For solar installers
Every state, scored on the one thing published data genuinely supports: how quickly solar pays back for the homeowner, which is how hard the conversation is to have. Alongside it, what a job in that state is worth to you and what a lead there can be worth paying for.
What this cannot see: how many installers already serve the metro, permitting and interconnection timelines, licensing burden, and local incentives we deliberately exclude from the homeowner model. A high score means the arithmetic works there — not that the market is open.
Shortest homeowner payback on our published assumptions.
Longest payback — which does not mean no business, only a different pitch.
All 51 markets
An 8 kW job priced at that state's own installed-cost assumptions, at a 25% gross margin. At a 3.0% close rate an $85 lead costs $2,833 per install in every one of them — that figure is lead price over close rate, and does not vary by state — so the table shows what share of the local gross profit it eats instead.
The last column is the one that actually distinguishes these markets: the close rate you need for an $85 lead to hold acquisition at 25% of gross profit there. It moves because gross profit per job moves with the state's job size.
| # | State | Homeowner payback | Job ticket | Gross profit | Acquisition share | Close rate you need |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | 6.2 yr | $27,200 | $6,800 | 42% | 5.0% |
| 2 | California | 7.6 yr | $23,600 | $5,900 | 48% | 5.8% |
| 3 | Connecticut | 11.0 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 4 | Massachusetts | 11.2 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 5 | Rhode Island | 11.3 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 6 | New Hampshire | 11.8 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 7 | Arizona | 12.0 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 8 | Maine | 12.1 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 9 | New York | 13.0 yr | $25,200 | $6,300 | 45% | 5.4% |
| 10 | New Mexico | 13.2 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 11 | Nevada | 13.4 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 12 | Texas | 13.5 yr | $21,600 | $5,400 | 52% | 6.3% |
| 13 | Alabama | 14.5 yr | $21,400 | $5,350 | 53% | 6.4% |
| 14 | Colorado | 14.9 yr | $23,400 | $5,850 | 48% | 5.8% |
| 15 | Florida | 14.9 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 16 | Maryland | 15.6 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 17 | New Jersey | 15.5 yr | $24,400 | $6,100 | 46% | 5.6% |
| 18 | Pennsylvania | 16.0 yr | $23,200 | $5,800 | 49% | 5.9% |
| 19 | Vermont | 16.1 yr | $25,600 | $6,400 | 44% | 5.3% |
| 20 | Delaware | 16.2 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 21 | Michigan | 16.2 yr | $23,600 | $5,900 | 48% | 5.8% |
| 22 | Washington, D.C. | 16.2 yr | $25,000 | $6,250 | 45% | 5.4% |
| 23 | Georgia | 16.9 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 24 | Kansas | 16.9 yr | $22,600 | $5,650 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 25 | Mississippi | 17.1 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 26 | South Carolina | 17.2 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 27 | Wisconsin | 17.3 yr | $23,600 | $5,900 | 48% | 5.8% |
| 28 | Alaska | 17.4 yr | $27,200 | $6,800 | 42% | 5.0% |
| 29 | Illinois | 17.9 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 30 | Indiana | 17.9 yr | $22,600 | $5,650 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 31 | Ohio | 17.9 yr | $22,600 | $5,650 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 32 | North Carolina | 18.8 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 33 | Oklahoma | 18.7 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 34 | Virginia | 18.9 yr | $23,200 | $5,800 | 49% | 5.9% |
| 35 | Arkansas | 19.0 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 36 | Iowa | 19.2 yr | $23,000 | $5,750 | 49% | 5.9% |
| 37 | Missouri | 19.2 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 38 | Tennessee | 19.3 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 39 | Utah | 19.4 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 40 | Minnesota | 19.4 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 41 | South Dakota | 19.4 yr | $22,800 | $5,700 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 42 | West Virginia | 19.8 yr | $22,800 | $5,700 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 43 | Kentucky | 19.9 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 44 | Idaho | 22.6 yr | $22,600 | $5,650 | 50% | 6.0% |
| 45 | Louisiana | 20.0 yr | $21,800 | $5,450 | 52% | 6.2% |
| 46 | Montana | 22.4 yr | $23,600 | $5,900 | 48% | 5.8% |
| 47 | Nebraska | 20.3 yr | $22,200 | $5,550 | 51% | 6.1% |
| 48 | North Dakota | 24.2 yr | $23,200 | $5,800 | 49% | 5.9% |
| 49 | Oregon | 22.4 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 50 | Washington | 28.9 yr | $24,000 | $6,000 | 47% | 5.7% |
| 51 | Wyoming | 20.7 yr | $23,200 | $5,800 | 49% | 5.9% |
A $85 lead needs a close rate between 5.0% and 6.4% depending on the market to hold acquisition at 25% of gross profit. That is above the 3.0% benchmark this page uses elsewhere, and it is above it in every state — so at a benchmark close rate our own price sits in the "tight" band nationwide, not the comfortable one.
In 22 of these 51 markets it demands more than the 6.0% top of the typical range: Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska. In those, our flat price needs a genuinely strong sales operation to justify — ask about the founding rate, or buy your leads somewhere cheaper and tell us why.
We publish this rather than hide it because the alternative is you discovering it in month two. It is also why the first 5 leads are free: the number that settles the argument is your close rate, and you cannot know it from our table.
Payback is the midpoint of the installed-cost range in that state, from the same worked example the public state cost pages use — no federal credit, no state or local incentives, exports valued at 45% of retail. Gross margin is held flat across states, which is a simplification: competitive metros compress it. Assumptions reviewed 2026-09-14.
Reading it properly
The states at the top of this ranking are the states everybody else has also identified. Easy arithmetic and a crowded market are the same fact seen twice, and lead prices, customer acquisition costs and margin pressure all follow. A mid-table state where you already hold licences and crews usually beats a top-table state where you hold neither.
Export compensation is set by utility, not by state, and two metros in the same state can face materially different payback. Our own city pages exist for exactly this reason — half of metro Phoenix is on a demand-based plan and half is not. Check the dominant utility in the metro before trusting the state row.
State credits, rebates and SREC markets are deliberately left out of the homeowner payback, because they change often and modelling them badly is worse than not modelling them. In states with an active SREC market or a substantial credit, the real payback is shorter than this table shows — sometimes by years. The incentive pages carry what we know per state.
Where we have supply
This site publishes cost, incentive and savings guides for all 51 of these markets, and a homeowner in any of them can run the calculator and request quotes. What we will not do is promise you volume in a given metro — that is bounded by how many homeowners there actually went looking, and nobody selling exclusive leads can know it in advance.
Tell us your states and ZIP prefixes and we will tell you honestly what we are seeing there before you commit to anything. The first 5 leads are free, and they are counted in leads rather than days precisely so a quiet metro cannot spend the offer without delivering anything.
On published data alone, the states where solar pays back fastest for the homeowner — Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts lead this ranking — because a short payback is the easiest version of the conversation to have. That is genuinely useful and genuinely incomplete: it says nothing about how many installers are already competing there, how long permitting takes, or whether the utility's interconnection queue is measured in weeks or months. Treat a high rank as "the homeowner's arithmetic works here", not as "this market is open".
It means a smaller objection. A homeowner looking at an eight-year payback is being asked a different question from one looking at eighteen, and the second conversation needs a stronger reason — a rate increase, an outage history, an EV. It is not the whole story: states with long paybacks can still support good businesses on utility volatility, resilience demand or strong local incentives our model deliberately excludes, and short-payback states attract competitors precisely because the arithmetic is easy.
Because gross profit per job scales with the job and lead cost does not. The same 8 kW install at the top of this table carries several hundred dollars more gross profit than the same system at the bottom, on the same margin — and a flat lead price is therefore a materially better deal in some states than others. That is the case for running your own numbers per market rather than accepting one national figure, and it is the honest weakness of a flat national lead price like ours.
Not on this table alone. It is built from electricity rates, production factors and installed-cost assumptions — the homeowner's side. Before committing, check the three things it cannot see: how many established installers already serve the metro, what licensing and permitting actually take, and whether the dominant utility's export policy is stable or mid-revision. A market with a nine-year payback and a twelve-week interconnection queue is worse than one with an eleven-year payback and a two-week one.
From homeowner payback alone, on a fixed 6-to-20-year scale rather than relative to the best and worst state — so reviewing one state's assumptions cannot silently move another state's score. Payback comes from the same worked example the public state pages use, so a state cannot show one figure to a homeowner and another to an installer. Everything else in the row — ticket, gross profit, acquisition share and the close rate the price demands — is arithmetic on top of that.
Every way a residential solar company gets customers, what each one costs per signed job, and which to start with.
Put in your close rate, ticket and margin. Get cost per install, the close rate you break even at, and the most a lead is worth to you.
What each type of solar lead sells for, why the cheap ones are usually the expensive ones, and what you should be willing to pay.
Canvassing, paid search, referrals, content and bought leads compared on cost per signed customer rather than cost per lead.