How to Quote Solar Installation Jobs

Solar quotes need to cover panels, inverters, batteries, mounting, wiring and labour without scaring the client off. Here is how to price the job properly.

Solar is one of the trickiest jobs to quote. The hardware list is long, the load calculations matter, and clients shop your number against three other installers within a week. Get the quote wrong and you either lose the job or eat the difference when something on site does not match the brief.

A good solar quote is part proposal, part technical document. It tells the homeowner exactly what they are buying, how it will perform, and why your price is what it is. Below is the structure I use after years of seeing what wins and what gets ignored.

Start with a proper site assessment

Never quote solar from a phone call. Ever. Roof orientation, pitch, shading, roof material, distribution board condition and meter type all change the price. A quick site visit takes an hour and saves you thousands in rework.

On the visit, photograph the DB board, the roof from a few angles, the meter and the proposed inverter location. Measure the available roof area and note any obstacles like satellite dishes, geyser vents or skylights.

• Roof type and pitch (tile, IBR, corrugated, slate)
• Available unshaded roof area in square metres
• Distance from inverter to DB board
• Existing DB board capacity and condition
• Average monthly kWh from the last 6 utility bills
• Backup requirement (essential loads only or whole house)

Size the system from real consumption

Clients love saying they want a 10 kW system because their neighbour has one. Ignore that. Size from actual usage. Pull six to twelve months of bills, average the kWh, then size the array to cover the daytime load plus a sensible buffer for cloudy weeks.

If you also offer the electrical side of the install, you can bundle it cleanly and present one number. Many of the electrical and energy trades use solar work as a margin booster on top of standard sparky jobs because the ticket size is so much higher.

Battery sizing is where clients overspend. A 5 kWh battery covers most evening loads for a typical family. Selling them 15 kWh because it sounds impressive will lose you the deal to the installer who actually did the maths.

Break the quote into clear line items

Solar clients compare quotes line by line. If your quote is one lump sum saying "5 kW solar system installed: $ 95,000" you will lose to the installer who shows the breakdown, even if their total is higher.

Group the quote into four sections: generation (panels and mounting), conversion (inverter and protection), storage (batteries and BMS), and installation (labour, wiring, COC). That structure makes it easy for the client to see where the money goes.

Sample line item structure

• 8 x 550W monocrystalline panels: $ 12,800
• Aluminium rail mounting kit for tile roof: $ 3,400
• 5 kW hybrid inverter with WiFi monitoring: $ 18,500
• 5.1 kWh lithium battery: $ 24,000
• DC and AC isolators, surge protection, cabling: $ 4,200
• Installation labour (2 installers, 2 days): $ 6,800
• Electrical certificate of compliance: $ 1,500

Cover compliance and warranty in writing

Half the trust battle in solar is convincing the client you are not the cowboy who installed their cousin's system that caught fire. Spell out the compliance side. List the certificates you will issue, the standards you work to, and the inverter and panel warranties in years.

Spell out the compliance side once and reuse it. Building the standards, certificates, and warranty notes into free quote templates means every solar quote you send carries the same reassurance without retyping it.

Add a short paragraph on what is NOT included. Roof repairs from existing leaks, DB board upgrades beyond a basic CB swap, and trenching for ground mounts are the usual culprits. Say it upfront and you avoid the awkward variation conversation later.

Show the payback in plain numbers

Every solar client wants to know when the system pays itself off. Do the maths for them. Take the system cost, divide by their annual savings based on current tariffs, and give them a payback period in years.

Do not over-promise. If the realistic payback is 7 years, say 7 years. Installers who claim 4 year paybacks on residential systems are the reason this industry has a trust problem.

Run the payback maths in a free quote calculator so the numbers behind the system price are consistent every time, and save your component lists so you can rebuild a typical 5 kW or 8 kW package in minutes instead of starting from scratch.

Present the quote properly

Email the PDF the same day as the site visit. Speed wins solar deals more than price does. The installer who quotes within 24 hours has a massive advantage over the one who takes a week.

Include a one page summary at the top: system size, expected annual generation in kWh, total price, and payback. Then the line item breakdown. Then the compliance and warranty section. Most clients only read the summary, but the detail behind it is what closes them.

If you want a refresher on the basics of presenting any quote well, focus on the one page summary and the line item detail. That combination is what makes the difference between a quote that wins and one that gets ignored.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Quoting from a photo or phone call without a site visit
• Sizing the system to impress rather than to match real usage
• Lumping everything into one price with no breakdown
• Forgetting to mention the COC and what it costs
• Promising unrealistic payback periods to win the deal
• Not specifying inverter and panel brands, leaving room for disputes

The bottom line

Solar quoting is technical work. Treat it that way. Site visit first, real consumption data second, clear line items third, honest payback last. Do those four things and you will win more jobs at better margins than the installer racing you to the bottom on price.

Want to put this into practice? QuoteGenio handles free quotes and invoices for solar installers, mobile-first, with no spreadsheets and no after-hours admin.