Vinyl siding runs $3 to $9 per square foot installed, with $5 typical. Fiber cement runs $6 to $15. Those rates cover the siding and the labor to hang it.
They are not what your project costs, and the gap between the two is where most siding quotes stop making sense.
The rate is not the project
Two things separate a per-square-foot rate from a number on a contract.
The first is that siding is priced by wall area, and most people guess wall area from floor area. A 2,000 square foot single-storey house has roughly 1,794 square feet of wall — close to its floor area, but arrived at completely differently. About 206 linear feet of perimeter, 9.5 feet tall, minus roughly 15% for windows and doors, plus about 8% for cuts and waste.
Stack that same 2,000 square feet onto two floors and the wall area goes up, to around 2,536 square feet. Smaller footprint, taller walls, more surface — roughly 41% more siding on the same house.
The second is that the rate covers one layer of four.
A sided wall, structure first. Each layer is a separate line on the quote.
Tear-off and weather barrier together add about $2.35 per square foot at typical rates. On 1,794 square feet of wall, that’s roughly $4,200 before a single panel goes up.
Trim is priced by the linear foot, so it tracks how many corners, windows and doors a house has rather than how big it is. This is why two houses with identical square footage get different quotes. A plain rectangle with four windows is a different job from an L-shaped house with dormers, bay windows and three rooflines meeting at odd angles.
| Component | Unit | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trim and fascia board | per linear ft | $8 | $14 | $22 |
| Soffit and fascia replacement | per linear ft | $6 | $12 | $20 |
Labor is about half the number
Siding installation labor runs $2 to $8 per square foot, typical $5, against $3 to $9 for vinyl installed. Read those together and labor is roughly half to two-thirds of a vinyl job.
That ratio is the most useful thing to know about siding pricing, because it explains the regional spread. A box of vinyl panels doesn’t get cheaper in Ohio. Labor does. Markets run from about 14% below the national average to 23% above, and labor-heavy trades feel that swing hardest.
It also explains why a cheaper material doesn’t produce a proportionally cheaper project. Moving from vinyl to fiber cement roughly doubles the material rate, but the tear-off, the barrier, the trim and a good share of the labor are the same work either way.
What the materials cost
Stone veneer is five to six times vinyl per square foot, which is why it usually appears as an accent on a gable or a wainscot rather than across a whole house. Stucco sits mid-range as a rate but behaves differently from the others — it’s a wet trade applied in coats, not panels hung on a wall.
For what these rates work out to as a project total on your house — by material, home size and number of storeys, adjusted for your market — see the siding cost guide.
How long it takes
Most homes are re-sided in 3 to 7 days, depending on size, complexity and crew size. The sequence rarely changes.
A typical re-side. Phases overlap once the crew has a wall open.
The step worth watching is sheathing repair. Rot behind failed siding isn’t visible until the siding is gone, which makes it the one line item nobody can quote in advance — and the most common reason a siding job lands above its estimate.
What adds cost that isn’t in the rate
Sheathing repair. Priced after tear-off, because nobody can see it before. Budget for the possibility rather than the certainty.
Insulated backer board. Adds R-value behind the panels and a flatter finished surface.
Soffit and fascia. Usually done at the same time, because the crew is already up there and the gutters are already off.
Gutter removal and reinstall. Gutters have to come off for siding to go on. Reusing them costs less than replacing them, and both cost less than doing it as a separate job later.
Getting a number for your house
The rates here are national and per square foot. Your project cost depends on your wall area, your material and your market — the same job prices 14% below national in some ZIP codes and 23% above in others.
The siding cost guide has modelled project totals by material, home size and storeys.
