How much do solar leads cost in the UK?

The short answer

On sellers' own pages in November 2026, a UK solar web lead costs from £18 to £45. Ours start at £30 plus VAT for an exclusive lead, priced by area and volume.

The gap between prices is mostly about who else gets the same enquiry, what checks are done, and what happens when a lead is bad.

What sellers publish, side by side

Starting prices from each seller's own page: list prices, not quotes. Lead Pronto says exclusive leads cost more than shared but doesn't label its £18, and elsewhere on the page says from £25.

VAT: Lead Pronto's prices exclude it. PoweredLeads, Leads for Solar and HelloLeads don't say. Ours are plus VAT.

What the price can buy

Five things explain almost every price gap: whether the lead is sold once, what's checked before it reaches you, where the traffic comes from, the area, and how many questions the person answered. Each one costs the seller money, and each one saves you sales time.

Cost per lead is not cost per sale

The sum that matters has three parts: the price per lead, the share of leads you actually speak to, and the share of those conversations that buy. Divide the price by both shares and you have the lead cost of each sale.

Put your own numbers in below and compare two ways of buying.

A worked example: the same lead, four results

An exclusive £30 lead, called fast: you speak to 7 in 10 and 12% of those buy. Each sale carries £357 of lead cost. A £15 lead shared with two firms, where you reach 45% and 8% buy: £417.

Call the £30 lead next day: £833. Call fast but quote above local rivals: £1,429.

What sellers say their leads turn into

Few sellers publish what happens after delivery. Lead Pronto does, on its solar page. Treat these as a seller's own claims: there's no sample size or date, and the page says results vary by area and sales process.

They are still a useful yardstick for your own trial.

How much can you afford to pay per lead?

Work backwards from the job, not forwards from the price list. Our rough estimate for a home system with a battery is £7,000 to £12,000, with £2,000 to £3,500 of gross profit. Most installers can spend a slice of that to win the job.

Here's the sum, with an example you can swap for your own figures.

1. 1
   Take your gross profit per job

   Say £2,500 on an average solar and battery install.

2. 2
   Decide what you'll spend to win one

   We'd plan on 10% to 30%. At 20%, that's £500 a sale.

3. 3
   Use your lead-to-sale rate

   If 8 in 100 leads become sales, you need about 12.5 leads per sale.

4. 4
   Divide to get your ceiling

   £500 divided by 12.5 is £40. Any lead under £40 that converts at your rate makes money.

When cheap leads cost more, and who should still buy them

Cheap leads lose money in three ways. Other firms called first. The ad promised free or funded panels, so the person was never a buyer. And your best sales hours go on calls that were never going to close.

But some installers do well on them. The question is whether your team is built for it.

What we've seen: the lead price is rarely the problem

When results are poor, installers blame the leads. Sometimes they're right. More often, in our accounts, the fix sits on their side: who calls, how fast, how often, and how the quote compares locally.

Three things we saw this autumn, across our solar buyers.

Prices and demand move with the calendar

Home solar panels carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5% (HMRC). Batteries joined the zero rate in February 2024. Expect solar jobs pulled into early 2027, then a thinner spell.

When demand drops, each lead costs sellers more to win. Book volume and caps before the rush.

What we'd do before you buy solar leads

If you're choosing a supplier now, these steps will do more for your cost per sale than haggling over the price per lead.

1. 1
   Set your ceiling

   Work out the most you can pay per lead from your gross profit and your lead-to-sale rate.

2. 2
   Compare like with like

   Ask each seller: sold once or shared, VAT included or not, and what happens to a bad lead.

3. 3
   Trial 50 to 100 leads

   Enough to see your contact rate, booked rate and first sales. Fewer tells you very little.

4. 4
   Call in minutes and try about six times

   Over a few days, with a text from your business between calls. Log every try.

5. 5
   Know the local going rate

   If your quote sits well above local installers, speed won't save it.

6. 6
   Send outcomes back weekly

   Contacted, booked, sold and why not. A good supplier uses them to aim the ads at people like your buyers.

AI prompts to work out your numbers

Copy these into ChatGPT or Claude and fill in the brackets with your own figures. They do the sums in this guide on your numbers, not ours. Check the workings before you act on them.

You are a commercial adviser to UK solar installers. Work out the most [company] can afford to pay per solar lead.

My figures:
- Average job value: £[amount] (panels, battery or both: [say which])
- Gross profit per job: £[amount]
- Share of that profit I'm willing to spend to win a job: [10 to 30]%
- Leads that become sales: [number] in 100 (or, if I don't know: I speak to [x]% of leads and [y]% of those buy)

Show the sum step by step: what I can spend per sale, how many leads I need per sale, and the ceiling price per lead.
Then give me a small table of the ceiling at 10%, 20% and 30% spend, against conversion rates of 5, 8 and 12 in 100.
Finally, for these supplier prices [prices, and whether VAT is included], tell me the conversion rate I'd need to stay under my ceiling.

Rules: show your workings, use only my numbers, and ask me for anything missing rather than guessing. Add VAT where a price excludes it and I can't reclaim it: [can / can't reclaim VAT].

Build a Google Sheets cost-per-sale tracker for [company], a UK solar installer buying leads from [suppliers].

Tab 1, lead log: date received, supplier, area (postcode district), price paid, VAT (yes/no), time to first call, tries, reached, survey booked, survey done, quote sent, sold, job value, reason if not sold (from a dropdown: no answer, not a home owner, expected free or funded panels, price, timing, chose another installer, other).

Tab 2, summary by supplier and month: leads, returned, reached %, booked %, sold %, spend, cost per lead, cost per booking, cost per sale. Give the exact formulas.

Tab 3, summary by postcode area, the same columns.

Also:
- a cell for my ceiling cost per sale (£[amount]) and conditional formatting that turns any supplier or area red above it,
- a 10-minute weekly review: what to look at, in order, and what each pattern usually means (e.g. low reach = speed or wrong numbers; lots of "expected free panels" = ask what the ads promise; reached but not sold = check price against local installers).

I'm comparing solar lead quotes for [company] in [areas]. Here they are: [paste each supplier's price and terms].

For each supplier, set out in one table: price per lead, VAT included or not, the price with VAT, sold once or shared (and to how many), minimum order, caps, areas, what's checked before delivery, and the returns rule.

Then, using my rates (I reach [x]% of exclusive leads and about [y]% of shared ones, and [z]% of people I speak to buy), estimate the lead cost per sale for each.

Finish with the questions I still need to ask each supplier, where their page or quote doesn't say. Don't assume anything a supplier hasn't stated; mark it "not stated".

You are a planning adviser to a UK solar installer. Home solar panels have 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April (HMRC). Batteries have had 0% VAT since February 2024.

My business: [company] in [area]. We can survey [number] homes a week and install [number] systems a week. From survey to install usually takes [weeks]. We currently buy about [number] leads a month and [number] in 100 become sales.

Produce a month-by-month plan from now to June 2027: leads to buy, surveys and installs expected, and when to agree caps and volumes with suppliers. Show where we'd run out of survey or fitting capacity and what to do about it.

Also write a short, accurate line my team can use with customers about the VAT change: what changes and when, with no promised savings and no pressure. Tell me to check the latest HMRC guidance before using it.

Here is an export of my last [number] solar leads with: time received, time of first call, number of tries, reached, booked, sold, and the reason if not sold. [paste]

My average quote for [typical system] is £[amount]. Local installers I know of quote about £[amount] for the same.

Tell me, with numbers from the data:
1. How fast and how often we really call, and how reach changes with speed.
2. The most common reasons leads didn't buy, grouped.
3. Whether many expected free or funded panels (if so, what to ask the supplier about their ads).
4. Whether price is likely the problem, comparing my quote with the local figure.
5. The single change most likely to lower my cost per sale next month.

Use only my data. Where it's too thin to say, say so.

The rules still apply to bought leads

Calling a homeowner about solar is direct marketing. The ICO says buyers must do proportionate checks before using data from someone else, and that it isn't enough to simply accept a third party's assurances.

So ask to see the page the person filled in and the exact consent wording, and check it covers you.

1. 1
   See the page

   The page the person filled in, as they saw it.

2. 2
   See the exact wording

   The consent they agreed to, word for word.

3. 3
   Check it covers you

   Your firm, or exactly your kind of firm, and the way you'll contact them.

4. 4
   Keep it on file

   A supplier's assurance alone isn't enough.

Common questions

Sources

1. Lead Pronto: solar leads for UK installers (prices and conversion claims, read 9 November 2026)
2. PoweredLeads: solar leads (prices, read 9 November 2026)
3. Leads for Solar (prices, read 9 November 2026)
4. HelloLeads (prices, read 9 November 2026)
5. GOV.UK: VAT on energy-saving materials and heating equipment (VAT Notice 708/6)
6. ICO: collect information and generate leads (direct marketing guidance)
7. ICO: direct marketing guidance