Free Solar Business Tool
Solar Dealer Margin Calculator
See your gross margin per deal, monthly revenue, and annual earnings, before you commit to a system price or fulfillment model.
Calculate Your Dealer Margin
Adjust system price, install cost, dealer fee, and deal volume. Margin and revenue update instantly.
Per-deal breakdown
Revenue projection
Per deal
$18,000
45.0% margin
Monthly
$180,000
at 10 deals/mo
Annual
$2,160,000
gross margin projection
Gross margin before sales rep compensation, overhead, and other operating costs. Dealer fee percentage varies by lender and product, confirm with your lender agreements. Ballpark estimates only.
Informational use only, please verify before you rely on it
Margin figures are illustrative estimates based on the values you enter. Actual system pricing, install costs, dealer fees, redlines, and adders vary by market, lender, program, and deal.
This tool is provided for general informational and educational purposes only. Its output is an illustrative estimate generated from the values you enter and from general assumptions that will not match every deal, market, lender, or homeowner. It is not tax, legal, accounting, financial, or professional advice, and it is not a quote, an offer, a credit decision, or a guarantee of pricing, approval, timing, savings, or eligibility.
You are solely responsible for independently confirming all information presented here including any figures, rates, fees, margins, timelines, tax treatment, and federal, state, local, or utility incentives, with the applicable lender, authority having jurisdiction, and your own qualified tax, legal, and financial advisors before acting on it, relying on it, or presenting it to a homeowner or any third party. Incentive programs, lender terms, and permitting requirements change frequently and vary by jurisdiction.
Seamless Home is not a tax advisor, law firm, lender, or licensed installing contractor, and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the information produced by this tool. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Seamless Home accepts no liability for any decision made or action taken in reliance on it.
Understand your margin before you price
Most solar sales organizations price deals based on competitive market rates, what other orgs are charging, without modeling the margin impact of their specific fulfillment costs and lender fee structure. The result is deals that look profitable on paper but compress to a much smaller margin after dealer fees and install costs are factored in.
Dealer fees vary significantly by product and lender. A 25-year loan with a low APR typically carries a higher dealer fee (15-20%) than a 10-year loan (5-10%). TPO products may have no dealer fee but lower upfront dealer compensation. Understanding how fee structure affects your margin per product type lets you match the right lender to each deal for both the homeowner's benefit and your margin.
Seamless Home gives sales organizations access to a multi-lender network, GoodLeap, Sunlight Financial, LightReach, EnFin, Concert Finance, and Solrite, through one platform, so you can compare products and dealer fee structures in a single workflow and select the best fit per deal.
Two further tools work off the same deal: the solar commission calculator shows what a comp plan pays the rep out of this margin, and the in-house vs. outsourced calculator prices the fulfillment cost that sets your redline in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a solar dealer fee and who pays it?+
A dealer fee is a charge that a solar lender assesses to the sales organization (dealer) on loan products. It is typically expressed as a percentage of the system price, commonly 5-20% depending on the loan product and term, and is deducted from the amount the lender pays out on the deal. The dealer fee effectively reduces your gross margin per deal. TPO products (leases and PPAs) generally do not have dealer fees in the same form; instead, TPO providers may pay a smaller upfront amount to the dealer.
What is a typical dealer margin on a residential solar deal?+
Dealer margins vary widely by market, product type, and fulfillment model. A well-structured deal with an experienced fulfillment partner typically yields $3,000, $8,000 in gross margin per residential system, before sales rep compensation and overhead. Higher-priced markets (CA, NJ, MA) allow larger system prices, but competitive sales pressure and higher dealer fees often compress net margin. This calculator lets you model your specific numbers rather than rely on industry averages.
How does using Seamless Home affect dealer margins?+
Seamless Home handles installer connections, material procurement (Direct Pay), design, permitting, and project management, so a sales org's fulfillment costs are predictable and bundled into one platform fee rather than spread across multiple vendors. This predictability makes it easier to model margin per deal accurately. The calculator's 'install cost' field should reflect what you pay for fulfillment (installation + back-office) through your current or planned model.
Should dealer fee be calculated before or after the install cost?+
Dealer fees are typically assessed on the full system price (the amount the homeowner finances), not on the net amount after install cost. So a 10% dealer fee on a $40,000 system is $4,000: regardless of what you pay the installer. This calculator applies the dealer fee to the system price and subtracts both the fee and the install cost from the system price to arrive at gross margin per deal.
Related resources
Solar dealer program
How the dealer program protects your per-deal margin, financing to install.
Learn more →Best solar dealer programs
Compare dealer programs on fees, materials, and margin at scale.
Learn more →Direct Pay materials
Discounted materials with no upfront working capital to protect margin.
Learn more →Want predictable fulfillment costs on every deal?
Seamless Home bundles installer connections, materials, permitting, and project management into one back-end platform, so your cost per deal is predictable and your margin stays intact.
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