do roofing sales reps make.
Earnings by Tenure
Segmenting by time in the seat removes most of the mystery from that spread.
| Tenure | Median comp | 75th percentile | Share of roster |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–6 months | $21,300 | $39,800 | 31% |
| 6–12 months | $52,700 | $88,400 | 18% |
| 1–2 years | $84,900 | $142,000 | 22% |
| 2–5 years | $121,400 | $196,700 | 21% |
| 5+ years | $158,800 | $268,000 | 8% |
A rep past their second year earns roughly six times a rookie. That is not a talent gradient — it is compounding: a referral base, a repaired reputation in worked neighborhoods, carrier relationships, and the simple fact that a veteran knows which doors not to waste time on. The activity data behind it is in Roofing Sales Benchmarks 2026.
Notice the roster shares. Nearly a third of the industry's sales seats are occupied by someone in their first six months — the tenure band that earns the least and produces the least. That single row is the industry's central operational problem, and everything in the turnover section below follows from it.
How Reps Get Paid
| Structure | Share of reps | Median comp | First-year retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight commission, no base | 58% | $61,400 | 41% |
| Recoverable draw against commission | 22% | $88,900 | 58% |
| Base salary + commission | 12% | $104,200 | 71% |
| Salary + bonus | 8% | $76,500 | 79% |
Two patterns run in opposite directions. Median pay rises with the amount of guaranteed money, which is counterintuitive if you believe commission-only maximizes hunger. And retention rises far faster than pay does — a base-plus-commission rep is 30 points more likely to still be there at twelve months than a straight-commission rep.
The likely mechanism is selection, not motivation. Straight commission filters out exactly the candidates who cannot afford a four-month ramp without income, which in practice means it filters out most people with a mortgage and children — a group that also happens to be good at this job. A company on straight commission is not choosing the hungriest reps; it is choosing the ones who can absorb the risk.
A worked example
Take a rep producing $1.6M in signed contract value annually, paid four ways on realistic terms.
| Structure | Terms | Rep earns | Company cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight commission | 10% of gross | $160,000 | $160,000 |
| Draw | $3,000/mo recoverable, 10% gross | $160,000 | $160,000 |
| Base + commission | $36,000 base, 7% gross | $148,000 | $148,000 |
| Salary + bonus | $70,000 + 4% over quota | $118,400 | $118,400 |
At full production, the structures converge — the company pays roughly the same for the same result. The structures differ almost entirely in who absorbs a bad quarter. That is the real design question in a pay plan, and answering it honestly is more useful than benchmarking a percentage.
The Commission Basis Nobody Reads
The percentage is the headline. The basis is the money.
| Commission basis | Share of companies | Typical rate | Effective rate on a $14,600 job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross contract value | 44% | 8–12% | ~$1,460 at 10% |
| Gross profit (contract minus job cost) | 38% | 30–50% | ~$1,540 at 40% |
| Net profit (after allocated overhead) | 11% | 45–60% | ~$1,120 at 50% |
| Flat per-job amount | 7% | $900–$1,600 | ~$1,200 |
On a normal job these land within a few hundred dollars of each other, which is why the difference goes unnoticed at hire. They diverge violently on abnormal jobs — a steep, complex, high-material roof pays a gross-value rep well and a net-profit rep almost nothing, while an easy walkable ranch does the reverse.
What gets deducted before commission
Where profit-based plans go wrong is the deduction list.
| Deduction | Share of profit-based plans applying it |
|---|---|
| Material cost | 100% |
| Labor / subcontractor cost | 98% |
| Permits and disposal | 81% |
| Credit card and financing fees | 54% |
| Warranty and callback reserve | 39% |
| Marketing or lead cost allocation | 34% |
| General overhead allocation | 22% |
The bottom three rows are where disputes come from. A rep who agreed to "40% of profit" and later discovers a lead-cost allocation and an overhead allocation has effectively agreed to a rate they never saw. Whichever basis you choose, write the deduction list into the agreement and show it on every commission statement — the accounting behind it is covered in roofing job costing and real margin and automated in job costing and commission tracking.
1099 vs. W-2
| Classification | Share of reps | Median comp | Provides training | Assigns territory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1099 independent contractor | 62% | $71,300 | 74% | 68% |
| W-2 employee | 38% | $92,800 | 96% | 91% |
The two right-hand columns are the uncomfortable part. Three quarters of companies classifying reps as independent contractors also train them, and two thirds assign their territory — both of which are exercises of control over how the work gets done, which is the axis regulators actually test. The IRS guidance on worker classification is the starting point, and a written agreement saying "independent contractor" carries very little weight against the behavioral facts.
We are not offering legal advice and this is not a legal analysis. But the gap between what these companies say and what they do is wide enough that it belongs in any honest report on how this industry pays people.
Ramp: The First 90 Days
| Milestone | Median | Top-quartile companies |
|---|---|---|
| First door knocked | Day 3 | Day 1 |
| First inspection performed | Day 12 | Day 5 |
| First signed contract | Day 31 | Day 14 |
| First commission paid | Day 68 | Day 41 |
| Break-even vs. fully loaded cost | Month 5 | Month 3 |
The line to watch is "first commission paid." A straight-commission rep who signs on day 31 and gets paid on day 68 has gone more than two months without income — which is why 44% of new hires in our data left before month six, and why the largest single cluster of those departures fell between weeks 6 and 10.
Companies that shortened this gap did it structurally, not motivationally: paying a portion of commission at contract signature rather than at final collection, or bridging with a recoverable draw. The training practices behind the top-quartile column are in how to train new roofing canvassers and how to build a high-performing roofing sales team.
Turnover, and What It Costs
| Measure | Median | Top quartile |
|---|---|---|
| First-year rep turnover | 61% | 34% |
| Reps who never close a job | 27% | 11% |
| Median tenure at departure | 4.2 months | 7.9 months |
| Fully loaded cost per failed hire | $11,800 | — |
A worked example
A 10-rep company hiring to stay level at 61% turnover:
| Line | Figure |
|---|---|
| Reps hired per year to hold headcount at 10 | 16 |
| Failed hires (left inside 12 months) | 10 |
| Cost per failed hire | $11,800 |
| Annual cost of turnover | $118,000 |
| Same company at 34% turnover | $65,000 |
| Difference | $53,000/yr |
That $53,000 is on a 10-rep company — before counting the revenue those seats did not produce while empty, which is the larger number. The full accounting is in the real cost of roofing sales rep turnover.
What the Top-Paying Companies Do Differently
The companies in our data with both above-median rep earnings and above-median retention shared five practices:
- They guarantee something for 90 days. Draw or base — the amount mattered less than its existence.
- They pay on contract, not on collection. Partial commission at signature closed the 68-day income gap.
- They publish the deduction list. Every commission statement shows the math, so nothing is discovered later.
- They track leading activity, not just revenue. Doors and appointments are what a struggling rep can actually fix — see rep performance metrics and rep performance tracking.
- They make production visible. Shared team leaderboards correlated with higher median earnings across every tenure band.
None of these raises the commission rate. They change when money arrives, how it is explained, and whether a rep can see themselves improving — which turns out to matter more than the percentage does.
Methodology
This report combines a 2026 survey of 247 insurance restoration roofing companies with anonymized, aggregated production and compensation data from 340+ sales reps in the HailMate network covering the 2025 calendar year. Earnings figures include commission, base salary, recoverable and non-recoverable draw, bonuses and overrides, and exclude vehicle allowances, benefits and expense reimbursement.
Earnings percentiles include only reps who were active for a full twelve months, so ramp-stage partial years do not depress the distribution; the tenure table reports all reps within each band including partial years, which is why the 0–6 month row is not comparable to the annualized percentile table. Compensation is self-reported by companies and not independently audited. Retention rates are measured from tracked account activity rather than survey response.
The commission-basis and deduction tables are survey-derived. The turnover cost figure is modeled from reported recruiting, onboarding, training, equipment and unrecovered-draw costs, and excludes opportunity cost from vacant seats. Worked examples are illustrative and use the medians stated above. Nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice.
Related Reading
- Roofing Sales Benchmarks 2026 — the production data that drives every earnings number above.
- The Real Cost of Roofing Sales Rep Turnover — the full accounting behind the 61% figure.
- How to Build a High-Performing Roofing Sales Team — the systems the top-paying companies run on.
This report is for informational purposes only and is not legal, tax or accounting advice.