Solar lead generation is the work of turning people who search for a system (prices, quotes, local installers, solar for a business) into tracked, qualified survey requests with a known cost per signed contract. You can buy leads, from £18 each in Lead Pronto's UK offer or for up to €17 + VAT in Italy when the same lead goes to three companies, or you can generate your own: for Valore Solare, an Italian installer of solar PV and batteries, Google Ads brought 1,506 enquiries at an average of €70.78, down to €49 in August 2026.
The catch is that buyers are getting scarcer.
In Italy, according to Italia Solare's report on Terna's Gaudì data, new residential systems (under 20 kW) fell from 274,537 in 2024 to 198,667 in 2025. Fewer households buying, more installers calling the same household.
The mistakes we see most often:
- buying shared leads without counting contracts, and comparing the price of a lead instead of the cost of a system sold;
- homes, businesses and batteries going through one form, with the same questions and the same call;
- chasing price searches, where Google shows DIY kits with a price tag, and leaving uncovered the searches an installer can actually win.
What the website needs is in our guide to a solar company website; CPCs, campaigns and banned ad claims are in Google Ads for solar companies; organic search is in SEO for solar companies. This piece covers what sits between them: what you get when you buy a lead, where you build your own, how you qualify them and what each one costs.
Why listen to us?
Because energy is a sector we work in. For Valore Solare the first month, October 2025, brought 9 enquiries at €212 each; by August 2026 it was 250 at €49 (the Valore Solare case study). For Sunscape, which develops solar and agrivoltaic plants and looks for land, 144 enquiries from Google Ads in 2026 (the Sunscape case study).
Buying solar leads: what the public price lists say (and how many installers get the same lead)
A bought solar lead costs £18 and up in the UK and €17 to €36 in the few Italian price lists that are public, but it is rarely yours alone. "Solar lead generation" gets 210 searches a month in the UK at an average of $33.89 a click (Google Ads data via DataForSEO, 12-month average): the sellers pay a lot to reach installers. On 11 November 2026 we opened the pages of the sellers that rank for it.
| Seller (market) | Published price | Exclusive or shared | What they state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead Pronto (UK) | from £18 per lead | two models: shared, or exclusive under your own brand | leads checked for property details before delivery |
| Abbassalebollette (Italy) | €720 for 20 contacts, €3,600 for 100: €36 each | not stated | contacts "profiled and verified" by their consultants, replaced if unreachable |
| TeleLead (Italy) | up to €17 + VAT per lead | shared with up to 3 companies | leads from Google Ads, Meta or organic traffic (page from May 2025) |
| Fotovoltaico.it (Italy) | fixed price per lead, not published | sent to up to four companies | price depends on area, customer type and volume |
The price of a lead means nothing until you know how many others bought it. TeleLead says it openly: its web leads are not exclusive and go to up to three firms in the same area, so you must call back fast. Fotovoltaico.it goes up to four.
In practice: the household that filled in the form can get four calls in one afternoon.
So bought leads never pay?
They can fill a sales diary while you build your own channels, if you do the right sum: spend on leads divided by contracts signed. With 20 contacts for €720, two signed systems cost you €360 each in leads alone; one signed system, €720. Before buying, ask three things: how many companies get the lead, the date and time of the request, and which page or ad it came from.
Who wins the searches of people buying solar (26 installers in 69 Italian results)
On Google an installer wins local and business searches, hardly ever price searches. On 11 November 2026 we downloaded eight Italian mobile results pages for searches made by people about to buy a system and classified the 69 organic results by hand.
| Italian search (English meaning) | Monthly searches (Italy) | Installers | Utilities | Lead portals and comparison sites | Online shops and kits | Media and other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| quanto costa un impianto fotovoltaico (how much does a solar system cost) | 1,300 | 1 of 8 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| fotovoltaico vicino a me (solar near me) | 880 | 7 of 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| preventivo fotovoltaico (solar quote) | 720 | 4 of 8 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| fotovoltaico prezzi (solar prices) | 590 | 1 of 8 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| fotovoltaico con accumulo prezzi (solar with battery prices) | 390 | 2 of 11 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 0 |
| quanto costa fotovoltaico 6 kw (6 kW system cost) | 260 | 1 of 9 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 1 |
| impianto fotovoltaico aziendale (solar for business) | 210 | 7 of 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| conviene il fotovoltaico (is solar worth it) | 170 | 3 of 7 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Total, 8 pages | - | 26 of 69 | 4 | 7 | 23 | 9 |
On the four price searches installers had 5 results out of 36; kit shops and price comparison sites had 20. Someone typing "6 kW system cost" sees kits with a price, not a company that will fit one.
On "near me" and "for business" installers had 14 results out of 18. That is where the enquiry reaches you and not a middleman. On "solar quote" the fourth organic result was Valore Solare. And there was not a single search ad on any of the eight pages that day, although the yearly average CPC on "solar quote" is $8.57: the auction fills up in spring.
The UK prices of the same intent are higher: on Google Ads UK, "solar panel installers near me" (2,900 searches a month) averages $14.16 a click and "solar panels for business" (880) $50.48 (DataForSEO, 11 November 2026).
Business Profile, pages and ads: the three lead sources you own (and what each brings)
A solar company can build three lead sources on Google: its Business Profile, the pages of its website and its ads. The enquiries they bring are not shared with anyone.
1. The Business Profile. In our Italian sample the map block appeared only on "solar near me" (880 searches a month), with four companies holding 147 to 389 reviews. Ask for reviews after the system is connected, not after the survey. Our guide to near me searches explains what Google looks at.
What about Local Services Ads, the pay-per-lead format?
Not for solar in the UK or Italy: in Google's official list of eligible categories, checked on 11 November 2026, there is no solar category for either country. The US list has one; the UK list stops at trades such as electricians and heating.
2. Pages. "Solar for business" had installers in 7 of 8 Italian results. A page for businesses, with system sizes, payback times and a form that asks for the energy bill, is the page to write before any article on incentives. For Sunscape a site organised by region went from 1 to 38 page-one keywords out of 143 in six months.
3. Ads. At Valore Solare, Search campaigns brought 665 enquiries at €127.74, Performance Max 842 at €25.80. Easy choice? No: Performance Max picks up cooler demand and works because Search keeps collecting the high-intent searches, the ones sales close most often. The full comparison is in our Performance Max guide.
Do you know what a sold system costs you, channel by channel?
A bought lead can go to four companies, and a Search lead can cost five times a Performance Max one: the price per lead is not enough to decide. Let's look together at where your enquiries come from today, how many become surveys and which channels you could switch off.
Book a strategy callQualify before the survey (the energy bill tells you more than a name)
A solar lead is qualified when you know where the property is, who owns it, how much energy it uses and whether a battery is wanted. Without those four facts the survey is spent finding them out, and it costs a technician's visit.
- postcode, to drop out-of-area requests straight away;
- home or business, because they are two different sales;
- owner or tenant, because tenants do not sign;
- annual usage or a photo of the bill, which sizes the system;
- battery: yes, no or not sure.
Area is the cheapest filter. Valore Solare does not install in three northern Italian regions: excluding them from the campaigns was the first fix, because an out-of-area lead costs as much as a good one and never becomes a quote.
Not everyone fills in the form. Of Valore Solare's 1,506 enquiries, 1,188 came through the form and the rest by phone, email and calls from ads: phone and email made up 19%. If you don't track them, those leads vanish from the sum and the channel looks worse than it is. Where leads get lost between form and sales is covered in website not generating leads; the CRM and tools are compared in the best lead generation tools.
What a solar lead costs (and what a sold system costs)
A solar lead costs from €17 shared to more than €120 from a Search campaign, but the number that decides is the cost per signed contract. These are the figures we found or measured, with the source.
| Channel | Cost per lead | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Bought lead, UK | from £18 | Lead Pronto price page, 11 November 2026 |
| Shared web lead, Italy (up to 3 firms) | up to €17 + VAT | TeleLead price list, May 2025 |
| Pack of profiled contacts, Italy | €36 | Abbassalebollette price list, 11 November 2026 |
| Google Ads, Performance Max | €25.80 | Valore Solare, October 2025-August 2026 |
| Google Ads, all campaigns | €70.78 (€49 in August 2026) | Valore Solare, 1,506 enquiries |
| Google Ads, Search campaigns | €127.74 | Valore Solare, 665 enquiries |
| Google Ads for energy tariff advice (not solar) | €7.20, 68% became opportunities | Contesini Consulenze, September 2023-March 2024 |
So should everything go to Performance Max?
No. Whoever looks only at cost per lead moves budget to the cheapest campaign and three months later has plenty of leads and few sales. Do the sum this way: channel spend in the quarter divided by systems signed in the quarter, with each lead linked to the campaign that brought it. Two rules from the case: raise a campaign's budget only above 30 conversions a month, and scale in steps, from about €2,000 to €14,000 a month over ten months. For commercial roofs the sum changes scale but not shape, the same logic as search-led lead generation for B2B.
Solar leads and AI answers (ChatGPT quotes whoever publishes numbers)
When an installer asks ChatGPT what a solar lead costs, the answer quotes pages that publish prices and case studies with numbers. In our Italian test on 11 November 2026 it cited TeleLead for shared-lead prices, an agency for Google Ads benchmarks and the Valore Solare case for its €70.78 per enquiry.
The same goes for homeowners. On the Italian "solar quote" search, Google's AI Overview cited Enpal, Segugio, Otovo, Eni Plenitude, Octopus Energy and three YouTube videos. A complete Business Profile, a page with indicative prices and system sizes, videos of real installations: these are sources an AI can read and cite. No guarantee of being picked, but without them you are not in the comparison (more in our guide to local AI visibility).
Solar lead generation FAQs
It depends: a pack of leads brings enquiries straight away (from £18 each at Lead Pronto in the UK, €36 at Abbassalebollette in Italy), but the same lead can go to three or four companies, as TeleLead and Fotovoltaico.it state. It pays if you divide spend by systems signed and compare the result with your Business Profile, website pages and ads.
It depends on the channel: from £18 for a bought lead in the UK, up to €17 + VAT for a shared web lead in Italy, €70.78 on average from Google Ads for Valore Solare, €25.80 from Performance Max and €127.74 from Search campaigns. The number that decides is the cost per system sold.
Yes. TeleLead says its web leads go to up to 3 companies in the same area, Fotovoltaico.it that each request goes to up to four installers, and Lead Pronto sells both shared and exclusive leads. Before buying, ask how many companies get each lead and when the request was made.
No: Google's list of eligible Local Services categories for the UK, checked on 11 November 2026, has no solar category; the US list does. In the UK that leaves Google Ads, the Business Profile and the website.
Five things: postcode, home or business, whether the person owns the property, annual usage or a photo of the bill, and interest in a battery. They let you drop out-of-area requests and arrive at the survey with a system already in mind.
Solar lead generation in short (and the question to ask your lead seller)
Italian residential installs: from 274,537 in 2024 to 198,667 in 2025.
Bought leads: from £18 in the UK, often shared with three or four firms.
Installers win "near me" and "for business" searches, not price searches.
Five questions on the form, phone and email tracked.
Compare cost per system sold, not per lead.
If you keep buying leads, add one question for the seller: which search or page did the request come from. Someone who typed "solar panel quote" is already comparing installers; someone who left a number on a savings calculator may not yet know they want a system. Same price, different value, and a seller who cannot tell them apart is selling you an average.
