Signed, and then
nothing.

What it tends to cost

The backlog is not the problem. An association index survey found 40% of reroofing contractors reporting a one to two month backlog in early 2026. Being booked out is a good problem.

What happens inside that month is the problem. A homeowner who signed three weeks ago and has heard nothing starts to wonder whether you forgot them, and a nervous homeowner goes and gets a second quote. The second quote is where you lose the job you already sold.

I'll be straight about the numbers here: no public benchmark exists for how many signed roofing jobs cancel. The "over 5% is leaking" line I use is a working hypothesis from our own research, not an industry standard, and I'd rather say so than dress it up.

A better plan

Order materials within two days of signing. It's the cheapest signal that the job is real, and it removes the excuse for the first delay.

Send a message at each stage: ordered, date set, two weeks out, the day before. Four texts over a month is not pestering anyone. It's the difference between a customer who feels handled and one who feels forgotten.

Log a reason on every cancellation. Most shops know their cancellation count vaguely and their cancellation reasons not at all, which means they can't tell whether they're losing jobs to price, to timing, or to silence.

Keep people informed, and never discourage a homeowner from exercising a legal right to cancel. Texas gives them one, and arguing with it is both wrong and bad business.

Check this yourself this week

In your CRM, count jobs signed more than 30 days ago that still have no install date. Then pull 12 months of cancellations and read the reasons, if you have them.

The reasons are the useful half. If they cluster around timing, this is your leak. If they cluster around price, your leak is upstream in the estimate.

The napkin version

Ten minutes with your own numbers, no spreadsheet needed:

Contracts signed last year, times your cancellation rate, times your blended ticket, times your gross margin.

Count a job you didn't sell at gross profit, because you never bought the materials. Count money you already earned at full value.

It'll be rough. That's the point. A rough number you worked out yourself is worth more than a precise one somebody sold you.

What the assessment does differently

The Leak Assessment counts your contracts signed, your real cancellation rate and your blended ticket, and puts a number on the silence. It also reads the cancellation reasons back to you, which is usually the part that changes somebody's mind.

Haven't taken the scorecard yet? It's twelve questions and about three minutes.