34.2% of the 380 contractor websites we inspected, across roofing, remodeling and HVAC. That is 130 brands of 380.

A finished-work photo shows competence. A before and after shows transformation, and transformation is what the customer is actually buying. They are not buying shingles. They are buying the version of the house where the ceiling stain is gone.

The number by trade

Trade	Before and after galleries	Brands	Scope
Roofing	39.2%	130	detected (inclusive)
Remodeling	44.5%	146	detected (inclusive)
HVAC	13.5%	104	detected (inclusive)

So the spread runs from remodeling at 44.5% to HVAC at 13.5%. Which trade you work in changes what "normal" looks like, so read your own trade's page rather than the combined number.

Roofing

Roofing runs close behind remodeling. Roofing has a structural problem with this format that the other trades do not: the compelling before shot is often taken from a drone or a ladder, and the compelling after shot has to match the angle. That is a real production constraint, not laziness.

Full roofing breakdown for this metric

Remodeling

Remodeling has the highest adoption of the three trades, which is unsurprising, since the entire sale is visual transformation and the photography happens anyway. What is surprising is that it is still well under half.

Full remodeling breakdown for this metric

HVAC

HVAC adoption is by far the lowest measured, at roughly a third of the remodeling rate. That is defensible. Nobody is moved by a photograph of a tidier furnace. The trust job that a gallery does in remodeling is being done by named testimonials in HVAC, and the testimonial numbers bear that out.

Full HVAC breakdown for this metric

Check your own site in ten minutes

You do not need a slider plugin. Two photos side by side with honest labels beat a fancy component nobody can operate on a phone. What you do need is the before shot, which means telling the crew to take one before they start.

What was measured: Share of brands a before/after gallery was detected for (inclusive; the value the trust-signal chart plots).
How we measured it: We looked for a before and after comparison anywhere on the site, counting both the drag-across sliders and plain labelled photo pairs.
The technical version, for anyone checking our work: html_and_dom_facts union with score-narrative fallback
Sample: 380 contractor brands. Roofing 130, remodeling 146, HVAC 104.
Collection window: 2026-05-10 to 2026-05-16
Combined aggregation: weighted (sum of per-trade brand counts over sum of trade sample sizes)
Who ran it: Fervor Studio, first-party capture. Nobody paid to be included or excluded.

How the sites were picked, captured and scored: the methodology. Every metric we publish: the research index.

The full reports this measurement came out of: State of Roofing, State of Remodeling, and State of HVAC.