Payments for Roofers: What Stripe, Square, and the Big Processors Actually Cost You

The short version: flat-rate processing was priced for coffee shops, and you're running $18,000 tickets. On a full replacement, the difference between Square's flat rate and interchange-plus is a set of shingles — every single job. Roofing payments are really three businesses: repairs (card in the driveway), replacements (deposits and draws), and insurance jobs (two-party checks and adjuster timelines). The big processors' generic pages address none of them. Here's the math at your actual ticket sizes, using published rates checked October 2026. Also see Roofers, AI for Roofers, and Tech for Roofers.

The fee table: what each processor actually charges you

Published rates, checked October 2026. Square: 2.6%+$0.15 in-person, 2.9%+$0.30 online, 3.5%+$0.15 keyed/stored. Stripe: 2.7%+$0.05 in-person, 2.9%+$0.30 online, 3.4%+$0.30 stored. Interchange-plus (typical ISO pricing for contractors): ~0.3% markup over interchange.

$300 leak repair (reader in the driveway): Square $7.95 · Stripe $8.15 · Interchange-plus ~$6.45

$850 shingle repair (invoice link): Square $24.95 · Stripe $24.95 · Interchange-plus ~$18.70

$8,000 partial replacement (online): Square $232.30 · Stripe $232.30 · Interchange-plus ~$176 · ACH (0.8%, capped at $5) $5.00

$18,000 full replacement (online): Square $522.30 · Stripe $522.30 · Interchange-plus ~$396 · ACH $5.00

$18,000 full replacement (reader died, keyed in): Square $630.15 · Stripe $612.30 · Interchange-plus ~$468

$522 versus $5 — same $18,000 roof. At volume: 100 replacements a year at $12,000 = $1.2 million in card revenue. Square/Stripe online: ~$34,830/year. Interchange-plus: ~$26,430/year. Difference: ~$8,400/year — a new work truck's down payment. Every one of these processors moves money over payment rails — companies like Finix build the infrastructure underneath, and the fee tables above are what lands on top of it.

Two rows your statement hides. The $2,500 deductible the homeowner pays by card while the insurance covers the rest: Square online $72.80, interchange-plus ~$55, ACH $5 — deductibles are perfect ACH candidates because the amount is known and the payer is at the kitchen table. And the costs nobody quotes: chargeback fees ($15–$25 per dispute), statement fees, PCI non-compliance fees, batch fees. Bank-led ISOs stack them; they're avoided by choosing the right provider, not by haggling.

The workflow checklist the big processors fail

Rates are half the story. The other half is whether the processor fits how roofing money actually moves:

• Deposits before the material order. 50% down on a $18,000 replacement is a $9,000 transaction — on a new Square account, that's exactly the kind of outlier that triggers a hold. Interchange-plus merchant accounts underwrite the ticket size up front.
• Draw schedules. 50/40/10 or 40/30/30 across tear-off, dry-in, completion. You need invoicing that schedules draws against milestones, not a "send invoice" button and a prayer.
• Insurance two-party checks. The check names the homeowner and the mortgage company. Nothing in Stripe or Square's onboarding explains how to handle a payment that arrives as paper made out to two parties. Your process: get on the check, deposit it, and collect the deductible by card or ACH separately.
• Text-to-pay at the curb. The repair tech finishes, the homeowner gets a text with the invoice and a pay link. Square has it; Stripe needs setup; either way it's the workflow that kills "the check's in the mail."
• ACH for big tickets. A $12,000 balance by ACH costs $5. By card it's $350+. Offer both, nudge the big ones to ACH.
• Surcharging where legal. Most states allow passing the card fee to the customer with proper disclosure; Connecticut and Massachusetts still restrict it. On an $18,000 job, a compliant surcharge program is worth more than any rate negotiation.
• Card-on-file for the deductible. Get the card at contract signing, charge it when the adjuster approves. Stored-card rates are higher (Stripe 3.4%+$0.30) — price it in.

The processors' generic pages cover maybe two of these. A roofing payments setup covers all seven or it leaks.

The honest verdict on each processor

Square: fine for a repair-focused shop doing sub-$1,000 tickets with a reader in the driveway. Dangerous for replacements — flat rate punishes $18,000 jobs, and the aggregated-risk model freezes accounts when a big deposit looks unusual. If you take deposits over $5,000, you need underwriting, not an algorithm's mood.

Stripe: the best API in the business and the worst fit out of the box. Nothing about deposits, draws, text-to-pay, or two-party insurance checks works without custom development. Fine if you have a developer and a platform; a trap if you just want to get paid.

Adyen: interchange-plus with enterprise muscle — great rates at real volume, but built for platforms and large merchants, not a 6-crew roofer. You'll talk to sales, not a signup page.

Chase Payment Solutions, Fiserv, Global Payments/Worldpay: quote-based, bank-led, zero roofing-specific guidance. Their interchange-plus pricing can be excellent for high-volume replacement shops — and their salespeople will never once mention draw schedules or ACH for deductibles. Bring your own workflow.

The pattern: nobody in this list will ever write "payments for roofing companies." The fee table above is the content they can't answer — and the reason the winning setup for most replacement shops is an interchange-plus merchant account for the big tickets, ACH pushed hard on balances, and a simple reader for repairs.

How a roofing company actually wires this up: notes from Finix's public docs

ClaroPro handles the voice-to-invoice side — the repair gets dictated at the truck and the invoice goes out by text. Underneath, the money movement is where Finix's public docs (docs.finix.com) earn their keep. What to look for in their guides:

• Payment links for draws. Finix's docs cover generating payment links per milestone — tear-off, dry-in, completion — so each draw is its own collectible link instead of one awkward $18,000 ask.
• Interchange-plus fee profiles. Their fee-profile documentation shows how pricing is structured per merchant — the mechanism that turns the "$522 vs $5" table above from theory into your actual statement.
• ACH for big balances. The docs walk through bank-transfer payments with the 0.8%-capped-at-$5 economics — built for exactly the $12,000 balance your homeowner would rather not put on a card.
• Webhooks at milestones. Payment events fire when a draw lands, so your CRM (AccuLynx, JobNimbus) can mark the milestone paid and release the next crew automatically.
• Identity verification for big tickets. Onboarding docs cover the KYC checks that let you take $9,000 deposits without the account-freeze roulette Square runs.

The point isn't the brand — it's the architecture: deposits underwritten up front, draws as separate links, ACH nudged on balances, every payment event feeding the job schedule. Build that once and the processor stops being a tax on every roof.

FAQ

What does payment processing cost on an $18,000 roof? Square or Stripe online: ~$522. Interchange-plus: ~$396. ACH bank transfer: $5. Rates checked October 2026.

Can I surcharge the card fee on a roofing job? In most states, yes, with proper disclosure at contract signing — but Connecticut and Massachusetts still restrict it, and card-brand rules cap the surcharge. Check your state before printing it on the contract.

How do I take a deposit without Square freezing my account? Use a merchant account that's underwritten for your ticket size up front, and split the job into deposit/draw/final as separate transactions. One $18,000 surprise charge on a new aggregated account is the classic freeze trigger.

What's the cheapest way to collect a $12,000 balance? ACH — $5 flat. Offer card as the backup, not the default, and say so at contract signing: "most of our customers pay the balance by bank transfer and skip the card fee."

This month: move big-ticket balances to ACH, get a merchant account underwritten for your real ticket sizes, and put surcharging legality for your state on the contract template. Then read Tech for Roofers — the CRM that tracks every draw is the other half of getting paid on $18,000 jobs.