What do commercial solar leads cost in the UK?
Published
Short answer: more than residential, and for good reason. A qualified commercial solar lead in the UK typically starts from around £150, a booked commercial appointment from around £250, and genuinely exclusive commercial leads through paid channels often sit in the £200 to £300 range and above. Residential leads sit far below that, from a few pounds for a shared enquiry up to £50 or so for an exclusive one.
But the headline price is the least useful number in this whole conversation. What a commercial lead should cost depends on the type of lead, how it was generated and, above all, what it costs you to turn it into a signed job. This guide breaks down the real ranges, what moves them, the costs nobody quotes you, and the single figure you should actually be measuring.
Commercial solar lead prices at a glance
These are current UK market ranges across the main lead types. Treat them as a map, not a fixed tariff, because every campaign is priced on quality, exclusivity and targeting.
| Lead type | Typical UK price | What you are buying |
|---|---|---|
| Shared residential lead | roughly £8 to £40 | An enquiry sold to several installers at once |
| Exclusive residential lead | roughly £50 to £150 | A domestic enquiry sold to you only |
| Shared commercial lead | roughly £80 to £150 | A business enquiry split across a few installers |
| Exclusive commercial lead | roughly £150 to £300+ | A business enquiry sold to you alone |
| Booked commercial appointment | from around £250 | A qualified survey or meeting already in your diary |
The spread is huge because these are not the same product. A £10 shared residential name and an exclusive commercial enquiry with consumption, ownership and roof detail attached are worlds apart, even though both get called a "lead".
Why commercial costs more than residential
A domestic install is a few thousand pounds. A commercial rooftop, ground mount or car park canopy can run to tens or hundreds of thousands. Three things follow from that:
- Deal size. One commercial contract can be worth twenty domestic jobs, so a lead that costs five times as much can still be far cheaper per pound of revenue won.
- Scarcity. Far fewer businesses are actively looking for solar at any moment than homeowners, and they are harder to reach. You are paying for a smaller, harder-won pool.
- Sales cycle. Commercial deals are longer and involve more people, so each qualified enquiry represents more work to generate and more value if it lands.
In other words, the higher price is not a mark-up, it is a reflection of the size of the prize.
What actually drives the price
Four levers move a commercial lead's price more than anything else:
- Exclusive or shared. A shared lead goes to several installers and costs less. An exclusive lead is yours alone and costs more because you are not racing anyone. The gap is worth understanding properly, we cover it in exclusive vs shared solar leads.
- System size. A 30kW rooftop and a 2MW ground mount are not the same enquiry. Serious providers price on the size of the opportunity, sized from the roof or site and the current energy bill.
- Targeting. National campaigns are cheaper per lead. The tighter you target by region, county or postcode, the more each lead costs, because the pool shrinks.
- Qualification. A name and a postcode is cheap. An enquiry that already carries consumption, ownership, roof and timeframe is worth more, because half your work is done. If you are not sure what "qualified" should mean, see how to qualify a commercial solar enquiry.
The costs nobody quotes you
The sticker price is only part of what a lead costs you. The hidden costs are where installers quietly lose money:
- Chasing time. A shared lead you do not call within minutes is usually money wasted. Multiply the enquiries your team never reaches by the price you paid, and that is real spend on nothing.
- Wasted spend on poor quality. Cheap, low-intent leads eat your team's hours and morale. The cost is not the lead price, it is the surveys that never happen.
- Format mismatch. Buying raw leads when your team is small and time-poor, or buying appointments when you have spare phone capacity, both waste money. We unpack that in solar appointments vs leads.
The number that actually matters: cost per install
Cost per lead is the wrong thing to fixate on. The number that decides everything is cost per install: total spend on a source divided by the jobs it actually won.
Here is the simple version. Say you spend £2,500 on ten exclusive commercial leads. Two become signed jobs. Your cost per install is £1,250. If the average commercial contract is worth £120,000, that £1,250 is a rounding error against the margin. Now compare a source where you spend £500 on fifty shared leads and win one small job: £500 per install looks cheaper per lead, but you have burned far more of your team's time to get there, and the job was smaller.
Always compare sources on cost per install, never cost per lead. If a provider can only tell you the second and not the first, treat that as a warning sign.
How Radiant prices commercial leads
Radiant's C&I Marketplace sells commercial leads exclusively, priced by the size of the opportunity rather than a flat rate. As a rough guide, smaller commercial rooftop enquiries start from around £150 and scale into the several hundreds for large ground mount, canopy or PPA-scale sites where the contract value is far higher. You always see the exact price before you take the lead, and the lead is yours alone, not shared across four other installers. Pricing broadens as we add more lead types and volume, but the principle holds: you pay in proportion to the size of the prize, and you see the number first.
That is the point of a commercial marketplace. Fewer, larger, exclusive enquiries where the maths works on cost per install, not a flood of cheap shared names you will never get round to calling.
If you want cheap shared residential volume, other providers will beat us on price per name, that is their game. If you want exclusive commercial enquiries that convert, that is ours.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a commercial solar lead cost in the UK? Typically from around £150 for a qualified exclusive commercial lead, with larger or tightly targeted opportunities costing more. Booked appointments start from around £250.
Why do commercial solar leads cost more than residential? Because the deals are far larger, the businesses are harder to reach, and fewer are searching at any time. The higher price reflects deal size and scarcity, not a mark-up.
Are cheap solar leads worth it? Only if they convert. A cheap shared lead that never turns into a survey is more expensive than a dearer exclusive one that does. Measure cost per install, not cost per lead.
Where to go next
- Understand the biggest price and quality lever: exclusive vs shared solar leads
- Make sure you are buying real opportunities: how to qualify a commercial solar enquiry
- Decide which format fits your team: solar appointments vs leads
- Compare the main UK providers side by side: our comparison of UK solar lead companies
Or see exclusive commercial leads priced by opportunity size on the C&I Marketplace.