The short answer
Solar leads cost roughly $30 to $150 when bought from a lead vendor, $80 to $300 when generated through Google Ads, and around $53 to $110 through Local Services Ads. A booked appointment that actually sits costs far more, commonly $300 to $800, because no-shows and unqualified enquiries are filtered out at your expense.
- 01Bought and shared leads are the cheapest per lead and the most expensive per job.
- 02Google Ads clicks for solar run $8 to $45, which is why a raw lead lands between $80 and $300.
- 03The only comparable number across channels is cost per sat appointment, not cost per lead.
- 04Improving close rate by four points cuts your effective lead cost more than any negotiation with a vendor.
Lead pricing in solar is quoted in a way that makes channels look comparable when they are not. A $40 shared lead and a $240 search lead are different products with different probabilities attached, and until you price them per booked survey you are comparing a lottery ticket to a contract.
What does each type of solar lead cost in 2026?
| Lead type | Cost per lead | What you are actually buying |
|---|---|---|
| Shared marketplace lead | $30 to $110 | A form fill sold to three or four installers |
| Exclusive lead | $90 to $200 | A form fill sold once, quality still unverified |
| Google Ads search | $80 to $300 | Someone actively searching, on your landing page |
| Local Services Ads | $53 to $110 | A call or message, charged per lead not per click |
| Paid social | $25 to $90 | Interest you created, colder and slower to close |
| Sat appointment (bought) | $300 to $800 | A held appointment after no-shows are filtered |
| Organic and map pack | Effectively $0 per lead | A ranking you own, paid for in time |
For context, the wider home improvement category averages roughly $8 a click and about $91 a lead in published Google Ads benchmarks. Solar sits above that because the job value is high and the auction is crowded.
Why cost per lead is the wrong number
Take two channels. Channel A sells leads at $50 and 12% of them sit for a survey. Channel B costs $220 a lead and 45% sit. Channel A looks four times cheaper and is not.
| Channel A | Channel B | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $50 | $220 |
| Sat rate | 12% | 45% |
| Cost per sat appointment | $417 | $489 |
| Close rate on sat appointments | 20% | 35% |
| Cost per closed job | $2,083 | $1,397 |
The cheap lead is 49% more expensive per job. This is the calculation almost no solar company runs, and it is the reason budgets sit in the wrong channel for years.
What moves your cost per lead?
- Market density. Metros with twenty installers bidding cost multiples of a rural county with three.
- Landing page quality. The same click on a page that converts at 12% instead of 5% cuts cost per lead by more than half. See how to increase solar website conversion rate.
- Keyword intent. Branded and long-tail terms are cheap; non-branded head terms like solar installers near me are the expensive end.
- Review count. More reviews means a higher click-through and a higher conversion rate on the same spend.
- Speed to lead. It does not change what you paid, but it changes how many of the leads you paid for turn into anything.
The lever nobody prices
Effective lead cost is spend divided by jobs. You can attack the numerator by negotiating with vendors, which moves it a little, or the denominator by closing more of what you already buy, which moves it a lot.
- 8–12%Typical solar close rate
- 15%+What strong operators reach
- ~33%Effective lead cost cut from that gap
Going from 9% to 13% on identical traffic cuts your cost per job by roughly a third, without renegotiating anything. That work is follow-up, appointment confirmation and proof, and it is covered in why solar leads go cold.
What should you actually be paying?
A reasonable target for a residential installer with an average job value in the $18,000 to $30,000 range is a cost per closed job under 10% of revenue, and comfortably under that once organic and referral volume carries part of the load. If a channel cannot get there after a fair test, it is not a pricing problem, it is the wrong channel for your market.
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Common questions
- Are cheap solar leads worth it?
- Only if you measure them properly. A $35 shared lead sold to four installers can still work if your response time is under five minutes, because the first caller usually wins. If you are answering in hours, cheap shared leads are the worst possible purchase.
- How much should a solar company spend on marketing?
- Most healthy installers land between 6% and 12% of revenue across all channels. What matters more than the percentage is that you can attribute it: spend without a cost per sat appointment attached is a guess with an invoice.
- Why are solar Google Ads clicks so expensive?
- Job value. When a single close is worth tens of thousands, competitors can rationally bid $20 or more a click, and the auction settles where the strongest operators can still profit. Your defence is conversion rate, not bidding harder.
