Puts two quotes on the same basis: dollars per watt, dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour, and what a dealer fee adds to both.
Checked . Data as of August 23, 2026. HyreSolar sells and installs nothing.
This solar proposal analyzer gives an estimate from your own numbers in under a minute, with every assumption listed under the result.
Divide the price by the watts and by the first-year kilowatt-hours, and quotes of different sizes become comparable. With the example inputs, $30,960 for 12 kW is $2.58 per watt.
With a 20% dealer fee the financed amount is $38,700, or $3.23 per watt for the same equipment. Against 16,800 first-year kWh, the cash quote is $1.84 per kWh.
Solar proposals are hard to compare because they differ in size, equipment, financing and production assumptions all at once. Normalizing to price per watt removes size; price per first-year kilowatt-hour removes differences in how much each system is expected to produce. Do both and three proposals that looked unrelated line up on the same scale.
Enter the total contract price, not the monthly payment. If the proposal is financed, enter the dealer fee too: the analyzer shows the cash-equivalent price per watt and the financed one side by side, because the same panels can cost a third more when a fee sits inside the loan.
Then compare the per-watt figure with the published prices on our cost per watt page.
The analyzer does not tell you whether a price is fair; it makes the price readable so you can judge it.
Check the production figure separately. A proposal that claims more kilowatt-hours per kilowatt than PVWatts gives for your address will look cheaper per kWh than it is.
Also check whether the proposal still subtracts a 30% federal credit: §25D ended for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025.
Our solar quote review page lists what else to look for, and the form under the result sends your normalized figures to another installer if you want a competing quote.
Quote normalizer
Any proposal, reduced to comparable units.
Example values The filled-in numbers are an example, not your home. Type over them with your own.
Not a price index. This normalizes quotes; it does not judge them.
HyreSolar does not sell systems and takes no fee for a referral or a ranking.
What each output is for
Dollars per watt is the standard unit and the only fair way to compare quotes for different-sized systems. A $40,000 quote is not worse than a $30,000 quote if it is a much larger array. Per watt, the comparison is immediate.
Dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour is the better number when the systems differ in more than size. Two 12 kW arrays on different roofs, or with different modules and orientations, do not produce the same electricity. This normalizes for that, provided both proposals give you a production estimate you trust.
We deliberately do not tell you whether your price is good. There is no live price index on this page, and the national benchmark is a survey rather than a quote for your roof. What this tool does is make two proposals commensurable, so the comparison you make is a real one.
Comparing two quotes
Use dollars per watt if the systems are similar, and dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour if the production estimates differ materially.
Comparing cash against financed
Use the financed price per watt. A quote with a dealer fee inside it is a different price from the same quote paid in cash.
Comparing against a benchmark
Treat any published national figure as a survey midpoint, not a target. Regional labor, roof complexity and permitting all move the real number.
Where to find each number
Where each input comes from, so nothing is a guess.
1. Enter the system size from the proposal
In kilowatts DC, which is what proposals quote. If you only have a panel count and a module wattage, convert first.
Where to find it: The top line of the proposal. Our panel count calculator converts a count and a wattage into kW DC and shows the rounding.
2. Enter the total contract price
Everything the contract obliges you to pay for the system as installed, before any financing is applied.
Where to find it: The contract total, not the monthly payment and not the price after an assumed tax credit. If the proposal only shows a monthly figure, ask for the contract price in writing.
3. Enter the dealer fee, if the quote is financed
The percentage the lender charges the installer to originate a low rate, passed to you inside the financed amount.
Where to find it: The gap between the cash price and the financed price. Ask for both. If the installer will not give you a cash price, that itself tells you something.
4. Enter the first-year production estimate
The kilowatt-hours the proposal says the system will generate in year one.
Where to find it: Every serious proposal includes one. If yours does not, that is a finding. Cross-check it against NREL PVWatts for your address before you rely on it.
5. Run it again for the other quote
The tool is only useful in pairs. One quote in isolation tells you very little.
Where to find it: Compare the per-watt figures side by side, then the per-kilowatt-hour figures, then ask what explains any gap: equipment, roof complexity, or margin.
How the calculator works it out
1
Convert size to watts
Kilowatts × 1,000. Everything here is per watt.
2
Divide the price
Contract price ÷ watts gives dollars per watt on a cash basis.
3
Unwind the dealer fee
Financed = price ÷ (1 − fee), then divide by watts again for the real financed price per watt.
4
Divide by first-year production
Price ÷ year-one kilowatt-hours, so systems with different output can be compared.
A 12 kW proposal at $30,960 with a first-year estimate of 16,800 kilowatt-hours, shown first as a cash purchase and then with a 20% dealer fee inside the financing.
The cash quote is $2.58/W. Financed with a 20% dealer fee it is $3.23/W, $7,740 more for identical equipment on the identical roof. On a cash basis the system costs $1.84 per first-year kilowatt-hour, which is the number to compare against a differently sized quote.
How the answer moves
One 12 kW system, different prices and financing structures. Every figure is computed by the calculator on this page.
Quote
Cash $/W
Financed
Financed $/W
Per year-1 kWh
$30,960 cash
$2.58
$30,960
$2.58
$1.84
$30,960 with 20% dealer fee
$2.58
$38,700
$3.23
$1.84
$30,960 with 30% dealer fee
$2.58
$44,229
$3.69
$1.84
$42,000 cash
$3.50
$42,000
$3.50
$2.50
$24,000 cash
$2.00
$24,000
$2.00
$1.43
Read rows two and four together. A $30,960 quote with a 30% dealer fee ($3.69/W) is more expensive than a $42,000 cash quote ($3.50/W), even though the sticker price is $11,040 lower. The cheap-looking quote is the dearer one.
What moves this number most
Ranked, largest first. A proposal can change any of these without saying anything untrue, so check these inputs first.
1. The dealer fee
The largest thing hiding in a proposal. At 20% it adds $0.65/W and at 30% it adds $1.11/W to identical equipment. It is not shown as a line item, so the only way to find it is to ask for the cash price and compare.
2. System size, when comparing raw totals
The reason per-watt exists. A larger quote is not a worse deal; comparing totals across different sizes is simply a category error.
3. The production estimate
Two identical arrays on different roofs produce different electricity. Per-kilowatt-hour normalizes for that, but only if you trust both estimates. Cross-check against PVWatts before relying on either.
4. What is inside the contract price
Roof work, a main panel upgrade, trenching, a battery or an extended warranty may be inside one quote and outside another. A lower per-watt figure that excludes a needed panel upgrade is not cheaper.
5. Equipment, which per-watt deliberately ignores
A cheaper price per watt buys different modules, a different inverter architecture and a different warranty. Our inverter comparison covers what actually differs and what does not.
6. Who is doing the work
Price per watt says nothing about whether the crew is employed by the company you signed with. Our research found 96.3% of verified companies hold a license in exactly one state, see who actually installs your solar.
Common mistakes with this calculation
Comparing total prices for different-sized systems
A $40,000 quote for 16 kW is $2.50/W and a $30,000 quote for 10 kW is $3.00/W. The bigger number is the better deal. Always normalize before comparing.
Comparing a financed quote against a cash quote
They are different prices for the same thing. Put both on the same basis: either both cash, or both with the dealer fee inside.
Comparing monthly payments
A payment is a function of term and rate as much as of price. It is the least informative number in the proposal and the one the sale is usually built around.
Subtracting a tax credit you cannot claim
Many proposals show a net price after a 30% federal credit. That credit is $0 for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025. Compare gross prices.
Trusting the production estimate without checking it
It drives the per-kilowatt-hour figure and it is produced by the party selling you the system. Run your address through PVWatts and see whether the two agree.
Treating a national benchmark as a target price
Published benchmarks are survey midpoints across very different markets. Regional labor rates, roof complexity, permitting and interconnection costs all move the real figure, and none of that is a reason to distrust your quote by itself.
The number on the front page
A proposal’s production estimate is a model output, not a measurement
The first-year kilowatt-hour figure that anchors the whole document was produced by software, from assumptions somebody entered. It is a forecast about a roof nobody has instrumented.
HyreSolar analysis. Every residential solar proposal in the country contains a first-year production estimate, and almost none of them explain how it was made.
It is the output of a simulation: irradiance data for your location, the tilt and azimuth of each array plane, an assumed shading loss, and a bundle of system losses covering soiling, wiring, inverter efficiency, mismatch and so on.
Change any of those inputs and the headline number moves. None of them is visible on the page you are asked to sign.
HyreSolar analysis. This matters for comparison specifically. Our dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour metric divides a real price by a modeled quantity.
If one installer assumed a 12% total system loss and another assumed 20% on the identical roof, the second will look worse on that metric while proposing exactly the same hardware.
The metric is still worth computing — it catches the case where a quote is expensive relative to what it will actually deliver — but it inherits the honesty of whoever built the model.
The useful next step. Put your own roof into PVWatts, published by NREL, and compare. It is free, it requires no email address, and it is not selling you anything.
Enter your address, the system size on the quote, and the tilt and orientation of the planes the installer proposed. You will not match the proposal exactly and you are not trying to.
You are looking for whether the two numbers are in the same neighbourhood.
A proposal 25% above a like-for-like PVWatts run is a proposal with a question to answer, and the assumptions behind PVWatts are documented in PVWatts Version 5 Manual, NREL/TP-6A20-62641.
The useful next step. Then ask each installer, in writing, for the shading loss and the total system loss their model used. Two installers who give you those numbers are comparable. One who will not is telling you something.
What the first-year figure conceals
Comparing first-year production compares the best year either system will have
Both quotes will produce less every subsequent year. If they assume different rates of decline, a comparison anchored on year one is measuring the wrong thing.
Source fact. Jordan, Kurtz, VanSant and Newmiller aggregated more than 11,000 published degradation rates from almost 200 studies across 40 countries. For crystalline silicon the median is 0.5-0.6% per year; the mean of the same dataset is 0.8-0.9% per year.
HyreSolar analysis. The industry convention is to model the median and move on.
That is defensible for a typical system and it is not the whole picture, because a mean well above the median means the distribution has a long tail — some arrays degrade a great deal faster than the middle one.
A first-year comparison cannot see any of this. Two quotes with identical year-one estimates and different module warranties are not the same proposition.
The useful next step. Ask for the module performance warranty on each quote, specifically the guaranteed output at year 25 as a percentage of nameplate.
That is a contractual number rather than a modeled one, which makes it one of the few genuinely comparable figures in the whole document.
Our page on panel degradation sets out what those warranties actually promise and what they do not.
The largest hidden variable
A financed quote and a cash quote are not the same kind of number
The single most common way two solar quotes are made incomparable is that one of them has a finance charge folded into the price and the other does not.
Illustrative. A round cash price with the CFPB’s reported dealer-fee range applied, to show the proportion at stake. Not an average and not a cost breakdown.Range from CFPB, Issue Spotlight: Solar lending practices, retrieved 2026-08-23. Arithmetic is HyreSolar’s.
Source fact. In its Issue Spotlight: Solar lending practices, the CFPB reported that hidden fees in solar lending were typically 10 to 30% of the cash price, and sometimes above 50%.
The mechanism is straightforward: the lender pays the installer less than the contract price, and the difference — the dealer fee — is added to the amount you finance so that a headline interest rate can be advertised as low.
The fee is real money and it is inside the price you are comparing.
HyreSolar calculation. On a $30,000 cash price, a fee at the bottom of that range produces a financed contract of $33,000, and at the top of the range $39,000 — for the same equipment on the same roof.
This is arithmetic on a published range applied to a round number, not a quote we have seen.
HyreSolar analysis. A financed quote compared against a cash quote will therefore lose on dollars per watt even when it is the better deal on equipment, and a low-rate financing offer can be more expensive in total than a higher-rate one carrying no dealer fee.
This is the reason the analyzer has a field for the fee: unwinding it is the only way to get both quotes onto the same basis.
The useful next step. Ask each installer for the cash price, in writing, and separately for the financing terms. Those are two questions and they deserve two answers. If the cash price is not available, that itself is the finding.
Illustrative chart. The band widths show a published fee range on an assumed price, not any real contract.
Why the page gives you two
Dollars per watt and dollars per kilowatt-hour fail in opposite directions
Each normalized metric is blind to something the other one catches. That is why the tool computes both, and why neither is a verdict.
Illustrative. Simple arithmetic showing how far two quotes can diverge while agreeing on one normalized metric. No real quotes are represented.HyreSolar calculation.
HyreSolar analysis. Dollars per watt normalizes for system size, which is exactly what you want when comparing an 8 kW quote against an 11 kW quote.
It is blind to whether those watts will do anything: a cheap system per watt, badly oriented or heavily shaded, is not cheap.
Dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour fixes that by dividing by output — and immediately inherits the modeling problem described above, because output is estimated rather than measured.
HyreSolar analysis. Neither metric sees scope. One quote may include a main panel upgrade, a new roof penetration flashing kit, tree work, a critical load subpanel, or permitting fees that the other has quietly excluded and will bill for later.
Neither sees equipment quality, warranty length, or whether the installer will still exist in year eight. Neither sees the contract terms, which is what our contract checker is for.
The useful next step. Use the two metrics to find the question, not the answer. When a quote is an outlier on either one, the useful move is to ask that installer why — and the explanation is frequently legitimate and frequently something you would not otherwise have known about the job.
Illustrative chart, constructed to make a logical point about comparison metrics. It is not drawn from observed quote data, because we hold none.
Line by line
What may be in one quote and not the other
Normalizing for size and unwinding a fee gets you a long way. This is the list of things that survive both and can still make two quotes incomparable.
Item
Why it varies between quotes
What its absence from a quote means
Main service panel upgrade
Depends on the existing panel’s rating and available breaker space, which the installer may or may not have assessed before quoting.
Either the panel is fine, or it has not been looked at. Ask which. It is one of the larger change orders in residential solar.
Permitting and interconnection fees
Set by the jurisdiction and the utility, not the installer, and sometimes passed through at cost rather than quoted.
It is a pass-through you will pay later, or it is included. The word "included" should appear somewhere.
Roof work and flashing
A quote may assume the covering is sound. If it is not, this becomes a separate job with its own sequencing.
Nobody has assessed the covering. Our roof timing checker covers why that sequence matters.
Tree removal or trimming
Shading is modeled from imagery; the remedy is a real job with a real cost, often excluded.
The production estimate may already assume trimming that nobody has priced.
Monitoring hardware and subscription
Some systems include consumption monitoring; some include production only; some charge after a free period.
What placed-in-service date does any tax credit in this proposal assume?
26 U.S.C. §25D does not apply to expenditures made after 31 December 2025, and an expenditure is treated as made when the original installation of the item is completed, not when the contract is signed and not when the invoice is paid.
A proposal that shows only a monthly payment
There is nothing here to normalize. A monthly payment can be made to look like anything by moving the term. Ask for a price.
The real blind spots
What this analyzer cannot do
The proposal analyzer normalizes arithmetic. Most of what decides whether a solar project goes well is not arithmetic.
It cannot tell you whether a price is good
HyreSolar does not install solar, does not lend, is not a utility, and holds no dataset of quotes, bids or completed installations. Nothing here is a price we have observed. That is also why these tools are free to tell you that the answer is to do nothing.
We can tell you that one quote is 18% more per watt than another. We cannot tell you what anybody in your area paid last month, and we will not publish a benchmark we have not measured just because a page looks better with one on it.
It cannot verify the production estimate
It takes the figure from the proposal and divides by it. If the estimate is optimistic, the dollars-per-kilowatt-hour result is flattering in exactly the same proportion.
The independent check is PVWatts from NREL, run yourself on your own roof.
It cannot assess equipment
Two systems at the same price per watt may use very different modules and inverters, with different warranty terms and different failure histories.
Our pages on inverter types and panel efficiency cover what those differences actually change, which is less than the marketing suggests and more than nothing.
It cannot assess the installer
It does not rank contractors, score them, or take a fee for introducing you to one. There is no HyreSolar list of approved installers, because we have not inspected anybody’s work.
Escalators, arbitration clauses, production guarantees, lien terms and cancellation rights are outside a per-watt comparison entirely, and they are frequently where the regret is.
A well-priced system is still the wrong purchase if you are moving in three years, if the roof needs replacing first, or if your tariff credits exports at a fraction of retail.
Comparing two quotes assumes the decision to buy has been made. That assumption is worth revisiting, and "neither of these" remains an available answer.
Embed this calculator
Free to use on any site, including news and installer pages. Paste this where you want the calculator to appear. Keep the credit line: it is the only condition.
<iframe src="https://hyresolar.com/tools/proposal-analyzer/#calc" title="Solar proposal analyzer by HyreSolar" width="100%" height="900" loading="lazy" style="border:0"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://hyresolar.com/tools/proposal-analyzer/">Solar proposal analyzer</a> by HyreSolar</p>
What this calculator leaves out
The result is a planning estimate. A real proposal accounts for these; this page does not.
Not a price index.
This tool does not judge whether your quote is high or low, because we do not ship a live benchmark.
Assumes the dealer fee is a percentage of the amount financed, which is common but not universal.
Says nothing about equipment quality, warranty terms, or who performs the installation.
Uses the proposal’s own production estimate, which is produced by the seller.
Does not model tax credits.
§25D is $0 for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025.
We deliberately do not publish a target, because there is no live index on this page and a national benchmark is a survey midpoint across very different markets.
What this tool does is let you compare two real quotes on the same basis. If you want a reference point, treat published benchmarks as context rather than as a price you are entitled to.
How do I compare two solar quotes for different sized systems?
Divide each contract price by the system size in watts. A $40,000 quote for 16 kW is $2.50 per watt and a $30,000 quote for 10 kW is $3.00 per watt, so the larger and apparently more expensive quote is the better deal. If the production estimates differ materially, compare dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour instead.
How do I find out if my quote has a dealer fee?
Ask for the cash price in writing and compare it with the financed price. The gap is the fee. It is not usually shown as a line item, and a 20% fee adds $0.65 per watt to identical equipment, so it is worth the question.
Why does a cheaper quote sometimes cost more?
Because financing hides the difference. A $30,960 quote with a 30% dealer fee works out at $3.69 per watt financed, while a $42,000 cash quote is $3.50 per watt. The sticker price is $11,040 lower and the real price is higher. This is the single most useful thing this tool shows.
Should I compare gross price or price after the tax credit?
Gross, for two reasons. First, the residential credit is $0 for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025, so a proposal showing a net price after 30% is showing you a number you cannot achieve. Second, comparing gross keeps both quotes on the same footing regardless of what each proposal assumes.
What is dollars per first-year kilowatt-hour?
Contract price divided by the kilowatt-hours the system is projected to generate in its first year. It normalizes for the fact that two identical-sized arrays on different roofs, or with different orientations, do not produce the same electricity. It is the better comparison when the systems differ in more than size.
Can I trust the production estimate in my proposal?
Check it rather than trust it. The estimate is produced by the party selling you the system and it drives the per-kilowatt-hour comparison. Run your address through NREL PVWatts and see whether the two broadly agree. A large gap is worth asking about before you sign.
Does a lower price per watt mean worse equipment?
Not necessarily, and per-watt deliberately ignores equipment. A cheaper quote may use different modules, a different inverter architecture or carry a shorter warranty, and it may simply reflect a leaner operation. Price per watt tells you what you are paying; it does not tell you what you are getting, so read the equipment list too.
What might be in one quote and not another?
Roof repair or replacement, a main panel upgrade, trenching for a ground mount, tree removal, a battery, extended warranties and permitting fees. A lower per-watt figure that excludes a panel upgrade you genuinely need is not cheaper. Compare scopes before comparing prices.
How many quotes should I get?
Enough that the range tells you something, which usually means at least three. The value is not in finding the cheapest but in seeing where the cluster sits and identifying the outlier. A quote far below the others deserves the same scrutiny as one far above.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated August 23, 2026. Last reviewed by the HyreSolar research desk, which writes and checks every tool on this site.
Your real numbers come from a proposal drawn for your roof, your usage and your utility. Tell us about your home: a person reads it, and nothing goes to a solar company until you agree.