EcoGen America is free for homeowners. Every guide, comparison, and calculator on this site costs you nothing to use, and we do not sell or install solar equipment ourselves.
The Model in One Sentence
Solar installation companies pay us when we connect them with a homeowner who asks to be contacted.
What That Means in Practice
- When you enter your ZIP code or request quotes, we pass your request to vetted installation companies serving your area, and those companies pay us for the introduction.
- You never pay us anything, at any point.
- If you read our guides and never submit a form, we earn nothing from your visit. There is no paid placement inside our content.
What Payment Never Buys
Rankings, ratings, and recommendations are not for sale. A company’s position in our comparisons is never influenced by whether it works with us or how much it pays. Our commercial relationships are described on our Partners page, and a company we cover is not automatically a partner.
Why We Publish This Page
Solar is a major purchase, and much of the advice online is sold rather than written. We would rather tell you exactly who pays us, so you can weigh what we publish with full information. How we research, write, and check the content itself is covered in our Editorial Process & Content Standards.
How Revenue Supports Our Research
Referral revenue helps fund our free guides and the EcoGen Solar Database. A commercial relationship does not, by itself, establish that a provider’s quote data is used in our model. Paying for an introduction does not buy a different research result.
The EcoGen Solar Database supports the September 2026 EcoGen Solar Cost Index (v3), built by our data and analytics team, led by Trevor Guilday. The model starts with the Q1 2025 Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmarks from the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL). This separates equipment, field labor and other system costs.
We adjust labor costs using Bureau of Labor Statistics state wages for solar installers, with electrician wages as the fallback. U.S. Energy Information Administration electricity-use data and local sunlight inform the representative system size. EcoGen’s proprietary cost model is calibrated against current marketplace quotes from across the country.
We then compare the estimates with installed prices in the 21 states covered by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 2026 transacted-price data. The national figure is the plain average of the 50 states and Washington, DC. See the full cost methodology for how the figures are calculated and how to interpret a state’s row.
Using Our Guides and Requesting Quotes
Use our guides to prepare questions and compare assumptions before requesting an offer. A provider introduction is not a comprehensive comparison of every installer in your area. Read the consent language on the quote form to understand who may contact you, and compare the installer’s written price, equipment, warranty and financing terms before committing.
For the people behind the business, see About EcoGen America. For research and review standards, read our editorial policy.