New siding costs $4–$13 per square foot of home size installed — about $10,000–$32,500 on a 2,500 sq ft house. Pick a material and the calculator prices it against your home's floor area, storeys and how complicated the exterior is.
Full siding replacement installed — materials and labor — priced per square foot of HOME SIZE (floor area), not wall area, which is the basis the cited sources publish. 2026 US national average. Excludes old-siding removal, permits, and any sheathing repair found once the old siding is off.
Vinyl$4–$12
Masonite / hardboard$4–$8
Board and batten$5–$13
Log / wood$5–$15
Aluminum$6–$10
Fiber cement (Hardie board)$6–$15
Cedar$6–$16
Engineered wood$7–$12
Steel$7–$16
Stucco$7–$17
Brick$8–$18
Educational calculators — always consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
Your siding replacement
01Home size
Tap to edit
6005000
02Material
$4–$12 per sq ft of home size, installed.
03Height and complexity
How many storeys?
Height means staging, and staging means labour hours.
Ladder work throughout. The baseline these rates assume.
How complex is the exterior?
Every corner, gable and window is another set of cuts.
Boxy footprint, few corners, standard windows.
04Removal
Total Siding Replacement Cost
$9,400 – $28,000
Vinyl — 2,000 sq ft home
Cost per sq ft of home size$4.70 – $14.00
Expected lifespan30–40 years
Of the installed figure, roughly $4,000–$12,000 is labour. That is part of the total above, not an addition to it — useful for checking whether a quote’s labour line is in the normal range.
Where the money goes
Where Your Money Goes
Vinyl siding installed — 2,000 sq ft home86%
$8,000 – $24,000
Old siding removal and disposal14%
$1,400 – $4,000
Vinyl siding installed — 2,000 sq ft home$8,000 – $24,000
Old siding removal and disposal$1,400 – $4,000
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Read the unit before you budget: home size, not wall area
This is the mistake that ruins siding budgets. Published siding rates — including every figure on this page — are quoted per square foot of home size, the floor area on your listing or tax record. They are not quoted per square foot of wall surface.
A 2,500 sq ft house at $4–$13 per square foot gives $10,000–$32,500. If you instead measure your walls, get some larger number, and apply the same rate to it, you will land two to three times too high and conclude you cannot afford a job you can.
Contractors do measure actual wall area to order material and price labour. But the published benchmarks you compare their quote against are built on home size, and mixing the two bases is what makes a fair quote look extortionate.
Cost and lifespan by material
Price and durability do not move together, which is the whole argument for not defaulting to the cheapest option. The spread in cost across these materials is roughly 4×; the spread in service life is far wider.
Material
Installed, per sq ft of home
On a 2,500 sq ft home
Lifespan (yrs)
Vinyl
$4–$12
$10,000–$30,000
30–40
Masonite / hardboard
$4–$8
$10,000–$20,000
20–40
Board and batten
$5–$13
$12,500–$32,500
20–100
Log / wood
$5–$15
$12,500–$37,500
20–40
Aluminum
$6–$10
$15,000–$25,000
25–40
Fiber cement (Hardie board)
$6–$15
$15,000–$37,500
50–75
Cedar
$6–$16
$15,000–$40,000
20–40
Engineered wood
$7–$12
$17,500–$30,000
30–50
Steel
$7–$16
$17,500–$40,000
40–70
Stucco
$7–$17
$17,500–$42,500
50–80
Brick
$8–$18
$20,000–$45,000
20–75 (faux) / 100+ (real)
Divide cost by lifespan before you choose. Fiber cement at the middle of its range over 50–75 years frequently beats vinyl at the bottom of its range over 30–40 — and it is the comparison almost nobody runs, because the quote only shows today’s number.
Stucco is the one material above with a real repair path short of the $7–$17/sq ft replacement rate. Hairline cracks, chips and small holes are a patch job — $200–$800 total, or roughly $8–$50 per sq ft of damaged area, plus a $500–$1,000 moisture-probe inspection if the cause isn’t obvious. What pushes a job from patch to full re-stucco is the damage, not its cosmetic size: a vertical crack wider than a penny, or cracking paired with soft or bubbling stucco, points at moisture trapped behind the wall rather than surface weathering, and that is a tear-off. Severe water damage runs $1,000–$4,000 to repair on its own, and full replacement at that point lands at $14,000–$34,000 — which is this same $7–$17/sq ft rate applied to a whole home, not a different number.
What sits outside the quoted rate
Removing the old siding, $0.70–$2 per sq ft. Frequently omitted from a first estimate. Get it in writing that removal and haul-away are in the price.
Whatever is behind it. Rotten sheathing, failed house wrap or insect damage is invisible until the old siding comes off, and it has to be repaired before new siding goes on. This is the main source of change orders on a siding job.
Trim, flashing and soffit. Window and door trim, corner boards, and fascia are often priced per linear foot on top of the field rate.
Permits. Usually required for a full replacement.
Checking the labour line on a quote
Siding contractors charge $2–$6 per square foot for labour, or roughly $40–$80 an hour. That labour is already inside the installed rates above — it is not an addition to them, and a quote that lists material at the installed rate and then adds labour separately is double-counting.
Labour lands at the top of that band on houses with dormers, gables, bay windows or ornate trim, because each piece has to be measured, cut and flashed individually. A simple two-storey box and an elaborate single-storey of the same floor area are not the same job, which is why the calculator asks about both height and complexity.
Doing siding and roofing together
If the roof is also near the end of its life, pricing both at once is usually cheaper than pricing them two years apart: one mobilisation, one set of staging, one round of disruption, and the flashing where roof meets wall gets detailed properly instead of being worked around. Price the roof separately in the roof replacement calculator and compare the combined figure against doing them in sequence. Gutters come off for siding work anyway, so the gutter calculator is worth a look at the same time.
By RealCost Editorial TeamReviewed by RealCost Editorial TeamLast updated September 5, 2026 with September 2026 data
Siding is the rare exterior project that pays for itself. The 2025 Cost vs. Value report puts fiber-cement replacement at $21,485 nationally against $24,420 recovered at resale — 114 percent — and vinyl at $17,950 against $17,313, or 97 percent. Both beat every roofing project by a wide margin.
The unit that catches almost everyone
Published siding rates, including the ones this calculator uses, are quoted per square foot of the home's FLOOR AREA — not per square foot of wall. That distinction is the single most expensive misunderstanding on this page, and getting it backwards overstates a quote by roughly two to three times.
The reason is convention rather than logic: the industry benchmarks against house size because it is the number a homeowner knows and a estimator can look up. So a rate applied to a 2,500 sq ft home means 2,500 — not the 3,000-plus square feet of actual wall that house probably has once you subtract windows and doors and add gables.
If you have measured your walls and are applying these rates to that figure, stop. You will arrive at a number far above any quote you receive, conclude every contractor is cheap, and mis-read the whole market.
Why siding outperforms roofing at resale
Among the projects tracked in the 2025 Cost vs. Value report, fiber-cement siding replacement is one of very few that returns more than it costs: $21,485 spent, $24,420 recovered, 114 percent. Vinyl returns 97 percent. For contrast, asphalt-shingle roofing recovers 68 percent and metal roofing 50 percent.
The asymmetry is about visibility. Siding is the first thing a buyer sees and it reads instantly as "this house has been looked after". A roof is largely invisible from the kerb and is priced by buyers as an absence of a problem rather than as a feature — nobody pays a premium for a roof, they discount for a bad one.
Two cautions on using those figures. There is no combined "siding replacement" line in the report — only the two variants above, and they should not be averaged into one number. And Cost vs. Value is a national average across 119 markets; the recovery rate in any specific market can differ substantially from it.
Methodology
Per-square-foot rates are quoted against the home's floor area, following the basis published by the underlying cost sources, and are the values held in this page's own dataset. Resale figures are the 2025 Cost vs. Value national averages, quoted as published. Installed rates and material-only rates come from different sources on different bases and are deliberately not blended.
How much does it cost to replace siding on a house?+
House siding costs $4–$13 per square foot of home size installed, which is roughly $10,000 to $32,500 for an average 2,500 sq ft home. Material drives most of the spread: vinyl runs $4–$12 per sq ft, fiber cement $6–$15, and brick $8–$18. Angi independently puts the average siding replacement at $11,587, with most projects between $5,560 and $17,724.
Is siding priced per square foot of wall area or of house size?+
Published siding rates are quoted per square foot of home size — the floor area on your listing or tax record — not per square foot of wall surface. This is the most common mistake in budgeting a siding job: measuring your walls and applying a published per-square-foot rate overstates the cost by roughly two to three times. A 2,500 sq ft home at $4 to $13 per square foot gives $10,000 to $32,500, and that is the basis every figure on this page uses.
What is the cheapest siding for a house?+
Vinyl and masonite are the least expensive, both starting around $4 per square foot of home size installed — vinyl at $4–$12 and masonite at $4–$8. Vinyl is usually the better buy of the two: it is the most popular siding material, lasts 30 to 40 years, and needs little maintenance, though the colour can fade in direct sun and panels can crack where temperatures swing hard.
How much does siding labor cost?+
Siding contractors charge $40 to $80 per hour, or $2 to $6 per square foot for labour. That labour is already inside the installed rates quoted here rather than being an addition to them. Labour runs highest on homes with ornate architectural detail or complex angles, because measuring, cutting and fitting each piece takes longer.
Does the quote include removing the old siding?+
Often not. Old siding removal and disposal costs $0.70 to $2 per square foot extra, and many contractors leave it out of an initial estimate — confirm in writing that removal and haul-away are included. Removal is also the only way anyone discovers what the sheathing underneath is doing, which is where unbudgeted repair costs come from.
Can you install new siding over old siding?+
Sometimes, and it saves the removal cost, but it is rarely the better decision. Layering over existing siding conceals any rot in the sheathing rather than repairing it, adds thickness that can leave window and door trim looking recessed, and can trap moisture between the layers. If the existing siding is sound and the only goal is appearance it can work; if there is any sign of water damage, take the old material off.
How long does siding last?+
It varies more than the price does. Vinyl and aluminum last 25 to 40 years, engineered wood 30 to 50, steel 40 to 70, fiber cement 50 to 75, and stucco 50 to 80. Real brick lasts a century or more. Because the price spread between materials is narrower than the lifespan spread, the cheapest siding today is frequently not the cheapest per year of service — worth calculating both ways before choosing.
Methodology & sources
The cost figures on this page are generated from a single, sourced cost-data file (Full siding replacement installed — materials and labor — priced per square foot of HOME SIZE (floor area), not wall area, which is the basis the cited sources publish. 2026 US national average. Excludes old-siding removal, permits, and any sheathing repair found once the old siding is off.). Premium materials sit above the headline band: brick reaches $18/sq ft, stucco $17, cedar and steel $16. Stone is published at $10-$45/sq ft but its quoted total is for partial accent work only, so it is excluded from the variants here rather than shown at a total that means something different. Angi corroborates the project total independently — average $11,587 with most projects $5,560-$17,724 — against roughly $10,000-$32,500 here for a 2,500 sq ft home. Angi's per-sq-ft material table is material-only and is deliberately NOT used for the rates. Old siding removal costs $0.70-$2.00 per sq ft extra and is frequently omitted from a first estimate; Angi puts removal plus permits together at $150-$1,500. The 2025 Cost vs. Value report puts fiber-cement siding replacement at $21,485 nationally with $24,420 recovered at resale — 114 percent, one of the few remodelling projects that returns more than it costs — and vinyl at $17,950 against $17,313, or 97 percent. There is no combined "siding replacement" line in that report; the two variants are reported separately and are not averaged here. In NAHB's 2024 construction-cost survey, exterior finishes accounted for 13.4 percent of the cost of constructing a new home. Installation labour tracks the exterior trades: BLS OEWS put the May 2025 mean hourly wage for roofers (SOC 47-2181), the largest exterior-contracting occupation, at $27.95. STUCCO REPAIR VS. REPLACE (US-16, 2026-09-11): stucco is the one material in this table with a well-documented repair path short of full replacement. HomeGuide's stucco-repair cost guide prices small patch jobs — hairline cracks, chips, small holes — at $200-$800 total, or $8-$50 per sq ft of damaged area; a stucco inspection (moisture-probe test) runs $500-$1,000. Severe or widespread damage, particularly water intrusion behind the wall, is priced separately and much higher, $1,000-$4,000 for the repair itself, and HomeGuide's own full re-stucco figure for that severe-damage case — $14,000-$34,000, or $7-$17 per sq ft of installation — lines up with this dataset's own $7-$17/sq ft stucco variant above, which is the number a reader should use once the job is a genuine replacement rather than a patch. Last verified August 2026.
Siding Replacement Cost Calculator is built and maintained by the RealCostIQ editorial team. Cost ranges and rates are checked against published industry data and contractor quotes, and revised when the underlying figures move. Read our data methodology or more about who builds this. Every calculation runs in your browser — no account, and none of your inputs are stored.
Cost ranges and rates here are checked against contractor quotes and published industry data. If a number still looks off, email Support@RealCostIQ.com and we'll review and fix it.