Roof conversations in Florida usually start with price and end somewhere much more useful, which is how long you plan to own the building.
Architectural shingles are the cheapest way to get a compliant, warrantied roof on a house. In this climate they realistically give you fifteen to twenty years, less on a roof with heavy sun exposure and no shade. If you are selling within a decade, or the building is a rental where the math is about cash flow, shingles are a defensible choice.
Standing-seam metal costs more up front and tends to keep going long after shingles would have been replaced. It sheds water fast, handles wind well when it's fastened correctly, and — in our experience — the failures we get called to fix on metal roofs are almost always at a penetration or a flashing rather than in the field of the panel. That's a detailing problem, not a material problem.
Concrete and clay tile is the heaviest, most expensive, and longest-lived of the three, and it's the one most misunderstood by owners. The tile is not what keeps water out — the underlayment beneath it is. A tile roof that is "leaking" is usually a roof whose underlayment has aged out while the tile above it looks fine. That's why a proper tile job involves tearing off, repairing and re-nailing the deck, and drying in properly before a single tile goes back down.
Whichever system you choose, two things matter more than the brand on the box. First, the deck underneath: we price a repair and re-nail allowance into every tear-off because we find problems on most of them. Second, the details — valleys, penetrations, and flashings should be formed metal, not a bead of sealant that gets brittle in three summers. Ask any roofer you're considering how they handle those two items, and listen to how specific the answer is.
