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Solar Dealer Program Scorecard
Thirty-three commercial terms decide what a dealer program is actually worth. Score each one as written, stated only, or unaddressed, and see which of the load-bearing terms are still verbal.
What separates a strong dealer program from a weak one?
Not the capabilities deck. Seven areas carry the commercial substance: margin and pricing and how much notice you get before it moves; financing breadth and who owns the credit application; install capacity in your own metros rather than nationally; who is contractor of record and who owes the workmanship warranty; when you are paid and what you carry until then; what is actually restricted about territory and leads; and what happens on exit.
The scoring distinction that matters is not whether you asked, but whether the answer is in writing. A stated term is an accurate description of somebody's present intention and it does not survive their departure. That is why this scorecard rates each term on three levels rather than ticking a box.
Score the program in front of you
Set the two conditions, then rate each term as it stands today. Everything starts at unaddressed, which is the honest default before a conversation has happened.
About this arrangement
Rate each term as it actually stands today. Everything starts at unaddressed, which is the honest default before a conversation has happened. Scored out of 66 points: two for a written term, one for an assurance given verbally, none for an unaddressed one.
Margin and pricing
0/5 writtenThe terms that move money on every project. These decide the economics whether or not anyone else is selling in your area.
Redline basis stated, with what it includes and excludesLoad-bearing
A per-watt redline that silently excludes adders, permit fees or interconnection work is a different number from one that includes them.
Financing cost disclosed per product, not as one blended figureLoad-bearing
Each financing product carries its own cost, and a blended average hides which products are actually worth selling.
Adder pricing published as a schedule rather than quoted per job
Adders are where margin is won and lost. A published schedule lets a rep price at the table; a per-job quote adds a cycle to every project that needs one.
Notice period before pricing changes, stated in daysLoad-bearing
Pricing moves. What matters is whether you find out before or after you have quoted a week of appointments against the old number.
Who sets the homeowner-facing price, and whether you may set your own
It determines whether your margin is yours to manage or handed to you, and it is frequently left unsaid.
Financing breadth
0/4 writtenA single financing product is a bottleneck, and the deals it costs you never appear in your pipeline as losses.
The lenders you can actually submit to, namedLoad-bearing
A multi-lender panel is a claim worth testing by name. Breadth is what lets the product follow the homeowner's credit profile rather than the other way round.
Whether you may bring your own lender relationship
Where you already have one, being unable to use it is a real cost. Where you do not, the answer still tells you how the program is structured.
Who owns the credit application and the homeowner dataLoad-bearing
It decides what you keep if you leave, and whether the same homeowner can be re-marketed to by someone else.
Who clears lender stipulations, and the turnaround commitment
Stipulations are the most common reason a funded-looking project is not funded. Whoever clears them determines your cash conversion cycle.
Install capacity in your metros
0/5 writtenThe binding constraint on most sales organisations, and the one least often quantified. National figures answer a different question.
Completed installs per week in the specific metros you sell inLoad-bearing
National capacity is not capacity. Ask for the metro, per week, over the last quarter — completed, not scheduled.
Share of that capacity already committed to other partners
A crew at full utilisation has nothing for you regardless of the enthusiasm in the meeting.
Backlog in weeks from notice to proceed to install dateLoad-bearing
This is the number your homeowners experience, and the one your funding milestones depend on.
Priority order when capacity is tight, in writing
Far easier to establish before capacity is tight than after a larger partner increases volume.
What happens in a metro you sell in where there is no crewLoad-bearing
The honest answers are 'we will not take it' and 'we will subcontract further out at a longer lead time'. Both are workable. Silence is not.
Accountability and the licence
0/4 writtenWho is answerable to the jurisdiction and to the homeowner. A seller that does not hold a licence is relying entirely on these answers.
The legal entity that is contractor of record on each projectLoad-bearing
The licence holder answers to the authority having jurisdiction and carries the installed system. It should be nameable per project, not per program.
The entity that owes the workmanship warranty, namedLoad-bearing
A workmanship warranty is worth the durability of the company behind it. If nobody can name that company, nobody owes it.
Who takes homeowner service calls after permission to operate
The homeowner calls whoever sold them the system. If that is you and there is no route onward, you have inherited an operations function.
Whether the program holds the licence in each state, or the installer does
It changes who is exposed if a licence lapses mid-project, and it is a different answer in different states for most programs.
Money timing and downside
0/5 writtenWhen you get paid, what you carry until then, and what happens when a project dies. This section is where working capital is actually decided.
The milestone you are paid at, and how many days after itLoad-bearing
Paid at install and paid at permission to operate are weeks apart, and the gap is financed by somebody.
Whether materials require upfront capital from youLoad-bearing
The single largest working-capital variable in the arrangement, and the one most easily confirmed in writing.
Who carries the materials cost between order and funding
Materials are typically committed well before any draw lands. Whoever carries them is exposed if the project dies in between.
Who absorbs cost at each stage when a project cancelsLoad-bearing
Cancellation cost is stage-dependent, and 'we will work with you' is not an allocation. Ask stage by stage.
Clawback triggers, amount, and the window they run forLoad-bearing
The obligation most likely to survive your departure. Written terms here are worth more than anything else on this page.
Territory, leads and your people
0/4 writtenUsually narrower than the word suggests. What is enforceable here attaches to a homeowner or a rep, not to a map.
Anything restricted geographically, defined by county, ZIP or metro
'The Phoenix market' is not an area anyone can adjudicate. If it is not drawn, it is not a term.
First look on inbound leads, with a response window
The most commonly available real offering. Without a response window it cannot be planned against.
Protection for homeowners you sourcedLoad-bearing
Attaches to a person rather than a map, is checkable from records both sides hold, and is therefore the version that gets honoured.
Non-solicitation of your reps and your customersLoad-bearing
The competitive risk to a sales organisation is rarely a rival closing its homeowners. It is a rival recruiting its closers.
Visibility and exit
0/6 writtenHow much you can see while it is working, and what you keep when it stops. Almost nobody asks the second question during onboarding.
Project status visible to you after handoff without having to askLoad-bearing
If tracking a project means emailing a rep, you will hear about problems from your homeowner first.
A named escalation path with a response commitment
Every arrangement has bad weeks. What separates them is whether there is a person and a timescale.
Notice period to terminate, in both directions
Asymmetric notice is common and is worth knowing about before you are the one giving it.
What happens to in-flight projects if either side exitsLoad-bearing
Permits sit in the installer's name and financing sits with the lender under the program's arrangement. In-flight projects do not simply move with you.
Which obligations survive termination, and for how longLoad-bearing
Non-solicitation, confidentiality and clawback are usually written to survive. The territory commitment is what you lose on day one.
Counterparty financial standing addressed plainly when asked
Residential solar has produced enough counterparty failures recently that this is a normal commercial question, and evasiveness is itself the answer.
A framework for comparing commercial terms, not legal advice. Agreements of this kind should be read by counsel before signature.
Informational use only, please verify before you rely on it
A framework for comparing the commercial terms of residential PV solar dealer arrangements. It is not legal advice, and an agreement of this kind should be read by counsel before signature. Every program is different, and the right answer on several of these terms depends on the size and stage of the selling organisation.
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.
Why programs get compared on the wrong things
Two terms dominate most of these conversations, and neither is the one that decides the outcome. The first is the headline margin number, which is comparable between programs only once you know what the redline includes — adders, permit fees and interconnection work move it substantially, and they are exactly what a per-watt figure quietly omits. The second is territory, which usually turns out to mean something much narrower than the word suggests. Does a dealer program give you an exclusive territory works through what is normally on offer instead.
What actually separates arrangements is the downside. Who absorbs the cost when a project cancels after materials have shipped. What the clawback recovers and for how long. How many weeks the backlog runs in the metro you actually sell in. Whether you can see a project's status after handoff without emailing anyone. Whether the entity that owes the workmanship warranty can be named.
Every program looks the same in a good month. The load-bearing terms flagged in this scorecard are the ones that describe a bad one — and they are also, not coincidentally, the ones most often left as an assurance rather than a clause.
This is the joining half. The mirror image — a program or a sales organisation vetting an installation partner it is about to route volume to — is the installer vetting scorecard, which scores licence, insurance, capacity and durability rather than commercial terms. Different counterparty, different questions.
Where Seamless Home fits
Seamless Home is a licensed contractor. It stands between the companies that sell home energy systems and the crews that install them, running design, permitting, procurement and project management as inside operations, with installation performed by vetted installing partners engaged as its subcontractors.
Applied to its own dealer program, the terms above are the ones worth asking about directly: a multi-lender panel rather than a single funding product, materials without upfront capital, the licensed installing partner named as contractor of record on each project, and visibility after handoff rather than going dark at the handoff. Install capacity and coverage are confirmed per service area rather than promised as blanket availability, which is a narrower claim than the alternative and a more useful one to score.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you evaluate a solar dealer program?+
On the commercial terms that bind, not on the capabilities presentation. Seven areas cover it: the margin and pricing basis and how it changes, the breadth of the financing panel and who owns the credit application, install capacity in the specific metros you sell in, who is contractor of record and who owes the workmanship warranty, when you are paid and what you carry until then, what is actually restricted about territory and leads, and what happens on exit. Score each term by whether it is in writing, merely stated, or unaddressed. The difference between the first two is the whole point of the exercise, because a verbal assurance is worth nothing in the month you need it.
What is the difference between a term being written and being stated?+
One is enforceable and the other is a memory. A written term sits in the agreement or a signed schedule and survives the departure of the person who said it, which happens more often than anyone plans for. A stated term is an accurate description of somebody's present intention. Both are useful, and confusing them is the most expensive error in these arrangements — a sales organisation that hired against a verbal territory assurance, or planned working capital against a verbal payment-timing answer, has taken a real risk without pricing it.
Which dealer program terms matter most?+
The ones that decide the downside rather than the upside. Margin basis and pricing-change notice, the financing panel, install throughput and backlog in your own metros, the named entity that owes the workmanship warranty, the payment milestone, cancellation cost allocation, clawback terms, lead-source protection, non-solicitation, and what happens to in-flight projects on exit. This scorecard flags those as load-bearing, because a good month makes every arrangement look identical and a bad one does not.
Is install capacity really more important than territory?+
For most sales organisations, yes, and it is not close. A seller in a metro is rarely limited by another seller being present; it is limited by how many installs can actually be delivered there per week. An exclusive area with two crews serving it converts less pipeline than a shared area with twelve. The question that produces a useful answer is not whether the territory is protected but how many installs were completed in that metro last month, by how many crews, and what share of that throughput is already committed elsewhere.
What should I ask about clawbacks before signing?+
Three things, in writing: what triggers one, how much is recovered, and how long the window runs. Clawback provisions are among the obligations most likely to survive termination, so they outlast the relationship that made them feel reasonable. Ask specifically what happens when a homeowner cancels after materials have shipped, when a project is cancelled by the lender rather than the homeowner, and when a project simply stalls past a stated period without anybody cancelling it.
Does a dealer program have to hold the contractor licence?+
Somebody in the chain does, and knowing which entity it is per project is the point. The licence holder is normally contractor of record: the party that pulls the permit, answers to the authority having jurisdiction, and carries responsibility for the installed system. Where a sales organisation does not hold a licence itself, that entity is the one standing behind the work, and the answer can legitimately differ by state within the same program. It should be nameable per project rather than described in the abstract.
How often should a dealer program be re-scored?+
At renewal, after any pricing change, and after any change of ownership or key personnel on the program's side. Pricing and capacity move fastest — a redline and a metro backlog are both quarterly questions rather than annual ones. Territory and exit terms only change when the agreement changes, but they are worth re-reading at renewal precisely because nobody does, and a renewal is when a term quietly becomes less favourable.
Related resources
Does a dealer program give you an exclusive territory
What exclusivity would have to bind, the four things offered instead, and what to get in writing.
Learn more →What is a solar dealer program
What a program includes and excludes, the four shapes they come in, and the red flags.
Learn more →Best solar dealer programs
How the main programs differ on financing breadth, install coverage and back-office depth.
Learn more →Dealer margin calculator
What an organisation nets per install once redline, adders and financing cost are counted.
Learn more →Score the terms before you sign, not after
Seamless Home runs design, permitting, procurement and project management as inside operations, with a multi-lender panel and install capacity confirmed per service area. Ask about any term on this page directly.
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