Cash, loan or lease: what a solar lead is worth in 2026

Wood Mackenzie published its latest market outlook on June 10, and the residential line was the one installers had been bracing for. It expects the residential solar market to contract 21% in 2026, following the expiration of the homeowner tax credit (section 25D) at the end of last year. It also expects recovery next year, supported by third-party ownership models, rising retail electricity rates and safe-harbored project pipelines.

For an installer setting a marketing budget for the second half, that paragraph holds most of what matters. Fewer homeowners are buying, more of the ones who say yes are leasing, and what you can afford to pay for a lead now depends on which kind of yes it turns into.

The buyer mix was moving before the credit ended

Cash buyers were already the minority. The CFPB’s August 2024 report on solar financing, citing industry data, put the average residential installation at roughly $25,000. It said cash purchases made up just 19 percent of the at-home residential market in 2023, with loans at 58 percent and third-party ownership, meaning leases and power purchase agreements, at 23 percent.

Then the deadline pulled demand forward. Wood Mackenzie’s March review of 2025 said the year-end expiration of the credit for customer-owned solar caused a surge in sales and permitting, and that annual installations would be roughly in line with 2024. For many installers the result is a pipeline that was full in December and thin this spring, and a sales mix tilting toward the models where the installer or a financier owns the system.

What a lead costs when nobody publishes a solar benchmark

No published benchmark breaks out solar, so be wary of anyone quoting a precise solar cost per lead. The closest figures we can point to:

• Google search, Home & Home Improvement. WordStream by LocaliQ’s 2026 benchmarks, covering April 2025 to March 2026, put the median cost per click at $8.33 and the median conversion rate at 8.05%, or roughly eight leads for every hundred clicks.
• Google search, home services overall. LocaliQ’s 2025 home services report, covering April 2024 to March 2025, put the median cost per lead at $90.92 across 16 categories. Doors & Windows Sales, another large purchase usually sold in the home, came in at $200.34.
• Facebook ads, Home & Home Improvement. WordStream by LocaliQ’s 2025 Facebook ads benchmarks for lead campaigns, covering April 2024 to June 2025, put the median cost per lead at $41.26. Form leads come cheaper and need more follow-up before anyone books a site survey.

These are medians across many advertisers, not what your market will charge. Their real use is a sanity check: is your own cost per lead in a plausible range before you start judging sources on what they install?

Why a cash lead, a loan lead and a lease lead are worth different amounts

A lead is worth what it installs, and in 2026 the same click can become three different contracts.

• Cash. The full price comes to you, and in our experience these buyers collect the most bids and take the longest to decide. They sign on reviews, a clear written quote and a production estimate they believe.
• Loan. The CFPB found lender markups and fees that can raise a loan’s principal by 30 percent or more above the cash price, and in 2024 Minnesota’s attorney general sued four solar lenders, alleging they pushed installers to play down the inflated price and emphasize the monthly installment. Show both numbers, and expect careful buyers to ask about the gap.
• Lease or PPA. The homeowner is not buying the system, so these conversations often move faster, but your margin depends on the financier’s terms. The FTC tells homeowners to ask how long they plan to stay in the home, since a residential system is designed to stay on a house for at least 20 years. A lease lead from someone planning to sell next spring is a poor lead at any price.

Only tracking by contract type shows any of this. A report with one blended cost per lead is averaging three different businesses and hiding which one your ads are feeding.

The July 4 date for lease and PPA sellers

The homeowner credit never applied to leases and PPAs, because the homeowner does not own the system. The owner may claim a business credit, and that credit has its own end date. IRS Notice 2025-42 says the 48E and 45Y credits end for a solar facility placed in service after the last day of next year, and that this termination date applies to facilities whose construction begins after July 4 this year.

Two things follow for marketing. First, ask your financier, in writing, which of your signed jobs it treats as having begun construction by July 4, and plan the next eighteen months of installs around the answer. Second, none of this belongs in a homeowner ad. The business credit lowers the owner’s cost, and it is not a saving the homeowner claims. An ad that blurs the two is the presumption-of-universality problem the CFPB flagged in 2024, wearing new clothes.

Where the budget leaks before a lead is priced

• Missed calls. A homeowner who reaches voicemail while comparing installers often moves on to the next quote. At home improvement click prices, a phone ringing out during a site survey is an expensive habit.
• Thin reviews. BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer survey found 47% of people will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. An installer up against national lease providers needs a steady supply of recent ones.
• ZIP code campaigns for loans. For credit offers such as loans in the US and Canada, Google’s personalized advertising policy bars targeting by ZIP code, age, gender, or parental or marital status. A financing campaign built around ZIP codes may not be allowed at all, so check how Google classifies it before building one.

What to do this month

• Split every lead in your CRM by contract type (cash, loan, lease, PPA) and report cost per installed system for each.
• Ask your financier for its begin-construction rules in writing before July 4.
• Put the cash price beside every monthly figure in ads, on landing pages and in quotes.
• Remove homeowner tax credit language from ads and pages, including lease pages that hint at one.
• Fix missed-call handling before raising any summer budget.
• Compare every lead source on installs rather than leads, and cut the one that installs least.

Solar marketing budgets will be smaller this year, and the installers who spend theirs on sources that install will come out of the contraction in better shape than the ones who bought volume. Our page for residential solar installers sets out the plan we would run, and our Google Ads work covers search campaigns and Local Services Ads together.