Roof quantities from an address
A takeoff is what every other number on a roofing job leans on. McQueen Roofing measures roof area, squares, pitch, facet layout and waste factor from current aerial imagery for $18 — and tells you plainly which quantities were measured off your roof and which are carried as an allowance.
$18 per measured roof. Released, not spent, if we can't measure it.
How it works
That's the whole input. We pull the aerial imagery ourselves — nothing to upload, no photos, no app, no drone.
You see the image with a crosshair on the roof we're about to take off, and you move it if we've picked the detached garage. A person looking at their own job catches that instantly; no algorithm does.
Payment sits here, before the measurement, so nothing is spent on a roof you decided not to take off. Our measurement pipeline reads each roof facet's extent and slope off current imagery, then derives surface area, squares, predominant pitch, facet count, a complexity reading and the waste factor that follows from it.
Squares before and after waste, per-facet area and slope, predominant pitch, facet count, complexity and a confidence score — each tagged with whether it was measured, derived, assumed, allowed for, or told to us by you. Export the whole thing as a spreadsheet.
Read this first
Takeoff means different things to different trades, so here is exactly what this one is. Area, pitch, facets, complexity and waste are measured off your roof. The five linear lengths are not, and are carried as a labelled allowance instead — read that before the price, not after.
Three more things no aerial view can see — what's on the roof now, how many layers, and how many vents and pipes — start at typical values, and three quick questions on the report replace them with yours.
What you get
Sloped surface area measured from current aerial imagery, converted to roofing squares — not a footprint, and not a footprint multiplied by a pitch guess.
Area and slope for each roof plane we can resolve, which is what the pitch, complexity and waste readings are all built out of.
The area-weighted mode, not the mean. A big 6/12 hip with three 10/12 dormers averages to a 7/12 that exists nowhere on the building; the mode answers what most of the roof actually is.
Simple, normal or complex, taken from the facet count and the number of pitches covering a meaningful share of the roof — whichever of the two is worse.
10%, 14% or 18% by complexity, applied to give the squares that actually get ordered rather than the theoretical roof area.
One labelled allowance line covering ridge cap, drip edge, starter, step flashing and ridge vent — sized by area and complexity, because the linear lengths behind them are not measured at this tier.
Built from the age and quality of the imagery and how complicated the roof is. A low score says so on the report rather than presenting as certainty.
Every quantity and every line, with what it was based on, so a supplier list or a contractor's quote can be set beside it row for row.
Measured, derived, assumed, allowance, or you told us. Being able to see which is which at a glance is the whole point of the thing.
Who runs takeoffs on it
Contractors
Scoping a lead in person burns an afternoon before you know whether it was worth having. Run a takeoff from the address, anchor every estimator on your team to the same quantities instead of to whoever happened to do the walk, and get a professional itemized number out while the homeowner is still waiting on callbacks.
Get an estimateHomeowners
Squares, pitch and waste factor are what a roofing quote is built on, and you normally never see them. Having your own set — measured off your roof rather than assumed from a national average — is how you tell a thorough bid from an inflated one, and a cheap one from a bid that skipped the underlayment.
Get an estimateIt is the same software and the same $18 either way. There is no separate contractor price, no seat count, and nothing on this page decides which one you are.
The comparison
A manual takeoff still has a place — nothing replaces someone on the roof before a contract is signed or a complex job goes to material order. But for qualification, budgeting and routine re-roofs, waiting on a ladder and a tape measure stopped being necessary.
| Measure | Manual takeoff | McQueen Roofing |
|---|---|---|
| Time per roof | 30–60+ minutes, scheduled around a truck | Under a minute |
| Site visit needed | Usually | No — the address is the whole input |
| Area, pitch and facets | Measured on the roof | Measured from current imagery |
| Ridge, hip, valley, rake and eave | Measured on the roof | Labelled allowance on the $18 · measured on Pro, in build |
| Waste factor | By hand, and usually rounded | By measured complexity — 10%, 14% or 18% |
| Consistency between estimators | Varies with whoever did the walk | The same pipeline every time |
| Best for | Final material order, and structural problems | Qualification and budgeting · material orders on Pro |
Two levels of takeoff
Not every job needs the same precision, and the honest way to offer two tiers is to say what each one measures rather than what each one costs.
Live
Your roof's area, squares, per-facet slope, predominant pitch, facet count, complexity and waste factor, measured from current aerial imagery and exportable as a spreadsheet. Ridge, hip, valley, rake and eave come as one labelled allowance. The fast, defensible set of quantities for qualifying a lead, budgeting a job, or checking a quote.
In build
Takeoff-grade measurement for contractors: every ridge, hip, valley, rake and eave measured individually, a facet diagram, and a report built to order materials against and attach to a formal bid. Start on the $18 takeoff and you'll be first in line when Pro opens.
If we can't measure the roof — no recent imagery, or a building that isn't a house — the $18 is released rather than spent, you keep the credit, and manual entry is free.
A takeoff is the quantity layer — area, squares, pitch, facets and waste factor. An estimate applies material and labor rates to those quantities to produce a cost. McQueen Roofing does both in the same $18 run: the takeoff first, then the priced estimate built on top of it.
Not as measurements, and this is the single most important thing to know before paying. The imagery our pipeline reads gives each roof facet's extent and slope, which is enough for area, pitch and facet count but not for tracing an individual ridge or valley. All five linear measurements — ridge, hip, valley, rake and eave — are carried as one calibrated allowance line for trim, flashing, starter and ridge, sized from roofs of similar area and complexity and labelled as an allowance. Measuring them individually is what the Pro tier adds, and Pro is in build.
Area, pitch, facet count and the complexity and waste factor derived from them are measured off your actual roof rather than assumed from an average house, which is the part most takeoffs get wrong. Every number carries a tag saying whether it was measured, derived, assumed or allowed for, plus a confidence score built from how current and how sharp the imagery is. That is enough to qualify a lead, budget a job, or check a quote — it is not a substitute for the linear takeoff a complex material order needs.
No. Enter the address, confirm we've got the right building, and the quantities come back in under a minute. A physical check is still the right call before finalizing a material order on a complex or irregular roof, and before signing any contract — an aerial view cannot see decking rot or failed flashing.
Yes. Every quantity and every priced line exports as a spreadsheet with the basis tag on each one, and the report itself prints. A contractor-facing takeoff document you can hand a supplier is part of the Pro tier, which is in build.
It is built and priced for asphalt shingle residential re-roofs, the highest-volume job type in U.S. residential roofing. You can tell us the roof is currently wood shake, tile or metal and the tear-off is priced accordingly. Metal, flat and EPDM are next.
Both, at the same $18. Contractors use it to qualify leads and get quantities out the same day; homeowners use the same takeoff to understand what a fair quote should be built on. You do need an account, because the takeoff is saved to it and you can come back to it.
The credit is released rather than consumed. You keep what you paid for, you get manual entry free, and you are not asked to pay again for the roof we failed to measure.
Enter an address and get a measured roofing takeoff in under a minute — area, squares, pitch, facets and waste factor, with every number labelled by where it came from.