Performance, maintenance, service life, and recovery costs from recycling are factors that determine the cost effectiveness of building components. While copper's initial cost is higher than some other architectural metals, it usually does not need to be replaced during the life of a building. Due to its durability, low maintenance, and ultimate salvage value, the additional cost for copper may be insignificant over the life of a roofing system.
Copper roofing is considerably less expensive than lead, slate, or hand-made clay tiles. Its costs are comparable with zinc, stainless steel, aluminium and even some clay and concrete tiles when considering overall roofing costs (including structure).
Some studies indicate that copper is a more cost-effective material on a life cycle basis than other roof materials with a lifetime of 30 years or more. A European study comparing roofing costs of copper with other metals, concrete and clay tiles, slate, and bitumen found that in the medium to long-term (for lives of 60 to 80 years and 100 years and over), copper and stainless steel were the most cost effective roofing materials of all materials examined.
Installation techniques such as prefabrication, in-situ machine forming, mechanized seaming, and the long-strip system help to reduce the installation costs of copper roofing. By lowering installation costs, these techniques permit designers to specify copper into a wider array of building types, not just large prestigious projects as had been common in the past.
Since scrap copper retains much of its primary value, copper's life cycle costs are reduced when accounting for its salvage value. For more information, see Recyclability section in this article.