How do roofing contractors get paid — and what does it cost?

Roofing contractors are paid in stages tied to the job: a deposit when the proposal is signed (commonly 10–50%, or enough to cover materials — some states cap it by law), an optional progress draw on larger or commercial jobs, and the final balance when the work passes inspection. Residential jobs are paid by the homeowner directly, by a financing lender that pays the contractor and bills the homeowner in installments, or by an insurance carrier plus the homeowner's deductible on a storm claim.

The payment method is shifting from paper to online. A mailed check costs nothing to accept but takes days to arrive and clear and is the single most common reason a final balance is late. Online invoice payments — the customer taps a link and pays by card or straight from a bank account — are confirmed the moment the customer pays and reconcile to the job automatically. Orbit issues branded invoices with deposit and progress schedules, and each one carries a pay link that accepts card and ACH; the payment posts to the job the moment it is made.

Accepting a card payment online costs a roofing contractor 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction at Stripe's standard US rate, which on a $15,306.92 invoice is $444.20. Orbit adds a platform fee of 0.5% of the invoice ($76.53), so the contractor nets $14,786.19 from $15,306.92. Percentage fees are the reason a card is an expensive way to collect a five-figure roofing balance: the fee scales with the invoice, and there is no cap.

Cards still earn their place on deposits and smaller repair invoices, where the dollar cost is modest and the homeowner's convenience closes the sale.

An ACH bank payment costs a roofing contractor 0.8%, capped at $5.00 per transaction at Stripe's standard US rate, so any invoice above $625.00 costs the flat cap of $5.00 to collect. Orbit adds a platform fee of 0.25% of the invoice ($38.27 on $15,306.92), so the contractor nets $15,263.65 — $477.46 more than the same invoice paid by card.

The trade-off is time and certainty: a card payment is confirmed instantly, while an ACH debit takes up to four business days to settle and can still be returned — see below.

A roofing contractor can pass the processing fee to the customer as a surcharge, and Orbit has a one-switch setting for it: the pay page adds Stripe's fee to the customer's total and states it as a separate line before they pay, so the contractor keeps the full invoice amount. With the switch on, the $15,306.92 invoice above becomes $15,764.39 by card (the customer covers the $457.47 fee) or $15,311.92 by ACH; only Orbit's platform fee still comes off the contractor's side, so the contractor nets $15,230.39 on the card payment and $15,268.65 on the ACH payment.

Whether to do it is a state-law and a sales question. Card-network rules and several states cap or prohibit surcharges on credit cards, and a visible fee can sour a homeowner at the moment they are about to pay; many contractors instead price the fee into the job and surcharge only on cards, or simply offer ACH as the free option. Check your state's rules before switching it on.

A card payment made through Orbit is confirmed instantly and Stripe makes the funds available to the contractor about two business days later; an ACH bank payment takes up to four business days to settle before it can be paid out. Stripe then transfers the balance to the contractor's bank account on the account's payout schedule, and a brand-new account waits 7–14 days for its first payout while Stripe verifies the business.

For cash-flow planning that means a card deposit taken on Monday is in the bank by Wednesday, and an ACH final balance authorized on Monday lands late in the week. Both beat a mailed check.

ACH bank payments fail or stall for four reasons: the bank account has to be verified first, the debit can bounce for insufficient funds, the customer can dispute it, and the payment processor limits how much ACH volume a new account can run in a week. Verification is instant when the customer signs in to their bank on the pay page; if they type the account number by hand instead, Stripe sends micro-deposits and the customer has 10 days to confirm them — until they do, the payment shows as pending.

A returned debit reverses the funds after the fact, and an account holder can dispute an ACH debit for up to 60 days, which is why a contractor should not release lien waivers on an ACH payment until it has settled. Weekly ACH limits are the least-known cause: Stripe caps new accounts' ACH volume on a rolling seven-day window and raises the cap on request, and a single large invoice can use most of a week's allowance. When a bank payment is declined at checkout for that reason, the customer can pay by card and the contractor should ask the processor for a higher limit.

Orbit charges no monthly fee for payments — invoicing with card and ACH payments is included on every plan, including the free one — and a per-transaction fee of Stripe's standard rate (2.9% + 30¢ on cards, 0.8%, capped at $5.00 on ACH) plus an Orbit platform fee of 0.5% on card payments and 0.25% on ACH payments. Both fees come out of the contractor's payout; the Orbit fee is never added to the customer's total, and the contractor can choose to pass Stripe's processing fee to the customer.

The figures on this page are generated from the same fee table Orbit's checkout uses, so a change to the fee schedule changes this page with it. Subscription prices are on the pricing page, and what roofing CRM software costs compares them with other vendors.

Stripe's card and ACH rates are its published standard US pricing as read on 21 September 2026. Orbit's platform fees and every worked figure are computed at build time from the constants in Orbit's own payment code rather than typed into this page. The example invoice is the amount of a real commercial roofing invoice paid through Orbit in September 2026, with nothing else about the job or the customer carried over.

Payout timing and dispute windows are Stripe's published figures for US accounts; individual accounts can be faster or slower.