A record, an appointment and a sale are three products sold to solar installers under the general heading of leads, and the risk sits in a different place in each. Nothing in this record publishes a price for an appointment or for a pay-per-sale arrangement, so what follows is about how to read a quote rather than what one should say.
What an appointment is worth against a record
The published aged solar ladders run $3.00 down to $0.25 a record. An appointment is a homeowner who has agreed a time, which removes the contact-rate problem that decides whether a bought list pays at all, and it is priced accordingly higher. The question to ask is what happens when the homeowner is not there, because a no-show policy is the whole difference between an appointment product and a record product with a calendar entry attached.
Pay per sale, and why it is rare
Pay per sale charges only when an installation is contracted, which puts all the risk on the seller and requires the seller to trust your reporting of what closed. That trust problem is why the model is uncommon in home services generally and why the commission on it is high where it exists. It is genuinely attractive for an installer with limited cash and it deserves careful reading of what counts as a sale and when the commission is due.
The three clauses that decide fairness
For appointments: what counts as a kept appointment, what the no-show remedy is, and whether the homeowner was told who they were meeting. For pay per sale: what counts as a closed sale, whether cancellations inside the cooling-off period are chargeable, and how disputes are resolved. None of the sources in this record publishes any of these, so they are negotiated rather than compared, and the negotiation is worth more than the headline commission.
Questions people ask about solar appointment leads
What do solar appointment leads cost?
No source in this record publishes an appointment price. Aged records are published at $0.25 to $3.00, and an appointment is priced well above that because it removes the contact-rate problem.
How do pay per sale solar leads work?
You pay a commission only when an installation is contracted. It puts the risk on the seller, which is why it is uncommon and why the commission is high where it exists.
What should I check in an appointment contract?
What counts as a kept appointment, the no-show remedy, and whether the homeowner knows who they are meeting. The third question predicts the first two.
Is pay per sale better for a small installer?
It can be, because it converts a fixed marketing cost into a variable one. Read carefully what counts as a sale and how cancellations inside the cooling-off period are treated.