Someone has offered you solar live transfers, someone else is pitching pre-set appointments, and both swear theirs is the one that closes. You're trying to work out which one your team can turn into installs.
I sold 250+ residential solar deals as a rep, and these days my company delivers both to solar companies and consultants. They're good at different things, and picking the wrong one for how your team works gets expensive fast.
What is a solar live transfer?
A live transfer is a phone call handed to you while the homeowner is still on the line. Somebody else makes first contact, checks the basics, and then connects you.
The usual sequence goes like this. A homeowner fills out a form. A setter calls them, confirms they own the home, asks about the power bill, and says something like "I've got one of our solar consultants available, can I bring them on?" Your phone rings. If you pick up, you're talking to a homeowner who was thinking about solar a minute ago.
When people shop for live transfer solar leads, they're shopping for a delivery method. The lead underneath can be fresh or old, exclusive or shared, and that matters more than the transfer does.
What is a pre-set solar appointment?
A pre-set appointment is a time on your calendar that a homeowner agreed to before you ever spoke with them. It can be a video call or a visit to the house.
The setter does the same qualifying, then books a slot in place of connecting you. You get the name, the address, the answers they gave, and a time. Between the booking and the appointment, somebody has to keep that homeowner warm with a confirmation and a reminder, or they forget.
Which one fits your team?
Live transfers fit a team that has someone free to answer the phone right now. Pre-set appointments fit closers who spend the day in homes and can't.
| Live transfer | Pre-set appointment | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A homeowner on the phone this minute | A booked time, virtual or in person |
| What you need | Someone who can always pick up | A calendar that's kept current |
| Where it breaks | The call goes to voicemail | The homeowner doesn't show |
| Fits best | Inside sales, virtual closers, a consultant at a desk | Field closers, in-home presentations |
Think about a closer who spends most evenings in somebody's living room. A transfer that comes in mid-presentation goes straight to voicemail, so appointments are the only thing that works for that person. A virtual closer at a desk with a headset is the opposite case. For that person, a slot booked for later in the week just gives the homeowner time to cool off.
Plenty of teams run both. Transfers during the hours someone is on the phones, appointments for everything else.
What goes wrong with live transfers?
The transfer rings out. That's the big one, and it happens on the buyer's side.
A homeowner who just agreed to talk to a consultant and then listens to ringing and a voicemail greeting is worse off than one who was never transferred. They did their part and nobody showed up. Forms come in at night and on weekends, when most sales teams aren't staffed, so coverage hours matter more than people plan for.
The second problem is rushed qualifying. A setter who gets paid per transfer has every reason to get the homeowner to you fast, fit or no fit. Ask to hear recordings.
The fix for the first problem is a fallback. If nobody picks up, the homeowner should get booked onto a calendar before the call ends, so the lead doesn't die on a voicemail greeting. On our campaigns, Summer, our virtual assistant, calls and texts every lead within minutes and either books them on your calendar or transfers them to you live, depending on what you've told us your team can cover.
What goes wrong with pre-set appointments?
Some of them don't show. Across our campaigns, about 65% of virtual appointments and 80% of in-person appointments show up.
So if ten virtual appointments get booked, plan on six or seven conversations. In person it's closer to eight. Anyone quoting you a price per appointment should say whether that means booked or shown, because the gap between those two is where your real cost hides.
Show rates move with follow-up. A confirmation text and call right after booking, a reminder before the appointment, and rebooking the ones who miss all push the number up. There's more on that in how to cut solar appointment no-shows.
What do live transfers and pre-set appointments cost?
It depends on how they're sold, and I can only give you real numbers for our own campaigns. We don't sell either one by the piece. We charge a flat monthly fee from $750, the ad spend is separate and never marked up, and every lead that comes in gets worked toward a transfer or an appointment.
Here's how the ad spend works out. A new campaign usually runs $18 to $25 per lead, so 100 leads cost $1,800 to $2,500. About 15% book, which is 15 appointments. Ten to twelve of those show, depending on whether they're virtual or in person. That puts you at roughly $150 to $250 in ad spend per appointment that showed. Our most recent solar campaign came in just under $200. That's a past result and I wouldn't promise it to anyone.
The per-lead side of this is broken down in how much solar leads cost.
What should you ask before you buy solar appointments or live transfers?
Ask where the lead came from and what you're billed for. Most of the bad experiences I hear about trace back to one of these going unasked:
- Is this lead exclusive to me, or has it been sold to other companies?
- How old is the lead at the moment of the call or the booking?
- Did the homeowner agree to be contacted about solar, and by whom?
- What counts as billable? A no-show? A transfer that drops right after the handoff?
- Which qualifying questions were asked, and can I see the answers?
The first two decide most of it. A transfer built on a lead that several companies bought is still a shared lead, and I've gone through that difference in exclusive vs shared solar leads.
You should know where we stand on those too. Our leads come from ads we run for you, and they're exclusive and never resold. We only work leads in real time and we don't work aged lists, for compliance reasons. We don't guarantee a number of appointments. And we only do residential solar.
If you'd like help deciding between the two for your team, book a 15-minute call and we'll work through it.