The short answer
On a well-structured Google Ads account, solar leads typically run $80 to $300 depending on market and product. Residential installs are the most expensive, battery storage is middle, EV chargers are usually cheaper, brand traffic is almost free. The number that actually matters is cost per sat appointment, which runs two to four times the raw lead cost once no-shows and tyre-kickers are filtered out.
- 01Cost per click is a vanity metric. Cost per sat appointment is the one that pays the bills.
- 02Raw lead cost varies three times between markets for the same product and setup.
- 03Roughly half of raw leads never book a survey, so sat-appointment cost is usually double the lead cost.
- 04You lower the number by filtering demand, not by raising the budget.
The honest answer to 'what does a solar lead cost on Google Ads' is a range, not a number. The range is wide because the inputs are wide: your product, your market, your account build, your landing page, and whether you count a form fill as a lead or hold out for a sat appointment.
What follows is the reference ranges we use at Volt before we have account data for a specific client, broken down by the thing that actually drives cost: what the lead is for.
What a solar lead typically costs, by product
These are typical ranges on a well-structured account, in a mid-sized US metro, after the first 90 days when the account has learned.
| Product | Typical cost per raw lead |
|---|---|
| Residential install | $100 to $300 |
| Battery storage | $60 to $180 |
| EV charger installation | $40 to $120 |
| Brand (your own company name) | $1 to $10 |
Residential install is the most expensive because every solar contractor in the postcode is bidding on the same terms, the close is worth tens of thousands, and the auction settles at the price where only disciplined operators profit. Battery and EV charger leads are cheaper because the demand is thinner and the competing bidders are fewer. Brand traffic is almost free because the only other bidder is usually a competitor trying to steal your name, and defending it with your own ad is far cheaper than letting them have the click.
A 'lead' here means a form submission or a tracked phone call. Not a booked survey. The gap between those two numbers is where most of the money is actually decided.
Why is my cost per click so high?
Because the auction is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Google Ads is a second-price auction. The winning bidder pays one cent more than the next-highest bid, not their own bid. In solar, the next-highest bid is almost always another contractor who knows the install is worth $20,000 to $40,000 and is willing to pay $20 or $30 for a click that gets them one in forty closes. The auction floor sits where that economics breaks for the weakest operator in the market, and that is a long way above the floor for most other home services.
You cannot bid lower than that floor and expect clicks. You can only decide whether the clicks you buy at the floor are worth it, which depends on everything downstream of the click.
Why cost per click is the wrong metric
A $20 click that converts to a $400 sat appointment that closes a $25,000 job is not expensive. A $5 click that converts to nothing is not cheap. It is pure cost.
The question is not what you pay per click. It is what you pay per unit of the outcome you actually want:
- Cost per form fill: better than cost per click, but still not the right one.
- Cost per answered call: better again, because it filters out spam and bots.
- Cost per sat appointment: the right one. This is the number the business actually pays its bills with.
- Cost per closed install: the best, when you have enough volume to measure it reliably.
Most Google Ads reports stop at the form fill. The gap between a form fill and a sat appointment is the single biggest reason solar operators think Google Ads does not work, and it is a tracking problem rather than an account problem. See solar Google Ads conversion tracking.
What should cost per sat appointment be?
Take your raw lead cost and multiply it by roughly two.
That is the first-approximation rule because, across the solar accounts we have audited, roughly half of raw leads never book a survey. They do not answer the phone, they turn out to be renters, their roof faces the wrong way, or they were kicking tyres. Once those are filtered out, the people who become sat appointments cost you two of the raw leads.
So for a residential install campaign with raw leads at $200 each, your sat appointment cost is typically $400. For an account where leads cost $300, sat appointments cost $600. For battery leads at $120, sat appointments are around $240.
Whether those numbers work for your business depends on the next two steps:
- Your close rate from sat appointment to install. 20 to 40 percent is the honest range we see for well-run teams.
- Your average install revenue. $18,000 to $35,000 for residential systems in most US markets.
A $400 sat appointment at a 30 percent close rate and $25,000 revenue is $1,333 per install on $25,000 of top line. That is well inside the margin a good installer runs. A $900 sat appointment at a 15 percent close rate and $18,000 revenue is $6,000 per install, which is not. Same ad spend, different business, totally different verdict.
Why cost varies so much between markets
The same keywords in the same campaign setup cost three times as much in Phoenix as they do in Omaha. Four reasons:
- 01Competitor density. How many solar companies are bidding on 'solar installer near me' in your postcode?
- 02Average install size. Markets with larger average systems can rationally bid more per lead because each closed job is worth more.
- 03Incentive climate. States with strong net metering and local rebates get more consumer interest and more competing bidders.
- 04Seasonality. Bidders stack up in spring; auctions soften in late autumn.
None of those are things you can change. What they mean is that the right benchmark is not the national average. It is what two or three competitors in your postcode are paying, which is approximately what you will pay once you are running the account properly.
How do you lower cost per lead without lowering lead quality?
The ways that work:
- Negatives. The biggest single lever. Every DIY, jobs, education and research term you keep out of the auction is budget that stays in high-intent clicks. The full account-level starter list is in google ads for solar contractors.
- Landing page conversion rate. Doubling the conversion rate from 4 to 8 percent halves your cost per lead. It also halves your cost per sat appointment. Landing-page work is almost always a better next dollar than keyword work.
- Match type discipline. Exact and phrase match for the first 90 days keep the budget on the terms you chose. Broad match without a mature negative list burns cash on anything close.
- Day-parting. Most solar enquiries convert during business hours. Pausing ads from 11pm to 6am saves 10 to 15 percent of the budget on clicks that were never going to sit on the sofa.
- Geo-targeting. Exclude the postcodes you do not install in. The impressions were already costing you money even when the clicks were not converting.
The ways that just reduce volume without improving the economics:
- Dropping the daily budget. All this does is miss impressions. It does not change the cost of the ones you do serve.
- Lowering the bid cap below the market. The ads stop showing in the auctions worth winning.
- Pausing high-cost keywords. If those are the keywords that drive sat appointments, you have just removed the thing that works.
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Common questions
- Why are solar Google Ads clicks so expensive compared to other home services?
- Because each closed install is worth tens of thousands of dollars, so the ceiling bid is proportionally higher. A plumber making $400 on a call out cannot rationally bid $20 for a click; a solar installer making $8,000 of margin on an install can. The auction floor settles accordingly.
- Should I run both branded and unbranded campaigns?
- Yes. Brand clicks are usually $1 to $10 and convert at the highest rate in the account, because the person searching your name has already seen you somewhere else. Not running it means paying full price to acquire the lead a second time when a competitor's ad shows above your organic listing.
- How much should I budget per month to see results?
- About $1,500 is the lower end for one product in one metro. Below that, Google's bidding does not have enough signal to optimise and the account looks worse than it is. Give it 90 days to prove out before scaling.
- Is Facebook or Meta cheaper per lead than Google?
- Meta leads often come in cheaper per form fill, sometimes by half. The gap narrows or disappears when you measure cost per sat appointment, because Meta leads tend to be lower intent and the no-show rate is higher. For most solar contractors starting with paid, Google Search is the first channel.
