Skylight cost is dominated by labour, not by the skylight. One medium fixed skylight with basic interior finishing runs $1,700–$4,400 on this calculator's rates — and $1,200–$3,200 of that is installation. A tubular unit doing a similar job for a hallway runs $500–$1,000, because it does not require the same structural opening.
How this calculator prices a skylight
Three lines make up the total: the unit itself, the installation labour, and any interior finishing. They behave differently from one another, and understanding which is which is most of what this page has to offer.
| Type | Unit | Labour | Labour share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tubular (solar tube) | $200–$400 | $300–$600 | ~60% |
| Fixed | $300–$800 | $1,200–$3,200 | ~80% |
| Vented, manual | $500–$1,200 | $1,100–$1,950 | ~65% |
| Vented, electric | $800–$2,000 | $2,350–$2,700 | ~60% |
This calculator's own constants. Labour outweighs the unit in every row, most sharply on a fixed skylight.
The fixed skylight row is the one that surprises people. It is the cheapest real skylight to buy and the most expensive to install in this model, because the labour is not about the glass — it is about cutting a structural opening in a roof, framing it, flashing it so it will never leak, and building a light shaft down through the attic to the ceiling.
Why a tubular skylight costs a quarter as much
A tubular skylight, or solar tube, is a small dome on the roof feeding a reflective tube down to a ceiling diffuser. Its cost advantage is not a cheaper product — it is a fundamentally smaller job.
The reason is structural. A tube typically passes between existing rafters without cutting any of them, so there is no header to frame and no engineering question. A conventional skylight almost always interrupts at least one rafter, and an interrupted rafter has to be headed off — that is framing work, in an attic, overhead.
The trade-off is honest and worth stating: a tube delivers daylight, not a view or ventilation, and the quality of light is diffuse rather than directional. For a windowless bathroom, hallway or walk-in closet that is exactly what is wanted. For a living space where the point is the sky, it is not a substitute.
A worked example, step by step
Scale that to three units and the total runs $5,100–$13,200, because every line in this model is per-unit. That is worth knowing before a designer proposes a row of three: there is no volume discount built in here, and in practice the saving on a multi-unit job comes from one mobilisation and one set-up rather than from cheaper glass.
Change size instead of count and the picture is different. An extra-large unit carries a 2.0 multiplier on the unit cost — $600–$1,600 instead of $300–$800 — while the labour line does not move. That is a modelling simplification worth being aware of, because in reality a larger opening means more rafters cut and more framing. Treat this tool's large-skylight labour as a floor rather than an estimate.
The reason skylights have a bad reputation
Skylights leak. Not inherently — a correctly flashed modern unit is reliable for decades — but they are the single most common source of roof leaks on houses that have them, and it is almost always the flashing rather than the skylight.
This matters for how you buy. The flashing kit is specific to the unit and to the roof covering, and it is the part a low quote omits. Ask explicitly whether a manufacturer's flashing kit for your roof type is included, because the alternative — sealant and improvisation — works for a few years and then does not.
The other rule is timing. If the roof is being replaced within a few years, put the skylight in during the re-roof. Flashing integrates into the surrounding courses, so retrofitting into an existing roof means disturbing sound shingles, and doing it twice means paying for the flashing twice. Materials for that flashing track the BLS producer price index for asphalt felts and coatings, which stood at 365.85 in July 2026 on a 1982 = 100 base.
Why the labour line varies so much by region
With labour at 60 to 80 percent of every configuration this calculator prices, a skylight quote is mostly a labour quote — and labour is local.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the May 2025 mean hourly wage for roofers (SOC 47-2181) at $27.95, with a 10th-to-90th-percentile spread of $18.01 to $39.29. Against an annual mean of $65,360 across all construction and extraction occupations, roofing sits below the trade at $58,140.
A skylight is also a job that crosses trades — roofing, framing, drywall and sometimes electrical for a powered unit. Whoever holds the contract is subcontracting at least one of those, and each hand-off carries a margin. A single contractor who does the whole thing in-house is usually cheaper and always easier to hold responsible when it leaks.
What this estimate excludes
- ·Structural engineering. Cutting more than one or two rafters may need a designed header.
- ·Electrical. A powered or electric-blind unit needs a circuit in the attic; this tool does not price the run.
- ·Blinds and glazing upgrades. Integrated blinds, laminated and low-e glazing are all extras.
- ·Roof repair around the opening. Retrofitting into an old roof frequently finds problems next to the new hole.
- ·Ceiling finishing beyond the shaft. The interior line covers the light shaft, not redecorating the room.
Methodology
Unit costs and labour by skylight type, the size multipliers (0.75 small, 1.0 medium, 1.5 large, 2.0 extra-large, applied to the unit only), the interior-finishing bands and the unit count are the constants held in this calculator's own module, and every figure and worked example above is computed from them. Wage figures are BLS OEWS May 2025; the material index is BLS PPI via FRED. No figure here is estimated or interpolated.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — OEWS Occupational Profile: Roofers (47-2181), May 2025 — accessed 2026-09-05
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 — accessed 2026-09-05
- U.S. BLS via FRED — Producer Price Index: Asphalt Felts and Coatings (WPU136) — accessed 2026-09-05