Siding Cost Calculator , replacement cost by material and wall area
Pick a siding material, a quality tier and your wall area, and see the range with its breakdown. No email, no phone number.
Price your siding
Where this siding cost calculator gets its numbers
One dataset holds the installed cost of each siding material per square foot of wall, its expected service life, and the share of that cost which is product rather than labor. One calculation module reads it, and every siding figure on this site comes out of that module: the cost guide tables and this calculator.
The tool prices wall area, not floor area. A 2,000 sq. ft. two-story house usually carries 1,500 to 2,000 sq. ft. of facade once windows and doors are deducted, and quoting the two as if they were the same is the most common way a siding budget starts wrong.
- Installed cost covers material and labor on a straightforward single-story wall.
- A quality tier selects a slice of that material’s own range: thicker vinyl, pre-finished fiber cement, clear-grade wood.
- Add-ons are a share of the base cost: tear-off, sheathing repair, house wrap and trim detail are line items on a siding bid, and they are priced here the way contractors price them.
- Totals are rounded to the nearest hundred dollars.
What this siding cost calculator does not know
Every figure here is a national bracket per square foot of wall. The wall itself is what no calculator can see.
- What is under the old siding
- Rotten sheathing, missing house wrap, or a previous layer that has to come off first. Like a roof tear-off, the surprises are found once the wall is open, and honest bids carry them as a priced contingency.
- The shape of your walls
- Gables, bays, deep eaves, many corners and many openings all add cut time. Two houses with the same wall area can be a day apart in labor, and labor is most of the bill.
- Lead paint
- A pre-1978 house being stripped triggers EPA lead-safe work rules, which add containment and disposal cost. The add-on prices the practice; only testing tells you whether you need it.
- Your market, this season
- Local labor rates and how far into the season crews are booked. Siding is weather-window work in much of the country, and the calendar moves prices.
How to use the estimate against a siding bid
Measure your wall area before anyone quotes you, even roughly: perimeter times height, minus the openings. Bids are won and lost on that number, and the homeowner who arrives with it cannot be quoted a phantom two hundred extra feet.
A bid well below this range is usually siding over the old layer, skipping house wrap, or thin product sold by the name of a thicker line. A bid well above it should be able to point at the wall and name the reason: stories, corners, rot, lead.
Ask every bidder what happens when they find bad sheathing, priced per sheet, in writing. It is the tear-off clause of siding, and the quiet gap between a low bid and its final invoice.
Every siding material the calculator prices
The bands the calculator runs on, per square foot of wall area, materials and labor.
| Material | Installed cost per square foot, installed | Lifespan | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinyl | $3 – $12 | 20 – 40 years | The default American siding. Cheap to buy, fast to hang, and it never needs paint because it cannot take any. |
| Engineered wood | $3 – $12 | 20 – 50 years | Wood strands and resin, sold as LP SmartSide and its rivals. Looks like wood, weighs less than fiber cement, and has to stay painted. |
| Cedar and wood | $4.70 – $7.50 | 20 – 40 years | The real thing, and a standing maintenance commitment. Stop painting or staining it and the clock runs fast. |
| Fiber cement | $6 – $18 | 30 – 50 years | James Hardie and its equivalents. Heavy, slow to hang, fire-resistant, and the closest thing to a permanent skin on this list. |
| Stucco | $9.30 – $16.90 | 40 – 80 years | A rendered wall rather than a hung one, and mostly a labor cost. Cracks are normal; water behind it is not, and that is a drainage detail. |
| Brick veneer | $9 – $28 | 75 – 100 years | A masonry skin on a framed wall. The most expensive per square foot and the last one you will ever buy for that house. |
Sheathing that turns out to be rotten at tear-off is priced on top, and none of it is visible from the ground.
This calculator returns indicative national brackets, not a quote. Your number depends on the true wall area, the condition under the old siding, the complexity of the facade and your local market. Use it to judge a bid, not to replace one.
Cost data
- HomeAdvisor, Siding cost estimator, house siding prices per sq ft (opens in a new tab) Checked August 11, 2026
- Hover, How much does siding cost? (opens in a new tab) Checked August 11, 2026
- This Old House, Fiber cement siding cost (opens in a new tab) Checked August 11, 2026