The credit is gone. Most solar websites still say 30%.
The federal residential solar credit went from 30% to zero on January 1, 2026 — no phase-down, no transition. Nearly every installer site in the country still advertises it, which means every one of those companies is booking appointments on a number they cannot deliver. Being the one that is accurate is the cheapest competitive advantage available in solar right now.
Sources: PipelineOn 2026 residential solar digital marketing report citing Wood Mackenzie, via Web Tonic (2026); BaaDigi contractor growth benchmarks 2026; VA Horizon solar appointment pricing analysis, July 2026; Internal Revenue Code §25D as repealed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21. National figures — your market will differ, and the comparator below matters more than any of them.
What actually changed for solar on January 1, 2026?
The 30% Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025, repealed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There was no step-down to 26% or 22% and no transition window. A homeowner buying with cash or a loan in 2026 receives nothing federally. One path survives: third-party ownership, where a lease or PPA provider claims the commercial Section 48E credit, which runs through the end of 2027.
Why is marketing for solar contractors different from other trades?
Because nothing about solar behaves like the rest of contracting. There is no emergency intent, the ticket is five figures, the decision takes weeks or months, the customer is comparing financing structures rather than crews, and the economics just changed underneath everybody at once. A playbook built for plumbing will lose money here quickly.
Zero urgency, total deliberation
Nobody wakes up needing solar today. Where a plumber wins on speed to lead, you win on staying credible across a decision that may take three months and involve two people who disagree. That makes nurture, not response time, the thing worth engineering.
The close rate spread is enormous
Published solar close rates run from around 5% on shared marketplace leads to near 30% on referrals. No other trade has a six-fold spread. It means cost per lead is close to meaningless and cost per closed install is the only number worth managing to.
Acquisition cost is now the biggest line
Residential solar customer acquisition passed the cost of the panels themselves several years ago and is projected to rise roughly 40% in 2026. In most trades marketing is an expense. In solar it is a primary cost of goods, and it deserves that level of scrutiny.
Your customer researches like a buyer, not a homeowner
They read about degradation rates, inverter warranties, net metering rules and payback periods before they contact anybody. That is unusual, and it is why content genuinely outperforms ads in solar in a way it does not in most of contracting.
Reputation damage travels further
Solar carries more accumulated public scepticism than any other trade, most of it earned by door-knocking outfits that overpromised and vanished. You are not only selling against other installers, you are selling against what the last one did to the neighbourhood.
The whole market's content just went stale
An entire industry's websites, guides and ad copy became inaccurate on one day. That is a disruption, and it is temporarily an opportunity: accurate, dated content on the subject can outrank competitors who have been publishing for years.
What does a solar lead actually cost you per signed install?
Divide cost per lead by close rate and the channel rankings usually invert. A $60 shared lead closing at 6% costs about $1,000 per signed installation. A $175 exclusive lead closing at 12% costs about $1,458 — nearly three times the lead price for a worse outcome. Change the close rates to your own and watch which channel you should have been buying.
Cost Per Closed Install Comparator
AFC · No. 008First, your ceiling
Gross profit per installation is the most any channel can cost before it stops being worth running. Everything below gets measured against it.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is stored or transmitted. Cost per signed install is cost per lead divided by close rate. Defaults are 2026 published midpoints: shared marketplace leads $25–$100 closing 5–8%, exclusive leads $100–$250, booked appointments $150–$500, Google Ads $80–$300, and owned channels where referrals are reported closing near 30%. Replace every one of them with your own numbers — the defaults are a starting point, not a claim about your business.
How should a solar company market itself after the credit?
In this order. The first item costs nothing and is urgent, the second is the largest organic opportunity solar has had in years, and the rest rebuild the pitch around arithmetic that still holds. None of it requires pretending the market did not change.
Purge every "30%" from everything you own
Website, landing pages, PDFs, proposal templates, ad copy, email sequences, the brochure in the truck. Search your own site for the number and fix every instance. Leaving it live attracts customers on a promise you cannot honour, and in a trade already fighting a credibility problem that is the most expensive sentence on your website.
Publish the honest explainer before your competitors do
"Is there still a solar tax credit?" is one of the highest-intent questions in the category right now, and most of what ranks for it is stale. A clearly dated page explaining what ended, what survived, and what it means for payback in your state earns the ranking and gets cited by AI assistants precisely because so little accurate content exists. Date it visibly and keep it reviewed.
Anchor to payback, not to a discount
The credit let the industry sell a percentage off. What remains is the actual case: local utility rates, their escalation history, what a kilowatt hour costs the customer over twenty years. Show the arithmetic on the site rather than saving it for the appointment — homeowners are doing this maths themselves now, and the company that helps them do it honestly is the one they call.
Put leases and PPAs on the site properly
Third-party ownership still reaches a federal credit through Section 48E on the owner's side, through the end of 2027. For customers with no tax appetite it may now be the only route that works. If you offer it, it deserves its own page — and it deserves an honest comparison against ownership rather than being positioned as equivalent.
Own your state and utility incentive page
State credits, rebates and utility programmes largely survived and are now a much larger share of what a homeowner can actually get. Almost nobody maintains an accurate local page on them. Maintaining one is a durable ranking asset because it demands updating, which is exactly why competitors abandon theirs.
Move budget toward channels you own
Organic search is reported to produce somewhere between 45% and 58% of high-quality residential solar leads, and referrals close far better than anything purchased. With acquisition costs projected to climb, the companies that own their demand absorb the increase and the ones renting it do not. That shift takes months, which is why it starts now rather than when the numbers hurt.
See contractor SEO for how the content architecture gets built, Google Ads for contractors for the paid side, and AI search optimization for why accurate dated content is worth more in this category than in any other trade we work in.
What do solar leads cost by channel in 2026?
Between roughly $20 and $500 depending on how qualified the lead is and how many other installers are calling it. The prices are less interesting than the close rates beside them, which is why both columns are here and why the third column — what each actually costs per signed install — is the one to read.
| Channel | Cost per lead | Reported close rate | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared marketplace leads | $25–$100 | 5–8% | Sold to several installers simultaneously. The cheapest lead and frequently not the cheapest customer. Speed to contact decides almost everything here. |
| Exclusive vendor leads | $100–$250 | 8–15% | Yours alone. Usually better cost per install than shared despite costing two to four times as much per lead. |
| Booked appointments | $150–$500 | Varies widely | Pre-set sits, but no-show rates of 30–40% are commonly reported, so the effective price is meaningfully higher than the invoice. |
| Google Ads (non-branded) | $80–$300 | 5–15% | Clicks run roughly $8–$45 and far higher in California, Texas and Florida. You control targeting, pacing and the landing page, which is why it responds to work. |
| Local Services Ads | $80–$200 | Varies by market | Available in some solar markets, priced per lead rather than per click, and positioned above the standard ads. Dispute junk leads — most contractors never do. |
| Organic search | $0 direct | Above paid average | Reported to generate 45–58% of high-quality residential solar leads. Costs time instead of money and does not inflate when the auction does. |
| Referrals | Lowest all-in | ~29–37% | The highest-converting channel in solar by a wide margin. Systematically asking is a marketing programme, not a hope. |
Sources: The Leads Warehouse and Enervio channel pricing 2026; Service Hero Marketing solar channel benchmarks, June 2026; SurgePV customer acquisition cost analysis, May 2026; BaaDigi 2026 lead-to-sale conversion data; Web Tonic solar digital marketing statistics 2026. Ranges rather than point estimates because the spread between markets is genuinely that wide. Replace them with ninety days of your own data — the free lead tracker exists for exactly that.
A shrinking market is not a reason to go quiet. It is the reason not to.
Residential volume is forecast to contract this year and acquisition costs are projected to rise about 40%. Plenty of companies will respond by cutting marketing, which is the one move that guarantees they lose share to whoever stayed visible. The demand does not disappear in a downturn — it concentrates. We would rather tell you the market is hard and show you the arithmetic than sell you optimism.
Get a free solar marketing auditWhat does solar installer SEO and advertising involve?
An accuracy audit first, because it is free and urgent. Then the profile and reviews. Then content built around payback and local incentives, which is where solar's advantage over other trades actually sits. Paid comes after there is somewhere worth sending the traffic.
Incentive accuracy audit
Every page, PDF, template and ad checked for references to expired federal credits, and a rewrite of the ones that are wrong. This is the single highest-return hour on a solar account and most companies have not done it eight months after the change. It also removes a genuine advertising-claim risk.
Contractor SEO Step 02 · Fastest visible movementGoogle Business Profile & the map pack
Correct primary category, every service listed including battery storage and maintenance, real photos of completed arrays, accurate service area and a steady review habit. Movement usually shows within 30 to 90 days. Google's own Business Profile help centre documents the setup if you would rather do it in-house.
Local SEO for contractors Step 03 · Where solar winsPayback and incentive content
Pages that do the arithmetic: local utility rates and escalation, what a system costs now, what state and utility programmes still pay, whether a battery earns its keep on your local rate structure. Solar buyers research harder than any other trade's customers, which makes this the channel with the highest ceiling.
Contractor SEO Step 04 · Unusually strong fitAI search visibility
"Is there still a solar tax credit?" and "is solar worth it in 2026?" are asked of assistants before anyone searches for an installer. Only about 1.2% of local businesses surface in those answers, while AI-sourced visitors convert at roughly 14.2% against 2.8% from traditional search. Accurate dated content is the qualifying ticket.
AI search optimization Step 05 · After the foundationGoogle Ads & Local Services Ads
Separated campaigns for purchase intent, lease and PPA intent, battery and commercial work, because those buyers are not the same person and should not share a bid. Google Guaranteed became Google Verified in October 2025 — older guides have the name wrong. Documented at Local Services Ads help.
Google Ads for contractors Underneath all of itTracking, nurture & referrals
Call tracking per channel before a dollar goes out, so cost per signed install is a measured number rather than an estimate. Then the long nurture solar actually requires, and a referral programme run as a process — because it is the highest-converting channel you have and most companies leave it to chance.
Lead generation systemsShould solar contractors buy leads or build their own demand?
Both, in a specific order and a shifting ratio. Bought leads fill the calendar while owned demand is being built, because owned demand takes months. But every dollar that stays in bought leads is a dollar you have to spend again next month at a price you do not control, and that price is going up.
Buying leads
Useful, and we set it up for clients regularly. Just be clear about what it is: renting access to demand somebody else generated, at a price they set.
- Volume starts within days, which genuinely matters if crews are idle
- Costs are knowable up front and scale cleanly
- Shared leads mean four competitors are dialling the same homeowner
- No accumulated asset — stop paying and the flow stops that afternoon
- Rising acquisition costs land entirely on you with no offset
- Lead quality is judged after you have paid for it
Owning demand
Search rankings, map pack position, reviews, referral systems and an email list. Months to build, then it keeps producing without per-lead cost.
- Organic reportedly delivers 45–58% of high-quality residential solar leads
- Referrals close near 30% — the best rate in the category by a distance
- Cost per lead falls as the asset matures rather than rising with the auction
- Nobody else is calling the homeowner who found you directly
- Takes four to eight months before it carries meaningful weight
- Requires content you actually maintain, not a page published once
Rented demand fills this month.
Owned demand fills next year.
What can a solar contractor fix this week for free?
Four things, none of which require hiring anybody. If you do only these and never call us, the page has still done its job.
Search your own site for "30%"
Every page, every PDF, every proposal template. Fix or remove each instance, and add a visible "last reviewed" date to anything discussing incentives.
Check what your ads still claim
Old ad copy and paused campaigns get reactivated without review. Federal credit language in a live 2026 ad is both a lead-quality problem and a claims problem.
Ask your last ten customers for a review
Reviews feed the map pack, and referrals are the highest-closing channel in solar. Ten asks costs an afternoon and outperforms most paid tests at that budget.
Write down your close rate by source
Not blended — by source. Until that exists, the comparator above runs on national defaults instead of the numbers that describe your actual business.
Where should a solar contractor get independent information?
Not from a marketing agency, and on tax matters not from us at all. These are the primary sources we use ourselves and none of them pay us to be listed. On anything involving credits or incentives, go to the government or the standards body rather than to anyone with something to sell you.
Internal Revenue Service
The authority on what the Residential Clean Energy Credit does and no longer does. If your content makes a tax claim, this is what it should be checked against — not a competitor's blog.
DSIRE — State Incentives Database
The comprehensive database of state, local and utility incentive programmes, maintained at NC State. Now the most important research tool in solar sales, since state programmes are what is left.
NREL
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Cost benchmarks, performance modelling and PVWatts. Neutral, technical and genuinely citable in customer-facing content.
U.S. Energy Information Administration
Electricity prices by state and their history. The raw material for an honest payback argument, which is the argument the industry now has to make.
Solar Energy Industries Association
The national trade association. Market data, policy tracking and a code of ethics worth displaying if you are a signatory, in a trade where trust is the constraint.
Google Search Central
Google's own documentation on how search works and what structured data does. The antidote to most of the SEO folklore you will be told by people selling it.
Solar contractor marketing questions
How much does solar contractor marketing cost?
Did the federal solar tax credit actually end?
Should my website still mention the 30% tax credit?
What is a good cost per lead for a solar company in 2026?
How do you sell solar without the tax credit?
Are shared marketplace solar leads worth buying?
How long does solar SEO take to work?
Does Google Local Services Ads work for solar contractors?
Is it still worth marketing solar in a shrinking market?
Will AI search actually send solar customers my way?
Find out where your market actually stands
We'll audit your website, your Google Business Profile, your review profile and the solar companies currently outranking you — and we will specifically flag every place your site still references a federal credit that no longer exists, because that is usually the most expensive thing on it.
About a day to turn around. You keep the findings whether you hire us or not, and there is no obligation. If we already work with a solar contractor in your service area, we will tell you on the first call rather than take the account.
Prefer to talk? 1-800-481-8638 — a person answers.
Request your free solar audit
No cost, no contract, no pitch deck.
The market got harder. That's the opportunity.
One call. We'll look at your market, tell you what it takes to win it now, and give you a real number. If the arithmetic doesn't work, we'll say so.