Solar leads: How to score them and know which homeowners to call first

Scoring solar leads means ranking every homeowner by how likely they are to book an appointment and install, using what you know about the home and household, not just the form they filled out.

Most solar companies don't have a lead shortage. They have a sorting problem. Leads come in all day from vendors, paid social and search. Reps call them in the order they arrived, and the homeowners most likely to install end up waiting behind people who were never going to buy. When Momentum Solar started scoring its leads, its call center needed 33% fewer calls to set the same number of appointments.

This guide covers why most solar leads never turn into installs, the signals that separate the good ones from the rest, and how to put scores to work in your call queue and your lead buying.

Why most solar leads never turn into installs

Most solar leads don't install because the homeowner can't, won't qualify, or was never that serious. Nothing on the lead form tells you which.

The usual reasons look like this:

• They don't own the home. Renters and many condo owners can't put panels on the roof, no matter how interested they are.
• The roof doesn't work. It's too old, too shaded, or the wrong material, and the site visit is where everyone finds out.
• They won't qualify for financing. Many homeowners finance solar, and a lead who gets declined for the loan has already cost you a rep's time and a site visit.
• The lead is old. Aged leads are cheap for a reason.
• They were just curious. Ads that promise big savings bring in plenty of clicks from people who aren't ready to buy.

Lead source matters, but it doesn't settle the question. Homeowner leads from any source vary a lot in how ready and able they are to buy, and a rep looking at a name, a phone number and a ZIP code can’t tell them apart. The leads aren't really the problem. The problem is treating every one of them the same.

The signals that predict a solar install

Three kinds of signals predict whether a solar lead will install: whether the home and household are a fit, whether the homeowner can finance the system, and how the lead behaved and where it came from. The first two don't show up on a lead form, but they can be attached the moment the lead arrives. The third you already have, from your forms and vendors.

Home and household fit

This is who the homeowner is and what the house is like. Useful signals include homeownership status, home year built, length of residence, home market value and solar roofing interest. At the neighborhood level, solar installation qualified percent shows what share of roofs in a ZIP code are suitable for panels. A homeowner who has lived in the house for eight years is a very different lead from a renter who moved in last spring, even if they filled out the same form.

Financing readiness

A homeowner who won't qualify for the loan costs you more than a homeowner who never answers, because they get all the way to the site visit first. A signal like credit score proxy helps you decide who to call first. It doesn't decide who gets approved, since the lender still does that. Bath remodeler Freedom Bath used Faraday Pro to screen out leads likely to fail credit checks before buying them, and went a full month with zero credit declines. Solar companies can use the same approach on financed leads. For more on that problem, see our guide to finance declines.

Behavior and source

This is what the lead did and where it came from. Behavior includes how much of the form they filled out, whether they uploaded a utility bill, and how quickly they responded to the first call or text. Source is whether the lead was exclusive, shared, aged, bought through a ping-post auction, or generated by your own ads. Exclusive solar leads usually cost more, so it's worth knowing whether they actually install at a higher rate for you.

The point isn't to hand-pick which of these signals matter most. A predictive model learns that from your own past leads and installs, so the weights come from what actually happened, not from a sales manager's best guess.

How to score solar leads: rules-based vs. predictive

There are two ways to score solar leads. Rules-based scoring adds up points a manager assigns by hand. Predictive scoring uses a model trained on your own past leads and installs to rank every new lead by how likely it is to install.

A rules-based system might give a lead 20 points for owning the home, 10 for being in your service area and 10 for a complete form. It's easy to set up, but the points are a guess, and they never change. Every homeowner in your service area who fills out the form completely gets the same score, so the call queue still runs in the order leads arrived.

A predictive model scores each lead the moment it arrives, using everything known about the home and household, and keeps learning as you find out which leads actually installed.

Here's what that looks like with two leads that come in from the same vendor on the same afternoon. Both are in the same ZIP code, both say they own the home, and both pay about $200 a month for electricity. A rules-based system gives them the same 40 points. A predictive model sees that the first homeowner has lived in a 2005 house for nine years, with high solar roofing interest and strong financing signals, and that the second doesn't show up as the owner of the address and moved in last year. It scores the first lead 82 and the second 18. The first goes to your best closer within minutes, and the second goes into a text follow-up instead of a rep's dial list. These numbers are illustrative, but the pattern matches what Momentum Solar saw at scale.

For the full explanation of how these models work, see our guide to predictive lead scoring.

Putting scores to work: routing, speed to lead and lead buying

A score only helps if it changes what happens next. For solar companies, it pays off in four places: the call queue, how fast you call, which leads you buy, and where your marketing budget goes.

Tiered call queue

Split leads into tiers and route each tier differently. Top-tier leads go to your best agents first, middle-tier leads get your standard cadence, and bottom-tier leads go into nurture instead of taking up rep time. This kind of lead routing is exactly how Momentum Solar used its scores.

Speed to lead by tier

Speed to lead matters most where the odds are highest. Call your top-tier leads within minutes, especially shared leads that other installers are also calling. Bottom-tier leads can wait for a slower cadence without costing you much.

Buy smarter

Score leads as they arrive from vendors, and reject low-fit leads before they reach your CRM, or push back on price. Over time, compare vendors on cost per install, not cost per lead. A cheap lead that never answers costs more than an expensive one that books.

Stop spending on homeowners who can't install

The same scores work for marketing. Suppress low-fit homeowners from retargeting and direct mail, so your budget goes to people who can actually put panels on the roof.

What Momentum Solar learned

Momentum Solar, one of the fastest-growing solar installers in the country, relies on its call center to turn purchased leads into on-site assessments. Its old lead scoring was rules-based, built on a handful of data points: lead source, demographics, homeownership and location. Once a lead had a score, it never changed.

Momentum switched to a Faraday model trained on its own customers and Faraday's consumer data. Scores went into the CRM automatically and updated as new customers came in and lead behavior changed. Leads were split into green, yellow and red tiers and given the same call cadence, so the test was fair.

Green leads converted to appointments at a 191% higher rate than the baseline, and yellow leads at a 51% higher rate. Red leads converted 4% below the baseline, confirming where the call center shouldn't spend its time. Overall, the call center needed 33% fewer calls to hit its appointment goal. Read how Momentum Solar cut calls per appointment by 33%.

Where Faraday fits

Faraday scores solar leads by combining your own lead and install history with 1,400+ consumer and property data points on 240 million U.S. adults, then sends the scores back into your CRM and lead intake. We're not a lead vendor. We help you get more out of the ones you already buy.

More solar leads won't fix a sorting problem

Most solar companies can buy all the leads they want. The hard part is knowing which ones to call first. Score every lead as it arrives, route the best ones fast, and stop spending time and money on homeowners who can't install. For more on how this works across home services, read our guide to predictive lead scoring, or talk to our team about scoring your own leads.

Solar leads FAQ

How much do solar leads cost?

Prices vary widely by lead type, region and vendor, and exclusive leads cost more than shared or aged ones. The number that matters more is cost per install. Track installs by vendor and source, not just the price per lead.

Are exclusive solar leads worth it?

Sometimes. With exclusive leads, you're not racing other installers to the phone, but they cost more and still vary in quality. Score them like every other lead and compare installs per dollar by source.

How fast should you call a solar lead?

As fast as possible for your best leads. Speed matters most for top-tier leads, especially shared ones other installers are also calling. Lower-tier leads can go into a slower cadence without losing much.

Can you score a solar lead before anyone talks to them?

Yes. Home, household and financing signals can be attached to a lead the moment it arrives, so it can be scored and routed before the first call.

What is a good solar lead to appointment rate?

It depends heavily on lead source and how you count an appointment, so outside numbers are hard to compare. The more useful number is your own rate by source and score tier, measured over the same period.