What Actually Happens When You Request a Solar Quote Online

You Google "solar quotes." You land on one of the big comparison sites. You fill in your name, address, phone number, and some details about your roof. You hit submit, expecting a helpful email or maybe one phone call.

Within five minutes, your phone starts ringing. Not once. Two, three, sometimes four different solar companies, all calling at the same time, all wanting to book a site visit. It is overwhelming, confusing, and not what you signed up for.

If this has happened to you, you are not alone. It is by design. And understanding how it works will help you make a better decision about going solar, because the business model behind these comparison sites directly affects the quality and price of the system you end up with.

Solar comparison sites like SolarQuotes, Solar Choice, and Energy Matters are free for homeowners to use. There is no charge to fill in their forms. So how do they stay in business?

The answer is simple: they sell your details to solar installers.

When you submit a quote request, your name, phone number, address, and system preferences are sent to 2 to 3 solar installers who have paid for the privilege of contacting you. Each installer pays somewhere between $45 and $150 per lead, depending on the site and the type of inquiry.

Do the maths. If three installers each pay $100 to $150 for your details, the comparison site earns $300 to $450 every time you press submit. Multiply that by thousands of form submissions per month and you start to understand why this is a lucrative business.

Here is the part that catches most people off guard. You fill in one form and expect two or three calls. But you get five, six, seven calls. What happened?

Two things are going on simultaneously.

First, the moment you start searching for solar online, advertising platforms notice. Google, Facebook, and Instagram all detect that you are "in-market" for solar panels. They start showing you solar ads from every installer and comparison site in your area. You might click on another ad, fill in another form on a different site, and not even realise you have given your details to a second company. Now you have 5 to 6 installers calling instead of 2 to 3.

Second, some comparison sites sell leads to more than 3 installers, or the same lead gen company operates multiple brands. The homeowner thinks they have used one service, but the same details flow through multiple channels.

The result is the same: a homeowner who expected a simple, helpful experience is suddenly fielding a barrage of high-pressure sales calls. Not a great start to a $7,000+ purchase.

This is the part that really matters. The lead costs that installers pay do not come out of thin air. They get built into the price you pay for your solar system.

Think about it from the installer's perspective. They pay $100 for a lead from a comparison site. They win roughly one in three of these leads (a good conversion rate for shared leads). That means they spent $300 in lead costs to win one job. That $300 needs to be recovered somewhere, and it comes from one of two places: either a wider margin on the quote (you pay more), or cheaper components (you get less).

An installer who gets most of their work through referrals and organic reputation might spend $50 to $100 per job in marketing costs. They can afford to offer you better panels, a better inverter, or a lower price, because they are not handing $300 to $600 per job to a comparison site.

This is not a knock on comparison sites. They provide a genuine service by connecting homeowners with installers. But as a consumer, you should understand that "free quotes" have an invisible cost baked into the system, and it is ultimately you who pays it. For more on what solar systems actually cost, see our solar panel cost guide.

There is a more subtle issue with the comparison model that rarely gets discussed. When homeowners compare 3 quotes side by side, price becomes the dominant decision factor. The cheapest quote wins.

This creates a race to the bottom. Installers know they are competing with 2 others on price, so they look for ways to sharpen their quotes. Sometimes that means using cheaper panels. Sometimes it means cutting labour time. Sometimes it means a thinner margin that makes it harder to honour warranties long-term.

The comparison model treats solar like a commodity: interchangeable products where the only variable is price. But a solar system is an infrastructure investment that needs to perform for 25 years. The installer's workmanship, their choice of components, and their long-term viability matter far more than whether their quote is $500 cheaper than the next one.

Over 700 solar installers have gone bust in Australia since 2011, leaving roughly 650,000 homeowners stranded without warranty support. Race-to-the-bottom pricing is a major contributor. Our guide to vetting a solar installer explains how to check an installer's stability before you sign.

Solar comparison sites are not scams. They connect homeowners with installers and that has genuine value. But understanding how they work helps you use them on your terms rather than being caught off guard by a flood of calls you did not expect.

The key points to remember: your details are sold to 2 to 3 (sometimes more) installers for $45 to $150 each. The comparison site earns $300 to $450 per form submission. That cost is ultimately built into the price you pay. And the comparison model encourages price-based competition, which is not always in your best interest when you are making a 25-year investment.

Whether you use a comparison site, find an installer through word of mouth, or use our rebate quiz to get matched, the most important thing is to vet the installer thoroughly, compare on value rather than price alone, and understand what you are getting for your money. Check our pricing guide so you know what fair looks like, and our installer vetting guide so you know what trustworthy looks like.