For solar installers
There are 8 ways a residential solar company gets customers. They are usually compared on cost per lead, which is the one number that cannot be compared across them, because a "lead" means something different in every row. This page compares them on cost per signed job instead, using the same arithmetic on every channel.
We sell one of these — exclusive leads — and it comes fourth in the table below, behind channels we have nothing to do with. Ranking our own row honestly is the only version of this comparison worth reading.
The comparison
Cost per lead and close rate are midpoints of the ranges each channel typically runs at across the US market. Cost per customer is simply the first divided by the second. The final column is what that leaves of the gross profit on one job — $5,800 on the published deal assumptions this site uses, which you should replace with your own in the calculator.
| Channel | Cost per lead | Close rate | Cost per signed job | Share of gross profit | How fast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past-customer referrals | $0–$250 | 20.0%–45.0% | $385 | 7%Strong | Slow to start, permanent once it does. |
| Your own content and SEO | $0–$120 | 4.0%–12.0% | $750 | 13%Strong | Six to eighteen months before it is worth anything, then it compounds. |
| Canvassing and door-to-door | $120–$400 | 8.0%–20.0% | $1,857 | 32%Tight | Immediate, and it stops the day you stop paying for it. |
| Exclusive leadsOurs | $85 | 2.0%–6.0% | $2,125 | 37%Tight | Immediate, and volume is capped by search demand in your territory rather than by your budget. |
| Paid social | $20–$90 | 1.0%–3.5% | $2,444 | 42%Tight | Immediate, and volume is easy to increase. |
| Home shows and events | $40–$180 | 2.0%–7.0% | $2,444 | 42%Tight | Bursty — nothing, then a weekend's worth at once. |
| Shared or resold leads | $15–$60 | 0.5%–2.0% | $3,000 | 52%Unviable | Immediate, and available in volume in most territories. |
| Paid search | $80–$300 | 3.0%–8.0% | $3,455 | 60%Unviable | Immediate, and it stops the day you stop paying for it. |
Ranges are benchmark observations from the US residential solar market, not measurements taken on this site — the spread inside a channel is wider than the gap between channels, so treat these as a starting point and replace them with your own numbers. Canvassing is costed at loaded rep time; content and referrals are costed excluding the salary and the years of installs that produced them, which is why both look cheaper here than they are to start. Close rates are lead-to-signed-contract on each channel's own definition of a lead.
What the table means
Shared leads are the cheapest row in the table and close under 2%. Referrals are nearly free and close above 20%. Both facts point the same way: the price of a lead tells you almost nothing, because what you are buying differs by an order of magnitude between rows. The only honest comparison is lead price divided by close rate, and any vendor steering you towards cost per lead is steering you away from that division.
Doubling your close rate halves your cost per customer. Negotiating 20% off a lead price takes 20% off it. On the published deal assumptions, an installer closing 2% pays $4,250 per install and one closing 6% pays $1,417 — for identical leads at an identical price. That gap is not a fact about lead quality. It is speed to first call, call attempts per lead, and whether anybody follows up after the second try.
Every fast channel in the table is rented — an ad account, a vendor, a platform — and can change price or vanish without your involvement. Every cheap channel is owned, and none of them can be turned up this quarter. A company standing only on rented channels has no floor; a company standing only on owned ones cannot respond to a quiet month. The practical version is to cover current capacity with something immediate while building referrals and content underneath it.
Channel by channel
An introduction from someone who already bought, usually for a cash or bill-credit incentive.
Pages on your own site that rank for local solar questions and convert to quote requests.
Your own reps generating conversations in a territory, costed at their time plus management.
A homeowner's quote request sold to one installer only. This is what this site sells.
Meta or TikTok ads to an interest audience, usually with an on-platform lead form.
A stand at a home improvement show, county fair or community event.
An aggregator's form fill, sold simultaneously to three to five installers.
Google or Bing ads against solar intent keywords, landing on your own quote form.
Where we fit
We sell exclusive leads at $85 — homeowners who ran a full cost, savings and payback estimate on this site and then asked to hear from an installer. They arrive with a bill figure, a system size, a timeline and a ZIP code, and they are sold to one company only.
What that is not: a channel you can scale a sales team on. Volume is bounded by how many homeowners in your territory went looking, which is why there is no monthly quota here and why anybody promising you a guaranteed number of exclusive leads is describing something else. Run it alongside a channel you own, not instead of one.
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.
Every state ranked on the two things published data can actually show: how easily solar pays back for the homeowner, and how much gross profit a job carries.
Buying exclusive leads and running paid search are the only two channels that produce customers this week, because both can be switched on in a day. Everything cheaper — referrals, your own content, reputation — takes months or years to build and cannot be turned up on demand. The practical answer for most companies is to run one fast channel to cover current capacity while building one slow channel underneath it, because a business standing entirely on a channel it rents can be turned off by somebody else.
It is decided by your close rate, not by the lead price. A lead is worth about a quarter of your gross profit on a job multiplied by your lead-to-sale rate — at $5,800 of gross profit and a 3% close rate that is roughly $44 a lead, and at 6% it is double that. Below a 1.5% close rate, a lead at $85 costs more to convert than the install earns in gross profit. Work out your own number before you negotiate anybody's price.
Because a "lead" means something different in every channel. A shared aggregator lead is a form fill about to be sold to four companies; an exclusive lead is a quote request sold once; a canvassing lead is a doorstep conversation. Their close rates differ by more than ten times, so the cheapest cost per lead is routinely the most expensive cost per customer. Compare cost per signed contract, which is lead price divided by close rate, and nothing else.
On bought residential solar leads, typically between 17 and 50 — a 2% to 6% lead-to-sale rate. Shared leads sit below that, often under 1%. Referrals sit far above it, at 20% to 45%. The number is mostly a fact about your sales process rather than about the leads: speed to first call, call attempts per lead and follow-up discipline move it more than lead source does.
It makes more sense for a small installer than a large one, provided the volume is capped. A small company cannot afford to build a canvassing team or wait eighteen months for content to rank, and bought leads are the only channel where spend maps directly onto opportunities this month. The risk is capacity, not price — buying more leads than you can call within minutes is the most common way installers conclude that bought leads do not work. Start with a cap you can genuinely answer, which is why every partner here begins with 5 free leads rather than a volume commitment.
Almost always speed to first call, then call attempts. A lead that is called within five minutes converts several times better than the same lead called the next morning, and most installers stop after two attempts when the curve does not flatten until six or more. Before renegotiating lead price, measure the time between the lead arriving and the first dial — it is usually the cheapest thing on this list to fix, and it moves cost per install further than any discount will.
No, and the reason is not diversification for its own sake. Every fast channel is rented — an ad account, a lead vendor, a platform — and can change price or disappear without your involvement. Every owned channel is slow. A business with only rented channels has no floor, and a business with only owned channels cannot respond to a quiet quarter. Run at least one of each.