Door knocking vs direct mail comes down to what each booked roof inspection costs you, in cash and in hours. In the worked example below, a canvasser paid around the national median wage books an inspection for about $112 of labor in a normal week and about $27 in the week after a hail storm, while a $1.00 letter with a 0.5% response rate comes to about $267 per inspection but uses no knocking hours.
So with inputs like these, knocking wins on cash when you have people free and dense streets to work, and mail wins when hours, reach or local rules are the limit. Below are both calculations with inputs you can swap for your own, a break-even rule, and the permit rules to check before anyone knocks.
What does a door-knocked inspection cost?
Start with what an hour of knocking costs. The median wage for door-to-door sales workers was $19.89 an hour in 2025, according to BLS wage data published by O*NET OnLine. Wages are only part of what an employee costs: in June 2026, wages made up 70% of total compensation for private industry workers, per the BLS employer costs release of September 9, 2026. Dividing $19.89 by 0.70 gives about $28 an hour, before mileage.
Next, how many conversations an hour produces. There is no independent, published benchmark for roofing canvassers. The best-documented numbers come from political canvassing: in six door-to-door field experiments by Yale researchers, canvassers talked with about 5 to 8 people an hour and reached about 3 in 10 of the people they set out to reach. That study is from 2003 and covers voters, not roofs, so treat it as a sanity check rather than a benchmark. The example below sits inside that range.
| Knocking input | Normal week | Week after a hail storm | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost of one rep hour | $28 | $28 | BLS median wage plus benefits |
| Doors knocked per hour | 25 | 25 | Example input |
| Doors where someone talks with you | 1 in 4 (about 6 talks an hour) | 1 in 4 (about 6 talks an hour) | Example input, in line with the Yale range |
| Talks that book an inspection | 1 in 25 | 1 in 6 | Example input |
| Knocking hours per inspection | 4 | About 1 | Calculated |
| Labor cost per inspection | $112 | About $27 | Calculated |
The swing comes almost entirely from one input: how many conversations turn into an inspection. After hail, homeowners have a reason to say yes; in a normal week most don't. Track your own reps' doors, conversations and inspections for a few weeks and replace the example inputs. If you pay reps by commission or per appointment instead of by the hour, the cash cost moves into that payment, but the hours per inspection still tell you how many inspections one rep can book in a week.
What does a mailed inspection cost?
Mail works the other way around: you pay for every home up front, and the cost per inspection depends on how many homeowners respond. Postage alone for a single metered First-Class letter is $0.78 under the USPS price list effective October 4, 2026. Presorted mail costs less per piece, and printing adds to it. Our post on cost per job for direct mail breaks down the per-piece side. The example below uses $1.00 per home, all in.
| Mail input | Example | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per home mailed, all in | $1.00 | Example input |
| Homes that call, text or scan | 1 in 200 (0.5%) | Example input |
| Responses that book an inspection | 3 in 4 | Example input |
| Homes mailed per inspection | About 267 | Calculated |
| Cost per inspection | About $267 | Calculated |
| Knocking hours per inspection | None | Someone still answers calls and runs the inspection |
The response rate does most of the work here. At 1 in 100 instead of 1 in 200, the cost per inspection halves to about $133. Published response rates are thin and mostly not about roofing, as our post on roofing direct mail response rates explains, so measure your own over several mailings rather than trusting one.
The break-even: hours of knocking per inspection
To compare the two on your own numbers, divide mail's cost per inspection by what one hour of knocking costs. With the example inputs, $267 divided by $28 is about 9.5. That gives a simple rule:
- If your reps need fewer than about 9 hours of knocking to book one inspection, knocking is cheaper in cash.
- If they need more, the letter is cheaper.
In the example, a normal week takes 4 hours per inspection and a storm week about 1, so knocking wins on cash in both. A better mail response lowers the line: at 1 in 100, the break-even drops to under 5 hours. A slow neighborhood, where most doors stay shut, pushes the knocking hours up. Run the rule with your own numbers each season, not once.
What the cost per inspection leaves out
Cash per inspection is the right first number, but it is rarely the only limit.
- Hours are finite. At 4 hours per inspection, a rep knocking 20 hours a week books about 5 inspections. Ten more a week means about 40 more knocking hours, which usually means another rep. Mail adds inspections without adding knocking hours, though someone still has to answer the phone and get on the roof.
- Most people aren't reached at the door. Even the Yale canvassers, working from a list, reached only about 3 in 10 of the people they targeted. Homes where nobody answers still get the letter. For those doors, our post on door hangers vs. mailed letters works out when a hanger is the cheaper follow-up.
- Your own time counts. If you knock yourself, put a value on your hour instead of zero, and the break-even rule tells you whether that hour is better spent knocking or selling.
- Close rates may differ by source. An inspection booked by a homeowner who called you can close at a different rate from one booked at the door. No published data compares the two for roofing, so track close rate by lead source in your own CRM.
Permits, no-knock lists and "No Solicitors" signs
Many cities regulate door-to-door solicitation, and the rules change from one city to the next. Two Texas cities show the kind of rules to look for:
- The City of Fate requires a solicitor permit, with an authorization for a background check, fees paid before the permit is issued, and a city-issued photo ID badge. Soliciting is allowed Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., not on Sundays or federal holidays, and not at homes that post a no-solicitation sign.
- West University Place requires commercial solicitors to register, keeps a no-knock list of resident addresses that it gives to all registered solicitors, and lets residents post a "No Solicitors" sign within 12 inches of the doorbell, doorknob or latch instead.
Before a rep knocks in a new city, look up its solicitation ordinance and any no-knock list, and plan for the time a permit takes. Both pages deal with people at the door and say nothing about mail. If your situation isn't clear-cut, check with the city or a qualified attorney.
How knocking and mail work together
Most roofers don't have to pick one. A practical split, based on the numbers above:
- Knock where your hours per inspection are lowest: streets hit by a recent storm, dense neighborhoods and the homes around a job you're already on. Our guide to free hail maps shows how to find the streets a storm hit.
- Mail where knocking is slow or restricted: spread-out areas, gated neighborhoods, cities with no-knock lists or tight hours, and the homes where nobody answered.
- Size the mail to your calendar. If storm inspections already fill your reps' week, send letters in smaller weekly batches so calls don't pile up.
- Track both the same way: doors, hours and inspections for knocking; homes mailed, responses and inspections for mail. Compare cost per inspection and cost per signed job by source every quarter. Our comparison of every roofing lead channel adds bought leads and search ads to the same math.
Where Scoutbound fits
Scoutbound handles the mail side without using your reps' hours. In ZIP codes chosen with you, it checks aerial images and mails a personalized letter only to homes whose roofs show visible wear, under your brand, with postage and printing included. Letters go out a set number per day rather than all at once, and the pace can be adjusted, for example to weekly waves, so calls arrive at a rate your team can handle. Each letter carries the campaign's tracking number and its own QR code, and calls, texts and scans show up in your portal, with an alert for each call or text. On request, Scoutbound can also mail a list you supply, such as the homes where your reps got no answer, and each letter shows that home's own roof.