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Contact UsThere is no honest one-number answer, but there is an honest explanation. Here is what decides the price of a home solar system, what makes it go up or down, and how to tell a real quote from a sales pitch.
The cost of a home solar system comes down to five things: how big the system is, what your roof is like, whether your electrical panel can take it, whether you add a battery, and how your utility handles solar. Two houses on the same street can get very different quotes for good reasons. The only way to get your number is an on-site evaluation, which we do for free, and the only number worth trusting is one that is written down and includes everything.
Read the five drivers below and you will be able to look at any solar quote and see what it is made of.
Size is measured in kilowatts, and it is the biggest driver by far. More kilowatts means more panels, more racking, more labor, more roof time, and a bigger inverter. Size comes from your electric usage, not your neighbor's. A home that runs two HVAC systems, a pool pump and an EV charger needs a bigger array than a home that does not.
Two houses, same street: one is 2,000 square feet with gas heat and one car, and uses about 900 kilowatt-hours a month. The other is the same size with a heat pump, an electric water heater, a hot tub and an EV, and uses 1,800. The second house needs roughly twice the array, and its quote will be roughly twice as high, even though the roofs look identical from the road. That is why we size from twelve months of actual bills and from what you plan to add, not from a rule of thumb, and why a quote built on your square footage alone is a guess.
A simple south-facing shingle roof with no shade is the easy case. Costs go up with metal roofs (though standing seam can be faster, because the panels clamp on), tile, steep pitches, multiple small roof faces that each need their own racking run, and tree shade that calls for microinverters or optimizers so one shaded panel does not drag down the rest. Roofs that need work first are a separate cost and belong in the order of operations: if the roof is near the end of its life, replace it before solar, so nobody is paying to remove and reinstall the array in five years.
The same house on a simple gable roof and on a cut-up hip roof with three dormers can differ by a meaningful share of the labor, even at the same system size. The evaluation looks at each usable face and prices what it actually takes.
This is the line most quotes hide. A solar system feeds power back into your panel, and the code caps how much a panel can accept: the main breaker plus the solar breaker cannot exceed 120 percent of the panel's rating. Older 100- and 125-amp panels in Canton, Cartersville and Woodstock often cannot take a full-size array under that rule. Panels that are full, or that are brands the utility and inspector will not accept, need the same attention.
The fix is a panel upgrade, a service upgrade, or a different connection method, and it belongs on the quote up front. A quote that ignores the panel is either incomplete or assumes you will pay for it later. We check the panel before we design the system, and if the panel needs work, it is on the first quote, priced, with the reason. Our panel upgrades page explains the work itself.
A battery is the difference between a system that goes dark in an outage and a house that keeps running. It is also a meaningful add to the price, often the second-largest line after the array. Whether it is worth it depends on how often you lose power, what you need to keep on, and whether your utility gives you a reason to store your own energy instead of selling it back for less than you pay for it.
One battery unit covering the essentials (refrigerator, well pump, lights, internet, a furnace fan) is a different price from two or three units running the whole house including central air. The evaluation works out how many kilowatt-hours you need and prices the options separately, so you can see what the array costs on its own and what each battery step adds. Our battery backup page goes deeper.
Georgia Power and the EMCs that serve North Georgia each have their own interconnection process and their own rules for what they pay for extra power you send back. Those rules shape how big a system makes sense, which shapes the price. A utility that pays little for exported power makes a right-sized array with a battery the better buy. A utility with a stronger buyback program can justify a larger array. We walk through your utility's rules before you decide, and we never build a savings estimate on a program we have not confirmed for your address.
Panel brand within the mainstream tier. Black-frame versus silver-frame. Monitoring, which is standard. Permit fees, which are small next to the system. The company's logo on the truck, which changes nothing about the roof.
A ground-mount system costs more per panel than a rooftop system, because it needs a rack, footings and a trench for the electrical run, but it can face exactly the right way with zero shade, which means fewer panels for the same output. On a wooded lot in Ball Ground or Waleska, ground-mount is often the better buy even with the extra structure. We price both when both are options, so you can compare real numbers instead of guessing.
If your home has a 100- or 125-amp panel, the honest solar quote includes what it costs to make the panel ready. Some companies leave it off to win the sale and add it later, as a change order after the contract is signed. We put it on the first quote. It is the same panel upgrade you would need for an EV charger or a heat pump, so it is not wasted money. It is the house catching up to how you live now, and it is the only line on the quote that also lowers the cost of every future upgrade.
Mostly no. Online calculators work from an average house, an average roof and an average utility, and then apply a national price per watt. None of those averages is your house. They tend to miss the panel upgrade, guess at your usage from square footage, and know nothing about your utility's buyback rules or the shade from the oak in your back yard. Use them to learn the vocabulary. Do not use them to decide. The free on-site evaluation is the calculator that has actually seen your roof.
Financing. Most homeowners pay one of three ways: cash, which avoids interest and gives the shortest payback. A loan, either through a solar lender or your own home-equity line, which spreads the cost against the monthly savings. Or a lease or power-purchase agreement, which we do not offer because you never own the system and it complicates a home sale. We can tell you what lenders our customers have used. We do not sell financing ourselves.
Credits and incentives. Programs change, they have deadlines, and they depend on your tax situation. We do not promise tax credits. Ask us what currently applies, and check with your tax professional before you count on anything.
A flat-rate written quote from a licensed electrical contractor answers all seven.
Flat-rate written quote before any work starts.