How Much Do Home Solar Panels Cost? What Goes Into a Quote

You asked 3 installers for a solar quote and got 3 very different numbers. One says $22,000, another says $31,000, and the third quotes a monthly payment with no total at all. Which one is right?

They might all be honest. Solar pricing varies widely by installer, location, equipment and, most of all, how you pay. The good news is that a quote breaks down into a handful of parts you can check, and once you know them, comparing bids gets much easier.

This guide uses the latest national data from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to show what homeowners actually paid in 2025, what goes into the number, and how to spot a padded quote.

What home solar costs in 2026

Berkeley Lab’s 2026 data update, which covers about 5.3 million systems installed through the end of 2025, is the best public benchmark for what homeowners pay. Its key findings for host-owned residential systems (ones the homeowner buys, not leases):

• Median installed price: about $3.60 per watt in 2025, down about $0.50 per watt from 2024 after adjusting for inflation.
• Cash purchases: about $3.00 per watt.
• Loan-financed systems: about $4.50 per watt, partly because loan fees are often rolled into the price.
• Median system size: 7.7 kW, up 0.5 kW from 2024.

These are gross prices, meaning before any tax credits or rebates. They’re also medians, so half of homeowners paid more and half paid less.

Here’s what those per-watt numbers mean in dollars. This is simple math on national medians, not a quote, and your local prices will differ.

Key takeaway: Compare solar quotes in price per watt (total price divided by system size in watts), not total dollars. A bigger system always costs more, but per-watt pricing shows who is actually charging more for the same thing.

Why the federal tax credit matters to your quote

For years, many quotes subtracted a 30% federal tax credit from the headline price. That changed. The IRS says the Residential Clean Energy Credit isn’t available for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, following the 2025 budget law.

That means a system you buy and install in 2026 doesn’t get the 30% homeowner credit. If a salesperson still shows a “net cost after federal credit” on a purchase, ask them to explain exactly which credit they mean. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has warned that some solar loans are structured around an expected tax credit, and homeowners who don’t receive it can face a large prepayment or higher monthly payments.

Leases and power purchase agreements work differently, because the solar company owns the equipment and may claim a business tax credit. We cover that in our guide to solar lease vs loan vs cash. State and utility incentives may still apply wherever you buy; check DSIRE, the national database of state incentives, for your area.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice.

What goes into a solar quote

Most people assume the panels are the expensive part. They aren’t. Berkeley Lab estimates that soft costs and other balance-of-system costs make up roughly 80% of the installed price of residential systems, based on 2025 medians. Modules and inverters are the smaller share.

Here’s what a typical quote pays for:

Equipment

• Solar panels (modules): Brand, efficiency and wattage per panel all affect price. Higher-efficiency panels let you fit more power on a small roof.
• Inverters: These convert the panels’ direct current into household alternating current. Options include a single string inverter, microinverters on each panel, or power optimizers paired with a central inverter.
• Racking and wiring: The mounting hardware, conduit, disconnects and monitoring equipment.

Labor and installation

Crew time on the roof, electrical work, and any trenching for a ground-mounted system. Complex roofs (steep pitch, tile, multiple planes) cost more to work on.

Permits, inspections and interconnection

Your installer typically pulls local building and electrical permits, schedules inspections and files an interconnection application with your utility. Fees vary by city and utility. The U.S. Department of Energy notes the physical install often takes just a few days, while permitting and inspections can take weeks to months.

Customer acquisition, overhead and profit

Marketing, sales commissions, design work, warranties and the company’s margin. This is where installers differ the most.

Financing fees

If you take a loan offered through the installer, the price may include a “dealer fee.” The CFPB found these fees typically range from 10% to 30% of the cash price and can exceed 50%, and that they’re often built into the loan principal rather than shown in the APR.

Extras that can show up

• Electrical panel upgrade: Older or undersized main panels sometimes need replacing.
• Roof work: Some quotes include reroofing or repairs, since removing and reinstalling panels later is costly.
• Battery storage: Adding a battery raises the price significantly (more on that below).
• Critter guards, tree trimming or structural reinforcement.

What makes your price higher or lower

Berkeley Lab’s data shows just how much the installer matters. Among the top 100 residential installers in 2025, median prices ranged from about $2.40 to $6.30 per watt. Roughly 60% had medians below $4 per watt, and about 10% were above $5 per watt.

The biggest factors:

• How you pay. Cash buyers paid a lot less per watt than loan customers in 2025, according to Berkeley Lab.
• Your state. Median prices vary across states because of market size, permitting rules, labor costs and competition.
• Roof and site. Shading, roof type, roof age and the distance from panels to your electrical panel all affect labor.
• Equipment choices. Premium panels and panel-level electronics cost more, though they may perform better on shaded or complex roofs.
• System size. Larger systems spread fixed costs (permits, design, sales) over more watts, although Berkeley Lab notes economies of scale aren’t very clear in residential data.
• Add-ons. A battery, panel upgrade or new roof can add thousands.

How much a battery adds

Battery storage is becoming common. Berkeley Lab found 37% of new residential solar systems in 2025 were paired with storage, up from 25% in 2024, and the median battery was 13.5 kWh.

Among cash purchases, the median price of solar-plus-storage systems was $2.10 per watt higher than solar alone, measured per watt of solar capacity. On a 7.7 kW system, that works out to roughly $16,000 more. Berkeley Lab notes about 80% of its paired-system pricing data comes from California, so prices elsewhere may differ.

Whether a battery is worth it depends on your outage risk and how your utility credits exported power. See our guide to home battery backup for the tradeoffs.

Where to start: how to compare solar bids

1. Pull 12 months of electric bills. Note your total kWh use. Installers size systems to it, and it’s the baseline for any savings claim. If you plan to buy an EV or a heat pump, say so, since both raise usage. Our guides on home vs public EV charging costs and heat pumps vs furnaces can help you estimate the change.
2. Get at least 3 detailed written bids. The Federal Trade Commission advises comparing detailed bids from several companies, including costs, guaranteed output, warranties and who’s responsible for roof repairs.
3. Convert every bid to price per watt. Divide the total cash price by system size in watts (for example, $26,000 / 7,500 W = $3.47 per watt).
4. Ask for the cash price on every loan offer. If the loan amount is higher than the cash price, the difference is a financing fee. Compare it with a loan from your bank or credit union.
5. Check the production estimate. Ask how many kWh per year the system should produce and what tool they used. You can sanity-check it with PVWatts, the free production calculator from the national lab formerly known as NREL.
6. Read the warranties. Look for separate coverage on panels, inverters and workmanship (including roof penetrations), and find out who honors them if the installer closes.
7. Confirm permits and interconnection are included in the price, along with who pays if the utility requires upgrades.
8. Don’t sign under pressure. The FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule generally gives you until midnight of the third business day to cancel a covered sale made in your home, and some states add their own protections.

If something in a quote looks off, our guide to spotting scams covers what to do if a deal turns out to be dishonest.

Red flags in a solar quote

• A monthly payment with no total price or system size.
• “Free solar” or “government program” claims. DOE has warned homeowners that free-panel offers usually aren’t free.
• Savings projections that assume steep utility rate increases. New York’s Attorney General notes it isn’t possible to accurately predict future utility rates, so savings estimates may be unreliable.
• A net price that subtracts a federal homeowner tax credit for a 2026 install.
• Pressure to sign the same day.

The bottom line

Home solar costs less per watt than it did a year ago, but the spread between installers is still huge. A 7.7 kW system can cost anywhere from under $20,000 to more than $45,000 at the installer medians Berkeley Lab tracked, depending on who installs it and how you pay. Get several bids, compare them per watt, ask for the cash price on every loan, and check the production estimate yourself. Then run your own payback math, which we walk through in is home solar still worth it after the tax credit changes. If you can’t put panels on your roof, community solar is another way to get solar savings.

Sources

• Berkeley Lab: U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage Data, 2026 Update — 2025 median installed prices, cash vs loan pricing, system size, storage attachment, soft-cost share and installer price ranges
• IRS: Residential Clean Energy Credit — credit unavailable for property placed in service after December 31, 2025
• CFPB: Issue Spotlight, Solar Financing — dealer fees of 10% to 30% or more and tax-credit-linked loan risks
• FTC: Solar Power for Your Home — comparing detailed bids, warranties and contract terms
• FTC: Cooling-Off Rule — 3-day cancellation right for covered sales made at home
• U.S. Department of Energy: Step-by-Step Guide for Consumers Going Solar — installer selection, roof checks and permitting timelines