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Buyer's guide

Residential solar leads in the UK: how the options actually compare

14 minute read · Last updated

Most guides to domestic solar leads compare one thing: who sells you names, and for how much. That misses half the market. Buying leads and generating your own enquiries are two different products, bought for different reasons, and they behave differently on exclusivity, on cost and on what happens when nothing comes of an enquiry. This guide compares the residential lead providers UK installers get pitched by, and sets them against OpenLead, which is a tool for turning the traffic you already have into enquiries rather than a lead supply service.

In short

  • A bought lead and an enquiry that arrives through your own site are not the same product. Decide which one you are buying before you compare a single price.
  • Cost per lead is the wrong number. Cost per signed job is the one that matters, and almost no provider publishes it.
  • Exclusivity, the refund rule and data ownership are contract questions. Get them in writing before you spend.

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

Comparison table

UK residential solar lead options compared by product type, sector, exclusivity, risk position and pricing transparency
ProviderProduct typeSectorExclusivityRisk positionPricing published
OpenLead by RadiantSubscription tool, not lead supplyEnquiries you generate yourselfNobody else is sold your enquiryFlat monthly subscription, no per lead costYes, £249 per month
Leads 2 TradeBought leadsResidentialMax 2 installersNo pitch, no feeNo
GreenMatchBought leadsResidentialUp to 4 installersPay per leadNo
PoweredLeadsBought leadsResidential100% exclusiveRolling monthly, no lock-inYes, around £22 per lead
Capital LeadsBought leadsResidential100% exclusivePay per lead, bulk discountsNo
Leads EverydayBought leadsDomestic and commercialExclusiveNot publishedNo
Watts MarketingBooked appointmentsResidentialOne company per householdReturned and replaced if it does not meet the briefNo
Synergy AdvertisingBought leadsResidentialNot publishedCommission only, paid on a winNo
HelloClicksBought leadsResidentialNot publishedRolling monthly, cancel any timeNo
GMS LeadsBought leadsResidentialExclusive, never resoldNine day replacement periodNo
Imperio LeadsBought leadsResidentialNot publishedNot publishedNo

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

OpenLead appears here as a different product type rather than a lead vendor, so it is not scored on cost per lead. It does not sell you enquiries, so it has no per lead price, no exclusivity count and no refund rule for a lead that goes nowhere. Read its row as a description of a subscription tool sitting beside five ways of buying names.

Every competitor entry above comes from that provider's own published material, with the month we checked it shown on their card.

OpenLead, our own entry in this comparison

Generate your own enquiries

One entry on this list is not a lead supplier at all. It is included because owning the channel is a genuine alternative to renting it, and because the trade off between the two is the decision most domestic installers are actually making.

OpenLead by Radiant

This is us

Checked September 2026

A branded enquiry page for your own website, rather than a supply of bought names.

Model
A subscription tool, not lead supply. £249 per month, billed monthly from signup, no tie in, cancel any time and it stops at the end of the paid period
Price
£249 per month. Radiant is not currently VAT registered, so no VAT is added and the price shown is the total payable
Delivery
A branded enquiry page you can share or embed
The enquirer gets
Indicative figures and a short explanation, under your name and your colours
You get
Enquiries in your Radiant pipeline with the detail your team needs, plus email and in app alerts when one lands
Next step
Your booking link or a call back request
Set up
One to one
How it is built
From your public website and your public Google Business Profile, with your consent, which you can withdraw in settings

Where we are strong

An enquiry that comes through your own site is exclusive by definition, because nobody else is sold it, and it carries no per lead cost, because you pay a flat subscription rather than buying names. The enquirer gets indicative figures under your brand and the enquiry lands in your pipeline rather than sitting in an inbox.

Where we are the wrong choice

OpenLead converts traffic you already have. If you have little or no website traffic, it will not manufacture demand for you, and a lead provider will put names in front of you where we will not. If your problem this quarter is that nobody is finding you, buy leads and fix the traffic separately.

What installers say

Smartly Energy
Fantastic company to work with. Couldn't ask for a better team. Super professional, approachable and amenable to our many requests.
Ross Miller, Smartly Energy
Verified Google review
The Green Shield Group
Excellent service, would recommend to business associates.
Chris Ridehalgh, The Green Shield Group
Verified Google review

The providers

Buy leads

The rest of this list sells you enquiries somebody else generated. Every fact below is carried from each provider's own published material, with the month we checked it.

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, and a residential home improvement network built around exactly the work a domestic solar installer does.

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. MCS registration is the entry requirement for the network.

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 homeowner enquiries. Effectively no barrier to entry, free to join with no subscription, so it is the cheapest way to start seeing domestic volume.

What to weigh

Four installers per enquiry means competing largely on price, and the homeowner knows they are collecting quotes. Solar sits alongside heat pumps, boilers, double glazing and insulation rather than being the whole business.

PoweredLeads

Checked September 2026, source: poweredleads.co.uk

A residential specialist running homeowner lead generation through Meta Ads.

Model
Residential homeowner leads generated through Meta Ads
Exclusivity
100% exclusive, per their published material
Pricing
Around £22 per lead, which they state is 38% below the industry average
Commitment
Rolling monthly, no lock-in
Sector
Solar installers only, residential
Capacity
They state they take only 3 new partners a month

Where they are strong

Low cost exclusive residential leads at around £22, which they state is 38% below the industry average, on a rolling monthly basis with no lock-in. Solar installers only, and residential is the whole of the business rather than a side product.

What to weigh

Leads are generated through Meta Ads form fills, which is interruption rather than search intent, so qualification and speed of response matter more. They state they take only 3 new partners a month, so availability in your area is worth asking about early.

Capital Leads

Checked September 2026, source: capital-leads.co.uk

A residential solar lead provider running Google Search campaigns. Their UK site is capital-leads.co.uk, and capitalleads.com.au is a separate Australian arm.

Model
Pay per lead with bulk discounts. Leads generated through Google Search
Exclusivity
100% exclusive, per their published material
Delivery
Delivered in real time into your CRM
Qualification
Homeowner intent, phone verified in two steps and email verified, through a custom quiz
Pricing
Not publicly listed

Where they are strong

Exclusive residential leads with high search intent, phone verified in two steps and email verified, delivered in real time into your CRM, with bulk discounts available.

What to weigh

Pricing is not publicly listed, so cost per lead needs a call before you can compare it with anything else on this page.

Leads Everyday

Checked September 2026, source: leadseveryday.co.uk

A generalist lead generation agency with a solar offering covering both domestic and commercial.

Model
Exclusive leads for solar installers
Sector
Domestic and commercial solar, plus battery and maintenance
Exclusivity
Exclusive, per their published material
Scale
A generalist agency, 15,000+ campaigns across 60+ industries
Pricing
Not published

Where they are strong

Exclusive leads across domestic and commercial, plus battery and maintenance, so one supplier covers all of it, from an established agency with a long campaign history behind it: 15,000+ campaigns across 60+ industries.

What to weigh

A generalist spreads across 60+ industries rather than specialising in one, and pricing is not published, so cost per lead needs a call.

Watts Marketing

Checked September 2026, source: wattsmarketingltd.co.uk/lead-generation/solar-panel-leads

A residential appointment setter that books qualified solar appointments straight into an installer's diary.

Model
Pay as you go booked appointments. They state no contracts and no tie-ins
Qualification
Telephone qualified by their own agents, covering homeowner status, employment and credit, the electricity spend the system has to beat, roof obstructions and every signatory attending. They state they do not cold call
Delivery
Pushed into your CRM in real time
Risk position
They state any appointment that does not meet the brief can be returned for credit, and that anything which does not go ahead is returned and replaced
Exclusivity
They state one company per household and describe every lead as exclusive
Sector
Residential, solar since 2015 per their own site
Their published figures
255,000 solar appointments booked and £955m of pipeline value, per their own site
Pricing
Not published. Any minimum spend is also not published

Where they are strong

Residential volume with a genuinely strong published risk position: telephone qualified, one company per household, delivered live into your CRM, and credited back when an appointment does not meet the brief. Pay as you go with no contract means you can stop whenever you like.

What to weigh

This is a residential product and the screening questions are homeowner questions, so there is nothing here for commercial roofs. Pricing is not published, so cost per appointment needs a call. Radiant is commercial-native, exclusive to one installer, and gives you an opportunity you own with site data attached rather than a booked domestic appointment.

Synergy Advertising

Checked September 2026, source: synergyadvertising.co.uk

A residential solar lead generator working mainly on a commission-only basis, where they fund the advertising and are paid when you win the job.

Model
Commission only. They cover the ad spend and state you pay nothing upfront and only pay when you close. They also state that paid leads are available
Qualification
They state every lead is telephone qualified before it reaches you
Entry criteria
Published. MCS, HIES or RECC accreditation, a 4.5 or better Google rating with 30 or more reviews, and at least two years of trading history. They state they turn away two of every three applicants
Sector
Residential solar. Their own figures describe 6,800 leads in a year covering domestic solar, commercial solar and air source heat pumps
Exclusivity
Not published
Pricing
Not published

Where they are strong

The risk sits almost entirely with them. No ad spend and no retainer from you, and they are paid on a win, which aligns them with your close rate rather than with volume. Their published entry criteria also mean the installers alongside you have been filtered.

What to weigh

Commission on a win is not free, it is a different place to put the cost, and the rate is not published. The accreditation criteria are residential schemes, which tells you the shape of the work. Exclusivity is not stated on their site. Radiant is commercial-native, exclusive to one installer, and the opportunity is yours to keep with the site data attached.

HelloClicks

Checked September 2026, source: helloclicks.co.uk/solar-leads

A digital agency running performance campaigns and delivering the resulting residential solar leads into whatever system you use.

Model
Pay per lead from performance campaigns, described as pay for performance
Delivery
By API, email, telephone or CRM, with bespoke integrations available through their API
Appointments
They state leads can be pre-scheduled into your calendar using available slots
Targeting
Leads can be bought by specific postcode
Qualification
They state their team pre-qualifies leads before sending them
Commitment
Rolling monthly agreement, cancellable at any time, with no long-term contract
Exclusivity
Not clearly stated on their page
Pricing
Not published

Where they are strong

Flexible delivery into almost any system, postcode-level control over what you receive, optional appointment scheduling, and a rolling monthly agreement you can cancel at any time.

What to weigh

Exclusivity is not clearly stated, which on this page is the single most important question to settle in writing. Pricing is not published. It is a residential solar product from a generalist agency. Radiant is commercial-native, exclusive to one installer, and hands you an opportunity you own with roof and consumption data attached.

GMS Leads

Checked September 2026, source: gmsleads.co.uk/solar-panels-leads.html

A long-running residential lead generator covering able-to-pay and finance solar enquiries alongside ECO4 HHCRO work.

Model
Online enquiries, then telephone qualified by their own UK-based QC team
Exclusivity
They state leads are exclusive and never resold to anyone else
Risk position
A nine consecutive day replacement period where a lead does not qualify, cannot be contacted or no appointment can be booked, subject to their terms
Delivery
Into their own online CRM, with an email alert to your nominated contact
Compliance
They state they collect consent with IP address and a date and time stamp, and voice record consent for you alone to contact the customer
Sector
Residential, generating solar leads since 2012 per their own site
Pricing
Not published

Where they are strong

A clear exclusivity statement, a nine day replacement window, and a documented consent trail with voice recorded permission naming you as the only installer who may call. Over a decade of residential solar lead generation behind it.

What to weigh

Residential only, with a large share of the product tied to ECO4 HHCRO benefit criteria, so it is a different market from commercial rooftops. Pricing is not published. Radiant is commercial-native, exclusive to one installer, and the opportunity carries site data you can qualify from before speaking to anyone.

Imperio Leads

Checked September 2026, source: imperioleads.com

A performance marketing agency generating solar and insurance leads through paid media, working across the United States and Europe.

Model
Multi-channel paid campaigns run by their own media buyers, naming Instagram, Facebook, Google, TikTok and Snapchat
Sector
Residential solar, alongside several insurance verticals
Reach
They describe acquiring prospects across the US and EU
Their published figures
Over 100 advertisers, 5,000 tested campaigns and 1.5m leads delivered, per their own site
Exclusivity
Not published on their site
Pricing
Not published, and no UK price is given

Where they are strong

Serious paid media volume across several channels, run by an in-house media buying team with a long campaign history behind it.

What to weigh

Their published focus is the US and EU rather than the UK specifically, exclusivity is not stated and no price is published, so both need settling before you spend. It is a residential paid social product. Radiant is UK commercial, exclusive to one installer, and the opportunity is an owned asset with site data attached.

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

Bought leads and your own enquiries are two different products

This is the distinction the rest of the page rests on, so it goes first. A bought lead is a homeowner somebody else found, qualified and sold to you, sometimes to you alone and sometimes to three other installers at the same time. An enquiry you generate yourself is a homeowner who came to you, filled in your form and expects to hear from you. Both put a conversation in front of your sales team. They are not otherwise the same thing, and lining them up on price alone tells you very little.

OpenLead sits on the second side of that line. It is not a lead supply product and we would rather say so plainly than let a price comparison imply otherwise. OpenLead gives you a branded enquiry page you can share or embed, so a visitor who is already on your website gets indicative figures and a short explanation under your name and your colours, and the enquiry lands in your Radiant pipeline with the detail your team needs.

The honest case for your own enquiries

An enquiry that comes through your own site is exclusive by definition, because nobody else is sold it. It carries no per lead cost either, because you pay a flat subscription rather than buying names. Both of those follow from where the enquiry came from, not from a contract clause.

And the honest limit

OpenLead converts traffic you already have. If you have little or no website traffic, it will not manufacture demand for you. A lead provider will put names in front of you where OpenLead will not. That is a real difference and you should decide which problem you actually have before you spend.

The five questions that decide this

How many installers get the same lead?

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 lead actually contain?

A name and a postcode is not a qualified domestic enquiry. See the section below.

How fresh is it when it reaches you?

Domestic enquiries go cold quickly. Ask how a lead is delivered, how soon after the homeowner submitted it, and whether it arrives somewhere your team is actually watching.

What does it cost as a share of contract value?

A £45 lead on an £8,000 domestic job is 0.56%. Headline price alone tells you nothing until you put it against the job and the close rate.

The contract terms that decide it

The pitch is the marketing. The contract is the product. Before you spend, read for these.

  • Exclusivity, in writing, with a number. Does exclusive mean one installer ever, one at a time, or exclusive only within a postcode area? A word is not a number.
  • The refund or credit rule. What exactly triggers money back, and is it the whole price or only a portion? Where does the risk sit when a homeowner never answers the phone?
  • Data ownership. Can you keep the contact and market to them again, or are you renting a one-time introduction?
  • Minimum spend or minimum term, and the notice period to leave.

If a provider will not put these in the contract, treat the pitch with caution.

What a domestic solar lead should contain

A residential enquiry worth paying for should tell you enough to decide whether it is worth a survey slot before you have spoken to anyone. That means:

  • Tenure. Whether the person enquiring owns the property. A tenant cannot buy a roof.
  • The property and the roof. Property type, roughly which way the roof faces, and whether shading or a conservation area is going to come up.
  • What they spend on electricity. The bill drives the savings, and the savings drive the decision.
  • What they are actually asking for. Panels only, panels and a battery, or an electric vehicle charger alongside.
  • Verified contact details, and a timestamp so you know how fresh the enquiry is.
  • Consent you can evidence, because the homeowner needs to have asked to be contacted.

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

The maths that actually matters

Cost per lead is the wrong number. Cost per sale is the right one, and it is the number almost nobody in this market will put in front of you.

A cheap lead is only cheap if you close it. A lead shared with three rivals is won less often than one sold to you alone, and the difference lands entirely in the cost per sale rather than in the sticker price. Cost per lead flatters the cheap, shared model. Cost per sale is what exposes it, which is exactly why you will rarely see it published. Ask any provider on this page for their cost per sale, or even an honest conversion rate, and you will struggle to get a straight answer: a shared lead has no single owner to measure, and a low close rate is not a selling point.

Residential

Over 11%

Take £45 per residential lead, one in twenty converting, on an £8,000 job. That is £900 per win on £8,000, over 11% of contract value before you have paid a surveyor.

What moves that number

Two things, and only two. How often you close, which is mostly a function of how many other installers hold the same name, and what you paid to get in front of the homeowner. Work on either and the percentage moves. Work on the sticker price alone and it usually does not.

Run that sum with your own close rate and your own average job value before you sign anything. If a provider will not help you get to a cost per sale, that tells you something in itself.

The pound figures here are illustrative, to show the method, and we do not claim them for any provider on this page.

How OpenLead compares with buying residential leads

Rather than run these one by one, here is the honest shape of it. Every provider on this page sells you a name that somebody else generated. OpenLead is a subscription tool that turns the traffic you already have into enquiries that came to you, so exclusivity is not a clause you have to negotiate and there is no per-lead cost that rises with your volume.

Where buying wins

  • It works this week. An owned channel takes months to build, and a broker can put enquiries in front of you tomorrow.
  • Volume can be turned up on demand, which an owned channel cannot do at short notice.
  • Pay-on-a-win and replacement terms move risk off you, which matters most when cash is tight.
  • Booked appointments hand you a diary slot rather than a name, which suits a team that sells better than it markets.

Where OpenLead wins

  • The enquiry is yours by definition, because it came through your own site to your own brand.
  • The cost does not scale with volume the way a per-lead price does.
  • The homeowner has already seen an indicative figure before they speak to you, so the first call starts further along.
  • It keeps working after you stop spending, which a bought lead never does.

Most installers should run both: an owned channel building underneath, and bought enquiries on top while it does.

Red flags in a provider's pitch

Any one of these is a reason to ask harder questions before you spend.

  • Exclusive with no number attached.
  • Pricing they will not put in writing.
  • A lead that turns out to be a name and a postcode.
  • No evidence of the homeowner's consent to be contacted, or no timestamp showing how fresh the enquiry is.
  • A conversion or cost-per-sale rate they cannot or will not share.

How to run a fair trial

There is one honest way to choose. Pick two options, run them side by side for a full quarter, and measure a single thing: cost per won job. Not leads received, not enquiries logged, cost per signed contract. Give each the same speed of response and the same follow-up so the test is fair to both. If one of the two is your own enquiry channel, count the subscription as the cost and every job that came through it as the return. At the end, the option with the lower cost per sale wins, whatever the price per lead claimed at the start. Every provider, ourselves included, will show you whichever number flatters them, so measure the one that does not.

Common questions

What do residential solar leads cost in the UK?
Where a price is published it sits at roughly £22 to £45 for a domestic enquiry, with exclusive leads at the top of that range and shared leads at the bottom. Several providers publish no price at all, and appointment setters charge more because they are selling a booked diary slot rather than a name.
Are exclusive solar leads better than shared ones?
Usually, because what matters is cost per signed job rather than cost per lead. A shared lead sold to three or four installers is cheaper to buy and much harder to win, so a dearer exclusive enquiry often works out cheaper per sale. Get the exclusivity limit in writing with a number attached.
Can I generate my own residential solar enquiries instead of buying them?
Yes. Local search, your Google Business Profile, a quote tool on your own site, reviews and referrals all produce enquiries that are exclusive because they came to you. It takes longer to build than buying, and most installers run both at once.
How many leads should I trial before judging a provider?
Enough for the numbers to mean something, worked the same way every time, with the outcome of every single one recorded. Judging a supplier on a handful of enquiries tells you about luck rather than about the supplier.

Related reading

Turn the visitors already on your website into enquiries you own.

See OpenLead