About PlainTotal

Search for what a new roof costs and you will find two kinds of page. One is a national average with no working shown, which is useless because roofing labor varies by 60% between states. The other is a form that wants your phone number so contractors can call you, which is not a calculator at all.

PlainTotal is the third thing: 35 calculators that take the inputs a homeowner actually has, price them against published federal data for their state, and show every line, factor, and assumption that produced the answer.

• Real regional data. Bureau of Labor Statistics wages for the specific trade in your state, not a national blend. Energy Information Administration electricity prices. NOAA climate data.
• A range, with a confidence level. Single-number estimates imply a precision nobody has. Every result shows low, typical, and high, and says how confident it is and why.
• Visible assumptions. Where no agency publishes what we need, the figure is labelled an assumption on the result itself rather than blended invisibly into the total.
• No data collection. Calculations run in your browser. There is no account, no email capture, and no lead form. The most specific thing we ever ask for is an optional ZIP code.

Advertising, and nothing else. We do not sell leads, take commissions, accept payment for favourable treatment, or run affiliate links inside calculator results. If that ever changes it will be disclosed on the advertising disclosure page before it ships, not after.

Advertising has no influence on any number this site produces. The calculation engine has no knowledge of advertisers, and results are identical whether or not an ad loads — including when you are running a content blocker, which we neither detect nor discourage.

It is not a quote. It is not professional advice. It cannot see your roof deck, your panel, your soil, or the thing your contractor will find on day two. For anything structural, electrical, plumbing, or mechanical, get a licensed professional to look at the actual house.

The right way to use these numbers is to walk into a quote conversation knowing roughly what the job should cost and which factors drive it — so you can tell a fair bid from an unfair one and ask better questions.

If a figure looks wrong, we want to hear about it — especially from people who do this work. See report incorrect data, or read the methodology first to see exactly how a number was built.