You got a quote from a lead vendor. Or a rep on your team swears he can get Facebook leads for four bucks each. Now you're trying to work out which number is real.
Both can be real. They're prices for different things, and the cheap one is often the expensive one by the time a homeowner is sitting across from you.
I sold 250+ residential solar deals as a rep before I ran marketing. Since then we've managed $500K+ in solar ad spend across Facebook and Google and generated 25,000+ homeowner leads for 50+ solar companies in 15+ states. Every number below comes from those campaigns. I won't quote other vendors' prices, because I can't verify them and they move around.
What is the average cost of solar leads?
On our Meta campaigns, a solar lead has cost anywhere from about $7 to $25. Where you land depends mostly on how the lead was captured and which market you're in.
I don't love the word average here. A $4 lead and a $22 lead can come out of the same ad account in the same week. What differs is the form the homeowner filled out, and what happens when you call them.
| Lead type | What we've paid per lead | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook instant form | $3 to $4 | Around 5% pick up the phone |
| Calculator funnel, new campaign | $18 to $25 | About 15% book, up to 20% once the campaign optimizes for bookings |
| One installer, long-running campaigns | Under $13 | 10,000+ leads across several states |
Look at the last row. Costs often come down as a campaign learns a market, but I'd budget a brand new campaign at the higher numbers and be happy if it beats them.
Why are some solar leads $4 and others $25?
Because the cheap ones take the homeowner two taps and the expensive ones take some effort. Effort is what you're paying for.
A Facebook instant form fills in the name and phone number for them. They tap twice and go back to scrolling. We can get those for $3 or $4. The trouble starts when you dial, because contact rates run around 5%. At $4 a lead, that's about $80 for every homeowner who picks up, and nobody has booked anything yet. All that unanswered dialing also hurts your phone number's reputation.
So we mostly run a calculator funnel. The homeowner wants to know how many panels they'd need, and to find out they answer a few questions: do they own the home, what's the power bill, how's the roof. A new campaign like that usually runs $18 to $25 per lead depending on the area, and some markets come in lower. It costs more per lead. It also brings people who were curious enough to do a little work, and it tends to bring bigger systems.
What does a booked solar appointment cost?
Take your cost per lead and divide by the share of leads that book. On our campaigns about 15% of leads book an appointment, and that can reach 20% once a campaign optimizes for booked appointments.
Run it with a $20 lead. At 15% booked, that's about $133 per booked appointment. A $25 lead at 15% is about $167. An $18 lead at 20% is $90.
Those booking rates don't happen by themselves. They assume every lead gets a call and a text within minutes, and that someone keeps following up for days after. A homeowner who fills out a form at night and hears from you the next afternoon has usually moved on.
What does a solar appointment that shows up cost?
Divide once more, this time by your show rate. About 65% of virtual appointments show, and about 80% of in-person ones.
Take the $133 booked appointment from above. If it's virtual, you're at about $205 per appointment that shows. In person, about $167. Our most recent solar campaign worked out to just under $200 per appointment that showed. That's a past result, and I'm not promising it to anyone.
This is the number I'd judge every lead source by. As a rep I never cared what a lead cost. I cared whether somebody was home when I pulled up. A bad lead costs you a drive and an evening with a homeowner who was never going to buy.
Show rates move too. Confirmation calls, reminders and rebooking are a big part of it, and I wrote about that in solar appointment no-shows.
What about shared leads, live transfers and pre-set appointments?
Vendors sell these by the unit, and the price depends on the vendor, the state and the filters you ask for. I can't give you an honest number for someone else's product, so I'll tell you how I think about each one.
A shared lead is sold to several companies at once. It's cheaper per lead for that reason, and you're in a race from the first minute. More on that in exclusive vs shared solar leads.
A live transfer is a homeowner already on the phone, handed to your team. You're paying for contact someone else already made, so it costs more than a raw lead.
A pre-set appointment costs the most per unit. The vendor has already eaten every lead that didn't pick up and every one that didn't book, and that's built into the price. I compare those last two in live transfers vs pre-set appointments.
Whatever you buy, push it through the same math. Work out what one shown appointment costs, then how many of those it takes you to close a deal.
What is a reasonable cost per lead for solar?
A reasonable cost per lead is one that gets you to a shown appointment at a price your close rate can carry. The lead price by itself tells you very little.
For us, an $18 to $25 calculator lead has been a better buy than a $4 form lead, because more of them answer, book and show. Your numbers may come out differently. Track leads, booked appointments, shown appointments and closed deals for a month, per source, and the answer is usually obvious.
If you want to see how much the lead price moves from one state to the next, we published three years of our own campaigns in solar lead cost by state.
One warning from the rep side. A source can look great on cost per lead and still wear your team out. Reps who spend a week dialing people who never answer stop trusting the leads, and then they stop calling the good ones fast too.
How does Solarfunnels charge?
We charge a flat monthly fee, starting at $750 a month. We don't sell leads by the lead or by the appointment. Ad spend is separate. You pay for it and we never mark it up. It's month to month with no setup fee.
For that we run the ads and the funnel, call and text every lead within minutes, confirm the appointment and rebook no-shows. The leads are exclusive to you and never resold.
A few things we don't do. We don't work aged leads, only real-time ones, for compliance. We only do residential solar, so I can't help with commercial. And I won't guarantee a number, because results depend on your market, your price and your budget.
If you want to run your own numbers with me, book a 15-minute call.