Why Good, Better, Best closes more jobs

One price invites one question: yes or no. Three prices change it to which one — and that is a question the homeowner is much more willing to answer.

What actually changes between tiers

Far less than people assume. On a roof, the tear-off is the tear-off:

Two lines move. Everything else is shared. That is the sentence to say out loud on the kitchen table: "the tear-off, the labor and the flashing don't change. You're choosing the shingle." It makes the decision small, and a small decision gets made today instead of next week.

Why it's cheap to offer

Because the tiers barely differ. The base lines — labor, tear-off, flashing, edge metal, boots — are identical in all three; only the shingle and the underlayment change. You aren't building three estimates, you're changing a line or two.

Without that structure, three options means three times the estimating work, which is exactly why most contractors quote one price and hope.

Building the tiers

1. Build the Good package with the full recipe — labor, tear-off, flashing, edge metal and boots, plus the entry-grade shingle and underlayment.
2. Build Better and Best the same way, changing only the graded lines — usually just the shingle and the underlayment, pointed at a higher grade in your price book. The base stays identical across all three.
3. Present all three. Let the customer choose and sign on the spot.

Two things not to do

Don't make Good bad. If the cheapest option is one you'd be embarrassed to install, you're not offering a choice, you're running a decoy — and homeowners can tell. Every tier should be a roof you'd stand behind.

Don't itemise to the customer. The tier shows scope and one price. Line-by-line pricing invites a negotiation over the cost of a bundle of shingles, which is a conversation nobody wins.

Start with how packages work if the base-plus-tier split isn't clear yet — it's the piece that makes all of this take minutes instead of an evening.