Last updated October 31, 2026

How much to charge for siding work in 2026

The hourly rate a one-truck siding contractor needs to charge, built from what siding contractors actually earn, a price list for 13 common jobs with the arithmetic shown, what moves the number, and the mistakes that cost the most.

Short answer: a one-truck siding business that pays its owner what the median carpenter earns, carries normal overhead, and keeps a 20 percent margin needs about $80 an hour. To pay yourself like the top quarter of siding contractors, charge about $95. Top ten percent, $110. Below $70 you are subsidizing the customer with your own wages. Every number on this page is built from published wage data and a model you can see, and the price list further down uses the $95 rate.

Siding is priced by the square, 100 square feet of wall, like roofing, and the labor per square varies more than in any other exterior trade: vinyl goes up fast, fiber cement is slow, heavy and needs cutting with dust control, and wood and engineered wood are in between. The product decides the hours, and the bid has to price the product the customer picked. The BLS puts siding installers with carpenters, and that wage is the right floor.

Siding money is in the details the square-foot number hides: tear-off and disposal of the old siding, house wrap and flashing, trim at every window, door and corner, soffit and fascia, and the rot that is under the old siding somewhere. A bid that lists them wins against the per-square price that leaves them for a change order.

What siding contractors earn, and what that means for your rate

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 670,090 people working as carpenters in its May 2025 survey and published what they are paid. That is the wage an employer pays an employee, which is the floor for what an owner-operator should pay themselves. A rate is built on top of it: the hidden cost of an hour of labor, the overhead of running a truck, the hours you cannot bill, and a margin. The model here uses a 22% labor load for payroll taxes, workers comp and the liability share, $32,000 a year of overhead for the truck, insurance, phone, software, tools and licenses, 1,100 billable hours a year, and a 20% margin. Change any input and the rate moves; the hourly rate calculator runs it with your numbers.

If you pay yourself like the	BLS wage	Loaded	Overhead per hour	Rate to charge
Bottom quarter	$23	$28	$29	$70
Median	$29	$36	$29	$80
Top quarter	$37	$45	$29	$95
Top ten percent	$48	$59	$29	$110

Rate = (wage × 1.22 + $32,000 ÷ 1,100) ÷ (1 − 0.2), rounded to $5. Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, carpenters, national.

The $32,000 overhead covers a truck, trailer, scaffolding or pump jacks, a siding brake, saws with dust collection for fiber cement, and insurance. Siding product prices moved with building materials through 2025 and are quoted from this week's supplier price. The rate is per person; a siding crew is two or three. Trim and accessories are often 30 to 40 percent of the material cost and are priced per foot.

A siding price list, with the math

Flat prices for the jobs siding contractors quote most, built the same way every time: hours at the $95 rate, plus materials at cost with a 30 percent markup, rounded to $5. The hours and material costs are example inputs for a typical job in a typical market, stated so you can swap in your own. A job with a crew of two doubles the labor line. Per-square prices are installed on a one-story house with normal access, over house wrap, with standard J-channel or trim. Tear-off, trim, soffit and fascia are separate lines. Crew labor is shown as total person-hours.

Job	Labor	Materials at cost	Price	What it assumes
Vinyl siding, per square	3.5 h	$180	$565	Mid-grade 0.044 in. panel, starter, J-channel
Fiber cement lap siding, per square	7 h	$320	$1,080	Primed, blind-nailed, caulked; paint extra
Engineered wood lap siding, per square	5.5 h	$300	$915	Primed; paint extra
Cedar lap or shingle siding, per square	8 h	$520	$1,435	Stain or paint extra
Tear off old siding and haul, per square	1.2 h	$25	$145	One layer; dump fee in material
House wrap and taping, per square	0.4 h	$22	$65	Over sheathing
Window and door trim, per linear foot	0.12 h	$3	$15	Vinyl or fiber cement trim
Corner trim, per linear foot	0.1 h	$4	$15	Outside corners
Soffit, vented, per linear foot of eave	0.15 h	$5	$20	12 to 24 in. overhang
Fascia wrap, aluminum, per linear foot	0.1 h	$3	$15	Over existing fascia
Sheathing replacement, per 4x8 sheet	1 h	$48	$155	Found at tear-off, priced per sheet
Second-story surcharge, per square	1 h	none	$95	Scaffolding or pump jacks
Paint fiber cement or wood siding, per square	1.5 h	$45	$200	Two coats

Price = hours × $95 + materials × 1.3. Trip or diagnostic fees, permits and disposal are extra lines.

This is a sample. The free price book builder prices the full siding book, 30 jobs, with your own wage, overhead and margin, and gives you the PDF for the truck and the spreadsheet that keeps the formulas.

What moves the price

Product. Vinyl is half the hours of fiber cement. Quote the product named, and if the customer is deciding, show both as options with the same tear-off and trim.
Trim and openings. A house with twenty windows and three doors has 400 feet of trim. Count the openings and the corners; it is a third of the job.
What is under it. Rotten sheathing and missing wrap are found at tear-off. A per-sheet line, with the count set on the day, is on every siding bid that does not end in an argument.
Height. Second-story walls need scaffolding or pump jacks and the hours go up. Per-square surcharge.
Paint. Fiber cement and wood need paint, by you or by others. Say which, and price it if it is you.

Hourly, flat rate, or by the unit

Per square by product, with tear-off, wrap, trim per foot, soffit and fascia per foot, and the second-story surcharge as separate lines. Sheathing per sheet with the count set at tear-off. The customer sees why fiber cement is more than vinyl and where the trim money goes.

Never hourly. A deposit that covers the siding order, usually a third to a half, with the bid expiring in 14 days because product prices move. Progress payment at tear-off complete on big jobs, balance at the last piece of trim.

A worked siding bid

A 1,800 square foot one-story house, about 18 squares of wall, old vinyl off, new fiber cement lap, 16 windows and 2 doors, soffit and fascia wrap on 160 feet of eave. Tear-off: 18 at 1.2 hours and $25. Wrap: 18 at 0.4 and $22. Siding: 18 at 7 hours and $320. Trim: about 300 feet at 0.12 and $3.20; corners 60 feet at 0.1 and $4. Soffit 160 at 0.15 and $4.50; fascia 160 at 0.1 and $2.50. Paint as an option. About 230 person-hours at the top-quarter rate from the table, a crew of three for about ten days. Materials marked up 25 percent. Sheathing per sheet. A third down.

Most markets see $12 to $20 per square foot of wall for fiber cement installed with trim, and the itemized bid lands there with every piece visible. The sample siding estimate shows the finished bid.

The pricing mistakes that cost the most

Pricing fiber cement at vinyl hours because the per-square material price looked similar.
Trim guessed instead of counted. Twenty windows is a week of trim.
No sheathing line, and a wall of rot behind the old vinyl.
Not saying who paints. Primed fiber cement on a house with no paint plan is a complaint in six months.

Writing the price into a bid that gets signed

The number is half the job. The other half is a bid the customer can say yes to from their phone: the scope in lines, one price, the deposit and payment terms, the warranty, a date it expires, and a signature. The free siding estimate template is laid out that way in PDF, Word and Excel, and How to bid siding jobs covers the scope lines that keep you out of arguments. If you want the typing done for you, BidWriter Pro turns your notes into a clean bid your customer signs on their phone, with the deposit paid by card. $29 a month, 30 days free.

Sources and method

Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Carpenters, national percentile hourly wages and employment.
Also: Construction laborers, median $23 an hour, 1,096,780 employed.
Rate model: labor load 1.22, overhead $32,000 a year, 1,100 billable hours, 20% margin. Hours and material costs in the price list are example inputs, not survey data. Prices are examples, not advice for your market.

Questions contractors ask

How much do siding contractors charge per square in 2026?

Vinyl $450 to $800 per square installed, fiber cement $900 to $1,600, cedar $1,200 to $2,000, with tear-off, trim, soffit and fascia as separate lines. Built from BLS wages, a one-truck siding contractor needs about $80 an hour per person at the median wage and $95 to earn like the top quarter.

How much should I charge for tear-off?

Per square, about 1.2 hours plus the dump fee, commonly $100 to $200 a square for one layer of vinyl or wood, more for asbestos-era cement shingles which need a licensed abatement contractor.

How do I price siding trim?

Per linear foot for window and door trim and corners, counted from the openings on the house. It is often a third of the labor and should be its own line.

Should siding be priced per square foot or per square?

Per square, 100 square feet, is the trade's unit and the customer can divide by 100. Either works; what matters is that tear-off, trim and height are separate.

What deposit should a siding contractor take?

A third to a half to cover the product order, with a 14-day expiration on the bid since siding prices move, and a progress payment at tear-off on bigger jobs.

Write a siding bid from your notes

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