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Buyer's guide

Commercial solar leads in the UK: how the providers actually compare

9 minute read · Last updated

Most UK solar lead generation is residential. If you install 200 kWp on a warehouse roof, almost none of it is built for you. Here is what exists, how each model works, and what to ask before you spend anything.

Radiant sells commercial solar opportunities, so we are in this comparison. Every claim about another provider comes from their own published material, with the month we checked it.

Commercial is a different market, not a bigger one

Residential solar lead generation is a mature, high-volume industry. Homeowner fills in a form, a provider qualifies it, an installer rings within minutes. The lead costs tens of pounds, the job is worth thousands, and the decision is made by one or two people over a few weeks.

Commercial is a different shape entirely. The decision involves a facilities manager, a finance director and often a landlord. Half-hourly consumption data matters more than the roof. Grid connection can take months. The job is worth six figures and the sales cycle runs quarters, not weeks.

That difference is why most residential lead providers struggle with commercial, and why several of them require MCS registration to join their network. MCS is a small-scale certification scheme. It tells you what size of work the network is built around.

The five questions that decide this

How many installers get the same opportunity?

The single biggest driver of conversion. Sold to four, it is a price race. Sold to one, it is a conversation. Providers use "exclusive" loosely. Ask for the number.

Who carries the cost when it goes nowhere?

Pay up front and you carry it. Pay on a booked appointment and they carry it. Pay on a closed sale and they carry almost all of it, and charge accordingly. There is no free option, only a choice about where the risk sits and what it costs you.

What does the opportunity actually contain?

A name and a phone number is not a commercial lead. See the section below.

What system sizes does it actually produce?

Ask for the range, not the maximum. A provider quoting "30 kW to 30 MW" is telling you about their ceiling, not their median.

What does it cost as a share of contract value?

A £45 lead on an £8,000 domestic job is 0.56%. A £1,000 opportunity on a £130,000 commercial job is 0.77%. Comparable. Headline price alone tells you nothing.

What a commercial solar opportunity should contain

This is where commercial and residential diverge most, and where most comparison content stops.

A commercial opportunity worth paying for should tell you enough to decide whether to send a surveyor before you have spoken to anyone. That means:

  • Roof geometry. Usable area, not building footprint. Orientation and pitch. Whether there are rooflights, plant or access constraints eating into it.
  • Consumption. Annual kWh, and ideally the shape of it. A site consuming 400,000 kWh across three shifts is a different proposition from one consuming the same across weekday daytime only.
  • The unit rate they actually pay. Not an assumed average. The rate drives the savings, and the savings drive the decision.
  • Who decides, and whether they know this enquiry exists.
  • Tenure. A tenant on a four-year lease is not buying a twenty-five year asset without a conversation with the landlord.
  • An indicative feasibility model, so you know roughly what size system the site supports before you commit survey time.

If a provider cannot tell you which of those they supply, the opportunity is a contact record.

The providers

Commercial specialists

Two providers on this list are built for commercial work. If you install on warehouse and factory roofs, these are the two that were designed for what you do.

Radiant

This is us

Checked August 2026

Model
Prepaid credits, priced by system size. The price splits into a data portion and a meeting portion
Risk
If the next step does not happen, the meeting portion returns to your credit balance. The data portion does not, because you hold the enquiry and can work it yourself. Subject to the terms of our Opportunity Supply Agreement
Exclusivity
One installer per opportunity
Sector
Commercial and industrial only. We do not sell domestic leads
System sizes
Recent opportunities have run from roughly 140 kWp to over 600 kWp
Network
Vetted installers, accreditations checked against the scheme registers
Included
Roof geometry, consumption data and an indicative feasibility model

Where we are strong

Exclusivity with no asterisk, commercial sizes, and a risk split we think is the fair one. You are the only installer holding it. If we said we would get you in front of someone and that did not happen, that part comes back.

Where we are the wrong choice

If you install domestic rooftop we have nothing for you at all. If you need fifty leads a week our volume will disappoint you. And if you want to pay literally nothing when an enquiry goes nowhere, Leads 2 Trade's terms go further than ours. We charge for the data either way. We think that is right, but it is a real difference and you should price it in.

Clean Energy Group Ai (CEG Ai)

Checked August 2026, source: cleanenergygroup.co

The most direct commercial specialist on this list, and an agency rather than a marketplace.

Model
Appointment setting. They book meetings into your calendar
Exclusivity
100% exclusive, per their published material
Sector
Commercial and industrial only
System sizes
Their published ranges vary across their own pages, from 30 kW upwards, with different maximums quoted in different places
Channels
AI intent mapping and a 79 million commercial property database, outreach by LinkedIn and email. They state explicitly that they do not cold call
Reach
United States, Australia, Canada and the UK. They report working with over 5,000 solar businesses
Pricing
Not published

Where they are strong

Genuine commercial focus and a decade of it. Meetings are booked directly with decision makers, and their published approach includes verifying authority and site suitability before the meeting lands.

What to weigh

They are a global operation and the UK is one of four markets, so ask what their UK volume actually looks like. No published pricing means you cannot compare cost per meeting without a call. And an appointment is not the same product as an opportunity you own: you are buying their outbound capacity, not a pipeline asset.

Residential providers, included for context

The rest are residential operations where commercial is a side product. They are included because most installers will have been pitched by them, and because knowing what the residential model gives you is the fastest way to see what commercial needs to give you instead.

Leads 2 Trade

Checked August 2026, source: leads2trade.co.uk

Model
Pay per lead, with a "no pitch, no fee" option
Exclusivity
Semi-exclusive, shared with a maximum of one other installer
Sector
Residential home improvement across many trades, solar among them
Founded
2006
Qualification
Double-qualified, web form then verification by their own UK call centre in Catterick, North Yorkshire
Requirement
MCS registration to join the network
Scale
Over 90,000 double-qualified leads annually across 600+ companies, per their own figures

Where they are strong

"No pitch, no fee" is the most generous published risk position in the UK market. If the appointment does not happen, you pay nothing. Twenty years of operating history behind it.

What to weigh

Somebody pays for a lead that goes nowhere. When the provider absorbs it entirely, it shows up in the price and in sharing the lead with a second installer. That is coherent, not a criticism, but "free if it fails" and "exclusive to you" are difficult to have simultaneously. And MCS registration as the entry requirement tells you the network is built around sub-50 kW work.

GreenMatch

Checked August 2026, source: greenmatch.co.uk

Model
Consumer comparison funnel. Free to join as a supplier, no subscription, pay per lead received
Exclusivity
Up to four installers per enquiry
Sector
Residential. Solar sits alongside heat pumps, boilers, double glazing and insulation
Owner
Leads.io, a multinational lead generation group headquartered in the Netherlands
Founded
2014
Scale
Over 100,000 UK homeowners served since 2014, per their own site

Where they are strong

An enormous organic content footprint converting a very wide spread of informational searches into enquiries. Effectively no barrier to entry.

What to weigh

Four installers per enquiry means competing largely on price. Their commercial content is pitched at the 20 kW to 50 kW end, so large commercial is unlikely to be the bulk of what arrives.

Also worth looking at

PoweredLeads publish their own comparison of this market, disclosed as their own company, focused on residential. Worth reading alongside this one, for the same reason you are reading ours with one eyebrow raised.

Checked August 2026

Comparison table

UK commercial solar lead providers compared by sector, exclusivity, risk position, pricing transparency and founding year
ProviderSectorExclusivityRisk positionPricing publishedFounded
RadiantCommercial only1 installerMeeting portion refundedBy system size2026
CEG AiCommercial onlyExclusivePay for appointmentsNoNot published
Leads 2 TradeResidentialMax 2 installersNo pitch, no feeNo2006
GreenMatchResidentialUp to 4 installersPay per leadNo2014

No numeric scoring. We are in this table and scoring ourselves would tell you nothing.

The maths that actually matters

Cost per lead is the wrong number. Cost per won job is the right one.

Commercial

Around 3%

Work it through. Suppose an opportunity costs £1,000, one in four converts to a won installation, and the average contract is £130,000. That is £4,000 of lead cost per win, on £130,000 of revenue.

Residential

Over 11%

Now the same exercise at £45 per residential lead, one in twenty converting, on an £8,000 job. That is £900 per win on £8,000.

Commercial opportunities look expensive per unit and are usually cheaper per pound of revenue. That is the entire argument for the sector, and it only works if the conversion rate is real. Which brings you back to exclusivity, because a shared enquiry converts at a fraction of an exclusive one.

These are worked illustrations to show the method, not our results or anyone else's. Run them with your own conversion rate and your own average contract value.

Which one suits you

Domestic installer wanting volume at low entry cost
GreenMatch. Accept that you are one of four quotes.
Domestic installer who hates paying for dead leads
Leads 2 Trade on no pitch, no fee terms.
Commercial installer wanting meetings booked for you
CEG Ai. You are buying outbound capacity.
Commercial installer wanting opportunities you own
Us. One installer, UK only, with the site data attached.
Anyone spending seriously
Run two providers side by side for a quarter and measure cost per won job. Every provider here, ourselves included, will show you whichever number flatters them.

Related reading

See the commercial solar opportunities currently available to UK installers.

View the C&I Marketplace