A hailstorm doesn't book itself.
Custom software for roofing companies
Two hundred homeowners enquire in seventy-two hours, half of them are insurance jobs and half are tire-kickers, and there are three out-of-town crews in town outspending you on ads. Roofing doesn't have a steady lead problem. It has a surge problem, and surges are exactly what software handles better than people.
- From $950 for one module
- You own the code and the data
- No contract, cancel any month
Your year isn't a line. It's three spikes.
Most trades get a fairly steady trickle of work with a seasonal bump. Roofing gets storms. A serious hail or wind event drops months of demand into about three days, and what happens in those three days decides a large part of your year.
During a surge, everything that's normally fine becomes the bottleneck. Enquiries arrive while you're on a roof. The office person is already dealing with the last one. And homeowners aren't waiting — they're working down a list, and the out-of-town crews who followed the storm in have staff whose only job is answering.
Then there's the thing nobody outside roofing quite gets: insurance or cash is the most important question you can ask, and asking it early changes everything downstream. An insurance job needs an adjuster date, a claim number and photos. A cash job needs a number. Knowing which one you're dealing with before the truck rolls is worth more than any other single piece of qualification in the trade.
Software is a good fit here for an unglamorous reason: it doesn't get tired on day two of a surge, and it asks the insurance question every single time.
What I'd build first, and why that order.
Roofing's order isn't the generic one. Capture comes first, because that's where the money actually is, and estimate follow-up matters more here than almost anywhere, because a homeowner replacing a roof gets three bids and takes two weeks to decide.
Roofing software, in other words — the parts of it you'd actually use.
An enquiry form that asks the insurance question
Address, roof age, story count, insurance or cash, claim filed or not, and photos from the homeowner's own phone. Every enquiry arrives already qualified, which on a normal Tuesday saves you a drive and on the Thursday after a hailstorm is the difference between forty real leads and forty names.
A lead inbox that survives a surge
One list, sorted by what it is and when it came in, with an instant reply going back so nobody sits wondering whether you got it. When four hundred enquiries land in three days, the inbox is the product.
Job records with the claim attached
Address, adjuster, claim number, photos, scope, the dates. All on one job rather than spread across a phone's camera roll, an email thread and a notebook in the truck.
Estimate follow-up that runs itself
A roof replacement is a five-figure decision. Homeowners collect three quotes and sit on them. A follow-up at two days, a week and two weeks, in your words, recovers work you've already paid to produce.
Review requests at tear-off plus three
Roofing reviews are unusually persuasive, because the customer was nervous and it went fine. Ask a few days after the cleanup, every time, and you build the thing storm chasers can't fake: a local history.
What I wouldn't build. The inspection itself, the adjuster conversation, or anything that puts a number in front of a homeowner without you seeing the roof. A price said out loud becomes a promise, and roofing prices depend on what's under the shingles.
Start with one module.
One thing, built properly, for $950. Two or three that only make sense together, $1,950. Everything connected, from $2,995. Each step is a decision you make once the one before it has earned it, and stopping at the first is a normal outcome.
Half up front to book, half on launch, agreed in writing before anything starts. If you want me keeping it running afterwards that's $150/month and it cancels any month with no fee. If you don't, you still own it.
Judge it on what I've built.
The software I run my own businesses on. Every card says what it is, so you can see the standard rather than take my word for it.
The software
A lead tracker, an SEO tool that writes branded PDF reports, a desktop file organizer, a Discord bot, a plugin storefront. All mine, all working, none of them a contractor's.
No contractor example yet
I would rather say that than show you somebody else's work or a mock-up dressed as a job. What is on the work page is real and labeled, and the free homepage is there so you can see the standard applied to your own business before you pay for anything.
Different trade, different order.
The build order isn't the same across trades, and the pages say why rather than swapping a noun.
HVAC
In January, a no-heat call isn't a service call.
Plumbing
Four different jobs, one enquiry form.
Electrical
A dead outlet and a panel upgrade arrive the same way.
Remodeling
Your sales cycle is months. Your follow-up is two emails.
All contractors
The problem every trade has in common, and the three builds that fix most of it.
Tell me what you're paying for.
Send me your monthly software list and I'll write back with what each tool does, what's worth replacing, and the one thing I'd build first with a fixed price on it.