Measure the footage
Gutters are priced on the roof edges that drain off the house. Measure each of those edges and add them up. Leave out edges that drain onto another roof, such as an upper roof that sheds onto a porch roof below. High upper edges that drain straight to the ground still count.
Keep runs on a lower roof separate. A porch or garage roof on a two-story house is a story lower, so it's quicker to reach and its downspouts are shorter. Pricing it at the lower story rate keeps the bid fair.
The sample house in this guide is a one-story home with a cross-gable roof. Measured Bid found 118 ft of gutter from aerial roof data, in 4 runs of 30, 20, 49, 20 ft.
Build a per-foot rate
A per-foot rate has to cover four things: the material that goes on the house, your crew's time, your overhead and your profit.
Material per foot is everything that goes up with the gutter: coil, hangers, sealant, miters and end caps. Add up a normal job's material and divide it by that job's footage.
Labor per foot is your crew's cost per hour divided by the feet they hang per hour. Use loaded cost: wages plus payroll taxes, workers' comp and insurance. For a reference point, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median wage of $29.71 an hour for sheet metal workers in May 2025, and it publishes wages by metro area. Time your own crew over a few jobs. Count setup, ladder moves and cleanup, and not only the minutes spent hanging gutter.
Overhead is the cost of running the company: trucks, the office, insurance, marketing and the time spent selling. Profit is what's left after that. Take both as a share of the price.
Those example inputs land on $10.00 a foot, the one-story gutter rate Measured Bid uses as a sample. Your inputs will land somewhere else. That is the point: the rate should come from your costs.
Add a rate for each story
Higher gutters take longer. The crew needs taller ladders or staging, moves them more often and works slower at height. OSHA requires fall protection for residential construction work 6 feet or more above a lower level, and that adds setup time on every two-story job.
Measured Bid's sample rates add 20% for two stories and 50% for three or more. Start from your one-story rate and time a few two-story jobs to find your own step.
| Stories | Seamless gutters | Gutter guards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10.00 | $15.00 |
| 2 | $12.00 | $18.00 |
| 3+ | $15.00 | $22.00 |
Count the downspouts
Price downspouts per downspout or per foot. Some contractors charge a set price for each downspout by story, usually a little less when it goes up with new gutters than on a downspout-only job. Either way, start with the count. If you price by the foot, the drop length decides the footage.
A count rule works for most bids: at least one downspout on each separate gutter, with one for every set number of feet or part of it and a minimum per job. The sample rule counts one per 35 ft or part of it on each separate gutter, and at least 2 per house. Each drop is about 10 feet per story plus 2 feet for elbows and the extension.
The same house at two stories would need 110 ft of downspout. At a sample rate of $9.00 a foot, that difference alone is $450.00. A set price per downspout handles the same thing with a higher price for each story.
Sizing is a separate question from counting. Gutter and downspout size depend on roof area and how hard it rains where you work. SMACNA's Architectural Sheet Metal Manual has the method, and SMACNA's free gutter and downspout sizing calculator applies it.
Guards, removal and steep roofs
For maintenance work, use the gutter cleaning pricing guide to build a separate rate from crew time.
Gutter guards
Price guards per foot on the same footage as the gutters, with their own story rates. On a new-gutter job they cover the new runs. On a guards-only job they go on the existing gutters, so check that those gutters are sound before you quote.
Removing old gutters
Price tear-off per foot. It covers taking the old gutters down, hauling them away and disposal. The sample rate is $2.00 a foot.
Steep roofs
Steep roofs slow the crew even though the gutter hangs at the eave. Measured Bid adds a percent only to gutters and guards on roof sections over a pitch you pick. The sample adds 15% over 8/12.
Corners and returns
Roofs with many planes have more corners, miters and returns. Build them into your material per foot, or add an allowance on complex roofs. Measured Bid adds a small footage allowance when a roof has more than 6 guttered planes.
Set a job minimum
Every job has a fixed cost before the first foot goes up: the drive, loading, setup and cleanup. A minimum makes sure small jobs cover it. Set it near the price of the smallest job you'd take on a normal day.
Give guards-only jobs a separate minimum. They are often short add-ons. A 40 ft guards-only job at the sample rate of $15.00 a foot comes to $600.00. With the sample guards-only minimum of $800.00, the price is $800.00.
Worked example
Here is the sample house as a new-gutter job with guards, one story, with the old gutters removed, at the sample rates.
Sierra Gutter Co.
(916) 555-0100
Gutter estimate
No. 1042
- Stories
- 1 story
- Job type
- New gutters + guards
- Steeper than 8/12
- No
| Item | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seamless gutters | 118 ft | $10.00 / ft | $1,180.00 |
| Gutter guards | 118 ft | $15.00 / ft | $1,770.00 |
| Downspouts | 60 ft | $9.00 / ft | $540.00 |
| Remove old gutters | 118 ft | $2.00 / ft | $236.00 |
The lines add up to $3,726.00. In Measured Bid, the homeowner sees a range instead of one number, and the range widens when the roof data is less clear. For this house the homeowner sees $3,175 to $4,275, and your team sees the line items above.
Check your rates against won jobs
A rate is a guess until jobs come back. After each job, compare the footage you bid with the footage you installed, and the hours you planned with the hours the crew took. If one input is off on job after job, fix that input and leave the others alone.
Watch your close rate too. If you win nearly every bid, your rate may be low. If you lose most bids on two-story homes, look at your story step first.
Measured Bid's range accuracy report compares the sold price of won jobs with the range the homeowner saw, so you can tell whether your ranges are too tight or too wide.