The short answer
Choose solar proposal software on six criteria: production modelling accuracy, remote shading analysis quality, how long a proposal takes to produce, whether financing options are built in, what the customer actually receives, and whether it connects to your CRM. Visual polish in a demo predicts very little about any of them.
- 01Accuracy first. A proposal that over-promises savings becomes a bad review in year two.
- 02Time-to-proposal matters more than feature count when speed to lead decides the deal.
- 03Test it on your three most awkward roofs, not on the demo house.
- 04The customer-facing output is the actual product. Judge that, not the admin screen.
This is the one software category where solar-specific tools genuinely beat anything general purpose, because production modelling and shading analysis are real engineering rather than configuration. Which makes choosing well worth the effort.
What should you judge proposal software on?
- 01
Production modelling accuracy
The most important and the least demonstrable in a sales call. Ask for modelled versus actual production data on systems in your region, and compare against your own commissioned systems if you have the monitoring data. Over-modelling is the root of most savings complaints.
- 02
Remote shading analysis
How good is it without a site visit, and how often does the site visit contradict it. This decides whether you can quote before driving, which changes your whole sales economics.
- 03
Time to produce a proposal
Measured properly: an average roof, by a normal person, from address to a document ready to send. Under fifteen minutes changes what is possible in a first call. An hour does not.
- 04
Financing integration
If most of your jobs are financed, having lenders built in matters more than almost any design feature. A proposal that cannot show a monthly payment is only half a proposal.
- 05
What the customer receives
Open the actual output on a phone. Is it comprehensible to somebody with no solar knowledge? Does it survive being forwarded to a spouse who was not at the meeting? This is the product.
- 06
Integration with your CRM
Proposal sent should update the pipeline without anybody retyping. See solar sales pipeline stages.
How do you test it properly?
Demos use a clean south-facing roof with no obstructions, because that is what the software is best at. That tells you nothing about your Tuesday.
| Test | What it reveals |
|---|---|
| Your three most awkward recent roofs | How it handles dormers, hips, chimneys and odd pitches |
| A heavily shaded property | Whether the shading model is usable or decorative |
| A system you installed last year | Modelled versus actual. The single most useful test |
| A proposal built by your slowest user | Real time-to-proposal, not the demo operator's |
| The output on an old phone | What most customers actually see |
Where do demos mislead?
- Visual polish. A beautiful 3D render does not improve modelling accuracy and customers care about the monthly number.
- Feature count. Features you will not use are training cost, not value.
- The demo operator's speed. They have built ten thousand proposals. Time your own team instead.
- Integration marketing. Integrates with is not the same as syncs the fields you need. Ask which fields, in which direction.
- Per-proposal pricing sounding cheap. Multiply by your real monthly volume including the proposals that go nowhere.
Pricing models
Three common shapes, and the right one depends entirely on your volume and your close rate.
- 01Per seat. Predictable, favours high volume per user, punishes occasional users.
- 02Per proposal. Feels fair and gets expensive if your close rate is low, because you pay for every proposal that goes nowhere.
- 03Flat platform fee. Usually suits larger teams, and usually comes with a longer commitment.
Work out your cost per closed job under each model at your actual volumes, including the proposals that do not convert. The ranking often reverses once you include those.
And remember this tool sits alongside the rest of your stack rather than replacing it. See the best solar contractor software for how the categories fit together.
The proposal itself matters more than the software
Whatever tool you choose, the document it produces is doing the selling in a room you are not in, because the person who has to agree is often not the person you met. Four things decide whether it survives that.
- One page at the front with system size, cost, annual saving, payback and the monthly payment if financed. Everything else is an appendix.
- Plain language. A homeowner should not need to know what a string inverter is to understand the decision.
- Honest production figures. Under-promising costs you a small number of deals; over-promising costs you reviews for a decade.
- Something that shows you saw their roof, not a generic render. A photo of their actual property is worth more than any modelling diagram.
If your current proposal fails those four, changing software will not fix it. Fix the document first, then judge whether the tool is the constraint.
Where the proposal tool should and should not stop
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Common questions
- Do I need solar design software if I subcontract design?
- You still need something that produces a customer-facing proposal quickly, because speed in the first conversation matters. That can be a lighter tool than a full design platform if the engineering happens elsewhere.
- How accurate is remote shading analysis?
- Good tools are close enough to quote from on straightforward roofs, and all of them struggle with heavy tree cover and complex geometry. Test with your own difficult properties before relying on it to skip site visits.
- Should the proposal show financing?
- If most of your jobs are financed, yes, because the monthly payment is the number the customer is actually deciding on. A proposal showing only the capital cost makes the decision harder than it needs to be.
