Estimate house siding cost by wall area and material. Compare vinyl, fiber cement and more with material, labor, removal and waste costs included.
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This calculator builds your siding estimate from your wall area instead of your floor plan, because contractors price by the square foot of wall. Enter your exterior wall area, pick a material, and set a material rate and labor rate per square foot, or use typical 2026 figures from published cost guides. Material gets a waste and overage allowance, usually 10 percent, for cuts around windows, doors, corners and gables. Labor is priced per square foot and is typically 35 to 45 percent of the job. If the old siding comes off first, add a tear-off and disposal rate per square foot. You get four numbers: material, labor, removal, and the total, plus the cost per square foot so you can compare bids and materials. Use it as a house siding cost estimator before you request quotes, not as a contractor bid.
This calculator prices your project the same way contractors do: by the square foot of exterior wall. Start with your wall area, which is the outside surface being sided, not the floor area on your listing. Multiply that area by your material rate per square foot, then add a waste allowance for cuts around windows, doors, corners and gables. Labor is priced per square foot on top, and if the old siding is removed first, a tear-off and disposal rate is added. The per square foot total at the end is the number to compare against contractor bids.
Choose your currency first, then enter your exterior wall area in square feet. Pick your siding material and enter the material rate and labor rate per square foot; published 2026 guides put vinyl around $3 to $12 installed and fiber cement around $5 to $14 installed, so use a contractor quote or those bands as a starting point. Set the waste and overage percentage, choose whether the old siding is being removed, and add a removal rate if so. Every result updates as you type, so you can test vinyl against fiber cement or different house sizes instantly.
Vinyl is the cheapest and most popular choice, running roughly $3 to $12 per square foot installed, with almost no maintenance. Fiber cement (Hardie-style board) costs roughly $5 to $14 installed, looks more like real wood, resists fire, but needs repainting every 10 to 15 years and lasts 50 to 75 years versus 30 to 40 for vinyl. Wood and cedar give a classic look at $3 to $15 installed but need regular painting and pest protection. Metal (steel or aluminum) runs $3 to $18 installed and is very durable, though aluminum dents and steel is heavy. Stucco costs $7 to $17 installed and suits warm dry climates, while brick veneer at $10 to $20 installed is the premium low-maintenance option.
Labor usually accounts for 35 to 45 percent of a siding replacement, and guides put it anywhere from $2 to $12 per square foot depending on the material. Heavy materials like fiber cement, stucco and brick veneer take longer to install and need bigger crews, which is why their labor line runs higher than vinyl. Two-story walls, steep lots, complex rooflines and a full tear-off all add labor hours. Enter your own labor rate from a quote when you have one; otherwise the default gives a reasonable mid-range planning figure.
No wall is a perfect rectangle, so every siding job orders extra material for cuts, corners, gables and mistakes. Ten percent is the standard overage for a simple rectangular house; complex homes with many gables, dormers, bump-outs or mixed profiles should use 12 to 15 percent. Skipping the waste allowance is the most common reason material budgets come up short. This calculator applies the percentage to the material line only, since labor does not need an overage.
Tearing off old siding typically costs $0.25 to $2 per square foot, covering labor, haul-away and dumpster or disposal fees. Older homes often hide rotted sheathing once the old siding comes off, which contractors usually price as a separate contingency rather than folding it into the tear-off. If a bid looks much cheaper than the rest, check whether it includes removal at all: siding over the old wall is cheaper now but can hide problems and void some warranties. Set removal to No in the calculator for new construction or side-over jobs.
Beyond the base material, profiles change the price. Horizontal lap is the standard and cheapest profile; board and batten adds vertical lines at a premium; shake and shingle styles mimic cedar and cost more per square foot. Upgrades include insulated vinyl with foam backing for better energy performance, factory-finished fiber cement with a long finish warranty, and mixed-material accents like stone veneer gables. Trim, soffit and fascia are usually priced per linear foot or as a flat project add-on rather than per square foot of wall.
Take a 2,000 square foot wall area sided in standard vinyl. At $5 per square foot for material with a 10 percent waste allowance, material costs 2,000 × 5 × 1.10 = $11,000. Labor at $4 per square foot adds $8,000, and with no old siding to remove the total is $19,000, or $9.50 per square foot. The same 2,000 square feet in fiber cement at $8 material and $6 labor with a 12 percent waste allowance and a $1.50 tear-off rate would total $32,920, or $16.46 per square foot. A typical 1500 sq ft home usually needs 1400 to 2400 sq ft of siding depending on stories (a 2000 sq ft two-story home needs even more wall area), and the average 2026 whole-house project lands between $8,000 and $18,500 in vinyl.
Published 2026 guides put installed siding at roughly $3 to $15 per square foot of wall, depending on material. Most whole-house projects cost $5,554 to $17,720 nationally. For a typical single-story home with about 1,700 square feet of facade, full replacement runs roughly $8,000 to $18,500 in standard vinyl and $11,000 to $27,000 in fiber cement, including material and labor.
Vinyl siding typically costs $3 to $12 per square foot installed, making it the cheapest full-replacement option. Builder-grade vinyl can run lower, while insulated or premium vinyl profiles sit at the top of the range. For 2,000 square feet of wall, that works out to roughly $6,000 to $24,000 installed.
Fiber cement siding typically costs $5 to $14 per square foot installed, or $6 to $15 in most 2026 guides. The premium over vinyl comes from the material itself plus heavier, slower installation. It usually lasts 50 to 75 years versus 30 to 40 for vinyl, and painted finishes need recoating every 10 to 15 years.
Standard vinyl siding is the cheapest way to side a house, at $3 to $12 per square foot installed. Engineered wood panels are a close budget alternative. Keep in mind the cheapest material is not always the cheapest over the life of the home: a longer-lived material like fiber cement can win on lifetime cost if you own the house for decades.
Measure each exterior wall's length times its height, add triangular gable areas (base times height divided by two), subtract large windows and doors, then add about 10 percent for waste. A 1,500 square foot single-story home typically needs 1,400 to 1,800 square feet of siding, while the same floor area on two stories needs 2,000 to 2,400, because every story adds wall area. Write my final number down and use it to check contractor bids.
Removing and hauling away old siding typically costs $0.25 to $2 per square foot, depending on the old material and disposal fees. Wood and stucco tear-off sits at the high end. Add it as a separate line in your estimate rather than folding it into the material rate.
A 2,000 square foot house describes living area, not wall area, so it depends on stories. Using vinyl at $6 to $9 per square foot installed, a single-story home typically runs $12,300 to $23,200 all in, while a two-story home runs $16,500 to $29,500, including permits, trim and removal. Pricier materials like fiber cement or stucco push both ranges higher.
Vinyl siding is genuinely DIY-friendly: it is lightweight, snaps together, and needs only basic tools. Before starting, ask myself whether I have two helpers, proper scaffolding, and the right cutting tools. Fiber cement is not a realistic DIY job because of its weight, the silica dust from cutting, and the precision flashing and clearances it requires. Mistakes in flashing or clearances can void the warranty, so most homeowners hire a pro for anything heavier than vinyl.
New siding is one of the strongest exterior projects for resale, and a full replacement can increase your home value well beyond the project cost in strong markets. The 2025 Cost vs. Value report put vinyl siding replacement at 96.5 percent of cost recouped nationally, and fiber cement at 113.7 percent. Returns are point-in-time and market-driven, so treat them as the latest reported figures, not a guarantee.
This calculator prices labor as wall area times your labor rate per square foot. Labor is typically 35 to 45 percent of a siding project, and guides put it around $2 to $12 per square foot depending on material and region. Heavy materials like fiber cement, stucco and brick veneer carry higher labor rates because they install more slowly and need bigger crews.
Lifespan depends on the material: vinyl typically lasts 20 to 40 years, wood lasts 20 to 30 years with regular painting, fiber cement lasts 30 to 50 years, and metal or brick veneer can last 50 years or more. Plan a full siding replacement when panels warp, crack, or rot, when paint fails repeatedly, or when moisture damage appears behind the siding. Use this calculator to compare the cost of a full replacement against partial repairs before you decide.
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