Solar lead generation in the UK is expensive, and most of it is expensive for the wrong reasons. Shared leads get sold to three to five installers at once, so you pay for a phone call the homeowner is already sick of taking. Exclusive leads cost more and still do not know who you are. Meanwhile the cheapest, warmest leads you will ever get are already in your CRM: old quote requests that stalled on finance, planning, or timing. Here is the honest cost breakdown by channel, and why waking up your dead quote requests beats buying new leads on almost every measure that matters.
The Real Cost of a Solar Install Sets the Whole Game
Before we talk about lead cost, anchor the maths on what a solar install is actually worth. A typical residential system in the UK comes in somewhere around £5,000 to £10,000 installed, and jobs with battery storage or larger arrays push well past that. That deal value is why solar leads are worth chasing. It is also why the lead market is so aggressive: everyone knows the prize is big, so the cost per lead gets bid up.
A high deal value forgives a lot of sins. You can overpay for leads for a while and still turn a profit, which is exactly how installers end up with a lead budget that quietly balloons. The problem is not that solar leads are worthless. It is that the way most installers buy them wastes a huge fraction of the spend on people who were never going to convert this month, this quarter, or from this installer.
So the real question is not "how do I get more solar leads". It is "what does each channel actually cost me per install won". Those are very different numbers.
The Solar Lead Channels, Ranked by What They Really Cost
There are roughly six routes to a new install. Every installer uses some mix of them, usually without ever comparing the true cost. Here is the honest version.
Shared and paid solar leads. The default. An aggregator captures a form fill and sells it to several installers. Cheap on paper, brutal in practice, because you are one of four or five people phoning the same tired homeowner.
Lead-gen aggregators (exclusive). Same providers, premium tier. You are the only installer who receives the lead. Higher price, better close rate, but you are still cold to the homeowner and still paying per lead whether it converts or not.
Canvassing and door-to-door. Low cash cost per conversation, high everything else: wages, management, weather, and a reputation problem the whole sector has earned. It works, but it is a business inside your business.
Referrals. The best leads you will ever get and the ones installers do least to engineer. A referred homeowner trusts you before the first call. The only cost is remembering to ask and having a reason for the customer to talk about you.
Local SEO and directory listings. Slow to build, cheap to run once ranked. A homeowner searching "solar installer near me" is high intent and, crucially, chose to contact you. Directory and MCS-listing traffic behaves the same way.
Reactivating old quote requests. The one almost nobody works properly. These are people who already asked you for a price and then went quiet. You have already paid to acquire them. Contacting them again costs pennies.
The Channel Comparison, Side by Side
Numbers vary by region and provider, so treat these as the ranges we typically see rather than fixed prices. The column that matters most is the last one: warmth. Cold leads cost you twice, once in cash and again in close rate.
| Channel | Rough cost per lead | Shared or exclusive | Warmth | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared solar leads | £15-£40 | Shared (3-5 installers) | Cold | Low |
| Exclusive aggregator leads | £60-£120 | Exclusive | Cold | Low |
| Canvassing / door-to-door | Low cash, high labour | Exclusive | Cold | High |
| Referrals | Near zero | Exclusive | Warm | Medium |
| Local SEO / directories | Low ongoing | Exclusive | Warm-ish | High upfront |
| Reactivating old quotes | Pennies (already owned) | Exclusive | Warm | Low |
Read that table and the pattern is obvious. Everything cold sits at the top, everything warm sits at the bottom, and the two cheapest warm channels are ones you already own: referrals and old quote requests. Most installers spend the bulk of their budget at the top of the table and almost nothing at the bottom.
Why Shared Leads Wreck Your Conversion
A shared lead is sold to several installers at once, so the homeowner submits one form and gets a handful of phone calls inside an hour. They feel hounded before anyone has said anything useful, and they start comparing prices before they trust a single company. The conversation becomes a race to the cheapest quote, which is the worst position for any installer to compete from.
Here is the maths that hides behind a cheap headline price. Say you buy shared leads at £25 each. Sounds fine against a £7,000 install. But you share each lead with four other installers, the homeowner is already irritated by call number three, and in our experience you close somewhere in the low single-digit percentages. If you close 3% of them, you have bought roughly thirty-three leads at £25 to win one job. That is over £800 of lead spend per install, before a single hour of your sales time, and that is if speed-to-lead is on your side.
Speed is the whole game with shared leads, which is why the follow-up problem is so brutal in this channel. If you are call number four, you have already lost. We wrote about that pattern in detail in speed to lead and the follow-up problem, and it applies to solar harder than almost any other vertical.
Why Solar Enquiries Stall in the First Place
To understand why old quote requests are worth so much, you have to understand why they went quiet. It is almost never a firm no. Solar is a considered purchase with a lot of moving parts, and any one of them can freeze a homeowner for months.
Finance. Systems are not cheap, and a lot of homeowners want to spread the cost. They go quiet while they sort a loan, weigh up a finance offer, or wait for a bonus, an inheritance, or a house sale to clear.
Planning and property. Listed buildings, conservation areas, shared roofs, and the odd nervous neighbour all stall installs. The enquiry does not die, it just parks until the paperwork clears.
Waiting for a better quote. Plenty of homeowners collect three or four quotes, get overwhelmed, and never make a decision. Yours is sitting in a pile they meant to come back to.
Seasonality. Interest in solar spikes when the sun is out and energy bills are in the news, then cools. A homeowner who enquired in a heatwave and did nothing is not gone. They are seasonal.
Every one of those reasons is a timing problem, not a rejection. A quote request that stalled six to twenty-four months ago is often just a person whose finance has now landed, whose planning has cleared, or whose energy bill has jumped again. Reaching them at the moment the blocker lifts is worth far more than reaching a cold stranger at random.
Reactivating Old Quote Requests: The Solar Maths
Let us run the numbers on a database most installers are sitting on without working it. Say you have 500 old quote requests from the last two years: people who asked for a price and never bought.
Database: 500 homeowners who requested a quote in the last 24 months but never installed.
Re-engagement rate (4-7%): 20 to 35 homeowners respond to a structured reactivation sequence.
Booked survey or call rate (1-3% of total): 5 to 15 qualified conversations back on the table.
Close rate (higher for warm, say 20-30%): 2 to 4 installs recovered from a list you had written off.
Average install value (£5,000-£10,000+): £10,000 to £40,000 of recovered revenue, from contacts you already paid to acquire once.
Compare that against the shared-lead route. To win the same two to four installs cold, you would be buying and burning through dozens of shared leads at £15-£40 each, with your sales team chasing homeowners who are fielding four other calls. The reactivation route costs pennies per contact plus a campaign fee, and the people on the other end already know your name. This is not a trick of the model. It is just the difference between selling to a stranger and following up with someone who already asked.
MCS, Trust, and Why It Changes the Conversion Rate
One thing worth saying plainly: being MCS certified is not a lead channel, but it quietly lifts every channel you run. Homeowners need an MCS-certified installer to access the Smart Export Guarantee, and most of them now know to check. If your certification is buried or unclear, you lose warm enquiries to installers who put it front and centre.
When you reactivate old quote requests, this matters even more. A homeowner who stalled a year ago may have picked up doubts since, or half-remembered a warning about cowboy installers. Leading with your MCS status, your genuine reviews, and a specific, no-pressure next step removes the objection before it forms. It will not rescue a bad lead source, but on a warm list it is the difference between a reply and a booked survey.
The Order to Buy Solar Leads In
None of this means never buy leads. Aggregators, exclusive leads, even the odd canvassing push all have a place when your pipeline is thin. The mistake is starting there while the cheapest, warmest leads you own sit untouched in a CRM.
The sensible order is simple. Work the assets you already own first: referrals and old quote requests, because they are warm and nearly free. Build local SEO and directory presence in parallel, because it compounds and lowers your blended cost over time. Then buy paid and shared leads to top up volume, knowing exactly what each install actually costs you rather than staring at a cheap headline price.
For the full mechanics of how reactivation runs end to end, we broke it down in the database reactivation guide. And if you want it done for you, Levity runs AI database reactivation for solar installers and other high-ticket verticals: we message the list, qualify with AI, and hand you booked calls. The AI Appointment Activator is the system we deploy to do it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a solar lead cost in the UK?
A shared residential solar lead from an aggregator typically costs £15-£40, but it is usually sold to three to five installers at once, so you are competing on speed and price from the first phone call. An exclusive solar lead costs more, often £60-£120, because you are the only installer who receives it. Canvassing and door-to-door produce a lower cash cost per lead but carry a high labour and management overhead. The honest number to track is not cost per lead, it is cost per install won.
Why do shared solar leads convert so badly?
A shared lead is sold to several installers, so the homeowner gets three to five phone calls within an hour of submitting the form. They feel pestered, they start comparing quotes before they trust anyone, and the whole conversation becomes a price race. In our experience installers relying on shared leads close a small single-digit percentage of them, which is why the cost per install ends up far higher than the headline lead price suggests.
Do I need to be MCS certified to generate good solar leads?
MCS certification is not a lead generation channel, but it matters for conversion. Homeowners need an MCS-certified installer to access the Smart Export Guarantee and to reassure themselves the work meets standard. Being MCS certified, and saying so clearly on your website and in your outreach, lifts trust and close rates. It will not fix a bad lead source, but it removes a common objection that kills otherwise warm enquiries.
Why do solar enquiries go cold instead of converting?
Most solar enquiries stall for timing reasons, not lack of interest. A homeowner is waiting on finance approval, waiting on a planning or listed-building decision, waiting for spring, or simply collecting quotes and gone quiet while they think. A quote request that went cold six to twenty-four months ago is often just a person whose circumstances have now changed. That is why reactivating old quote requests converts better than chasing a brand new shared lead.
Is it worth reactivating old solar quote requests?
For most installers, yes. You have already paid to acquire those enquiries once, they already know your name, and a good share of them stalled on timing rather than a firm no. A structured reactivation campaign contacts them when the moment may have shifted. With an average installed system worth roughly £5,000-£10,000 or more, recovering even a handful of stalled quote requests usually pays for the campaign several times over.
What is the cheapest reliable way to get solar leads?
The cheapest reliable leads are the ones you already own. Referrals from happy customers cost nothing but goodwill, and old quote requests sitting in your CRM cost only the price of contacting them again. Local SEO and directory listings are slow to build but cheap to run once ranked. Paid and shared leads are the fastest to switch on but the most expensive per install won. Start with the assets you own, then buy leads to top up.
How Many Installs Are Sitting in Your Old Quote Requests?
Levity runs AI database reactivation for solar installers and other high-ticket verticals. We work your old quote requests, qualify with AI, and deliver booked calls to your calendar. You pay per meeting booked, not per lead bought. See what it costs to recover the installs you already paid to acquire on our lead generation page.
Rees Calder is the founder of Levity, an AI-powered lead generation agency. He builds AI reactivation and outbound systems for solar installers and other high-ticket UK businesses. The cost ranges in this article are the ranges we typically see across client campaigns, not fixed prices.