About Solar Pays Off

Solar Pays Off exists to answer one question honestly: is rooftop solar actually worth it for my home? Most tools that promise that answer are lead-generation funnels for solar installers — the “estimate” is bait, and the real product is your phone number. We built the opposite. Every figure here is computed in your browser from public data and the numbers you enter, and nothing is sent to us or to anyone selling solar.

Who runs it

Solar Pays Off is built and maintained by its founder, Brendan Faulds. A software developer, he built the site’s calculation engine and data pipeline from public EIA, NREL and IRS sources — with no lead forms and no solar-industry funding — to give homeowners an honest answer on whether solar actually pays off.

We are not a solar company

We don’t sell, install, finance, or broker solar, and we don’t sell your details to anyone who does. That independence is the whole point — it’s why the numbers here aren’t quietly bent to make solar look better (or worse) than it really is. When our own calculator says solar won’t pay off in your state, it says so plainly.

Where our numbers come from

Every input has a public, primary source — never a solar-industry estimate:

• Electricity rates — the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) state-average residential rates, refreshed from EIA’s data periodically and pinned to a shared recent window so state-to-state comparisons are like-for-like.
• Sunshine / production — annual kWh-per-kW production factors derived from NREL solar-resource data, adjusted by state.
• Incentives & tax treatment — the IRS for federal rules (the 30% residential credit ended for purchased systems on 31 December 2025) and the DSIRE database for state, utility, and SREC programs, which we link rather than hard-code because they change often.
• Install cost — typical residential $/watt ranges from public market data, fully editable so you can drop in a real quote.

The full model — every assumption, the export-credit haircut for non-retail net metering, panel degradation, and rate inflation — is documented on our methodology page. Nothing is a black box.

How we keep it accurate

Rates and incentives move, so accuracy is an ongoing job, not a one-off. We re-pull EIA rate data on a regular cadence, review state incentive pages when programs change, and date every guide so you can see how current it is. Where a figure is genuinely uncertain or varies by utility, we say so and point you to the authoritative source rather than inventing false precision. If you spot something wrong, tell us and we’ll fix it for everyone — see below.

How it’s funded

The site is supported by display advertising and a few clearly-labelled Amazon affiliate links to relevant hardware on some guides — as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. That’s it: no lead forms, no “get quotes” funnel, no selling your details. Neither the ads nor the affiliate links influence the estimates, which are driven entirely by public data and the figures you enter.

Found a mistake?

Rates and incentives change, and no dataset is perfect. If something looks off — a rate that’s stale, an incentive that’s ended, a number that doesn’t add up — email hello@solarpaysoff.com and we’ll check it and correct it. Corrections from readers are how this stays reliable.

See also our methodology, privacy policy, and contact page.