Most numbers you find for solar lead cost are a vendor's price list or somebody's guess. So we added ours up: every homeowner solar lead campaign we ran on Facebook and Instagram over the last three years.
The short version is 12,483 leads for $169,058 in ad spend, which is $13.54 per lead. The longer version matters more. One state and one company make up most of that total, and I'd rather tell you now than have you plan a budget around a number that doesn't fit your market.
How much does a solar lead cost on Facebook?
Across everything we ran, $13.54. The typical campaign landed close to that: the median was $13.96 per lead, and the middle half of campaigns fell between $9.57 and $19.41. That's from the 30 campaigns that produced at least 30 leads each.
The cheapest campaign came in at $6.73 per lead. The most expensive was $54.38.
Here's the catch. Our largest advertiser, a New York installer, is 83% of the leads. Take that one company out and the picture changes: the median campaign was $19.74 per lead, and the middle half ran from $12.37 to $24.34.
If you're starting a new campaign in a market we haven't run before, plan with the second set of numbers. It lines up with our planning number for a new campaign, which is $18 to $25 per lead. I go through the math from there in how much solar leads cost.
What does a solar lead cost in each state?
It ranged from about $11 in Florida to almost $27 in California. I've only listed states where we generated at least 200 leads, because below that the number moves too much to mean anything.
| State | Leads | Cost per lead | Solar companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 9,813 | $12.32 | 4 |
| Virginia | 801 | $12.68 | 1 |
| Florida | 642 | $10.97 | 4 |
| Texas | 522 | $20.38 | 4 |
| California | 321 | $26.65 | 4 |
| Illinois | 308 | $25.38 | 1 |
A few things to keep in mind when you read it.
New York is mostly one installer, 95% of the leads in that row. The other three New York companies together got 516 leads at $9.05, so the state looks cheap either way.
Virginia and Illinois are one company each. Treat those as one campaign's result, not as the price of a lead in that state.
Texas and California are four companies each with nobody dominating, so I trust those two rows the most. They're also the two most expensive.
We ran campaigns in five more states (Arizona, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania), but they produced 76 leads between them. That's not enough to publish a number for any of them.
Has the cost per lead gone up?
Not in our data, but I wouldn't call it a trend either way. The mix of companies changes every year, and that moves the average more than the market does.
| Period | Leads | Cost per lead | Cost per 1,000 impressions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 (Oct to Dec) | 627 | $14.09 | $24.00 |
| 2024 | 6,785 | $16.14 | $22.85 |
| 2025 (Jan to Aug) | 4,773 | $10.18 | $27.74 |
| 2026 (Aug to Sep) | 298 | $7.09 | $40.61 |
What I do take from it: reaching a thousand homeowners got more expensive, from about $23 in 2024 to about $28 in 2025. Cost per lead still fell, because the campaigns running in 2025 were fewer (4 companies, down from 12) and had been tuned for longer.
The 2026 row is two months and one company. Read it as a single campaign.
Do instant forms cost less than a calculator funnel?
Yes, per lead. Nearly everything in this report is an instant form, the kind that opens inside Facebook or Instagram with the homeowner's details already filled in.
| Lead type | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Image ad with an instant form | 11,766 | $13.40 |
| Video ad with an instant form | 650 | $14.49 |
| Calculator funnel on a website | 67 | $28.97 |
The calculator row is only 67 leads from three companies, so that $28.97 is a small sample and I wouldn't lean on it. Our planning number for a calculator funnel is $18 to $25 per lead.
The gap shows best inside a single campaign. On our most recent one, in Florida, the instant form ad set brought in 254 leads at $4.48 each. The calculator ad set next to it came in at $27.01.
We run the calculator funnel on newer campaigns even though it costs more per lead. Form leads are the easiest to get and the hardest to reach on the phone. This report can't show you that part, because it counts leads and stops there. I compare the two in Facebook ads for solar companies.
How did we count?
Everything here comes from Meta's own ad reporting for campaigns we ran. Here is exactly what's in and what's out.
- Dates: October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2026, in full calendar months. Campaigns were running in 25 of those 36 months.
- Size: 59 campaigns for 18 solar companies in 11 states, $169,058 in ad spend, just under 7 million impressions.
- What a lead is: a homeowner who submitted a form asking for a solar quote or a savings estimate, either inside Facebook or Instagram or on a landing page. It is not a booked appointment, an appointment that showed, or a sale.
- What's included: every homeowner solar lead campaign, including the ones that spent money and produced nothing.
- What's left out: campaigns that advertised our own service to solar companies, and anything that wasn't solar.
- Concentration: one New York installer is 83% of the leads and 77% of the spend, at $12.53 per lead. The other 17 companies together are 2,113 leads at $18.49.
- Channels: Facebook and Instagram only. No Google, no other lead source.
This isn't everything we've ever run. It's the part Meta's reporting still holds, which goes back about three years.
What should you do with these numbers?
Use them to sanity-check a quote, not to set a target. If someone promises you $5 solar leads in California, this is a reason to ask how.
Then do the math past the lead. On our campaigns, 15% to 20% of leads book an appointment, and about 65% of virtual and 80% of in-person appointments show. On our most recent solar campaign that came to just under $200 per appointment that showed. Those are past results, not promises, and yours depend on your market, your price and your budget.
One limit I should be plain about. I can't tell you which state closes best, because we see the lead and the appointment, and the sale happens on your side of the table.
If you want to know what we charge, it's a flat monthly fee with ad spend separate, and it's all on the pricing page. If you want to walk through your own market, book a 15-minute call.