Solar lead generation in Australia, without the guesswork.

The short version

Australian solar installers generate leads five ways: Google Ads, Meta ads, organic search, outbound calling or door knocking, and referrals. No official Australian benchmark exists for what any of it costs. Google, Meta, the Clean Energy Council and the Clean Energy Regulator publish no solar cost-per-lead or conversion figure, so every number you have read is a marketing agency describing its own campaigns. What is verifiable is the law: the Do Not Call Register Act, the Spam Act and Australian Consumer Law all bind you the moment you contact a lead, and the liability sits with whoever makes the call.

Why there is no honest answer on what a solar lead costs

We went looking for a primary source. There isn't one. The Clean Energy Regulator publishes installation data. The Clean Energy Council runs accreditation and the Approved Seller programme. Google publishes bid estimates inside Keyword Planner, which move with your account. None of them publish an Australian solar cost-per-lead, cost-per-click or lead-to-sale benchmark.

So every confident figure in a blog post is one of two things: an agency describing campaigns it ran, or a lead seller describing a number that happens to make its pricing look good. Both are useful as a sanity check. Neither is market data. Here is the honest state of the evidence.

The five channels, side by side

Each of these works. They differ in how fast they start, how much skill they need, and how much compliance risk they carry. The compliance column is the one installers skip and later regret.

Google Ads

The highest intent available. Someone typing “solar quotes Brisbane” wants a quote. You pay for that intent, and in solar you pay a lot. The agency estimates above put the range around A$8 to A$25 a click, and competitive commercial terms run higher. Two clicks and a form fill and you're already past what a bought lead costs, which is why the landing page matters more than the ad.

Meta ads

Cheaper traffic, weaker intent. It works in solar because the offer is strong and visual: rebates, bill reduction, a number on a roof. The catch is that a cheap instant-form submission isn't the same thing as a homeowner who confirmed their address and their bill. If you run Meta yourself, build the qualification into the form and expect to throw some away.

Organic search and content

The slowest and the cheapest. Rank for “solar rebate Victoria” or your own suburb and the leads arrive with no media cost attached. Budget 6 to 12 months before it carries real volume, and treat it as an asset you own rather than a tap you turn on.

Door knocking and telemarketing

Still works, still legal, and the fastest way to get a regulator's attention if you do it carelessly. The rules are in the next section. Read them before you hire anyone.

Referrals and partners

Electricians, builders, roof restorers, property managers and your own past customers. Slowest to build, highest close rate, lowest cost. Most installers running at a good margin have a referral engine and don't talk about it.

Google leads and Meta leads are not the same product

This is the part that costs installers the most money. Two leads can cost the same, look identical in your CRM, and behave nothing alike. The difference isn't quality. It's who started the conversation, and what the homeowner already knows about the price.

A Google lead declared their intent. They typed “solar quotes Geelong” and went looking. A Meta lead had their intent created. They were scrolling, an ad about their power bill stopped them, and they put their hand up. Both are real buyers. They're worth different amounts, and not in the direction you would expect.

High intent cuts both ways

Google intent is higher. It is also frequently quote shopping. Someone searching “solar quotes” is often collecting three of them, and the moment you arrive you're in a comparison. High intent and a price race are the same lead. You'll book the appointment more easily and then fight for the margin, because the homeowner has two other numbers in their hand and the cheapest one is doing your negotiating for you.

Meta intent is softer and further up the funnel. The homeowner is problem aware rather than solution aware: they know their bill went up, they don't yet know what a good system costs. There's no comparison set. That's harder to convert, and it's where the margin is, because you are selling on value instead of defending a number against two rivals.

What that means for how you buy and sell

If you compete on price and move volume, Google is your channel and you should take every search in your patch, because it's capped anyway. If you sell on value, have a sales team that can run a proper conversation, and want to protect your margin, Meta volume is worth more to you than the raw conversion rate suggests. Most installers judge both on lead-to-sale and quietly starve the channel that was making them the most money per job.

Google demand is also finite. Only so many Australians search for solar quotes in your postcodes this month, and no budget changes that number. Meta demand is manufactured, so it scales until your creative stops working or the maths breaks. That's why almost every installer who grows past their local search volume ends up running both.

The question to ask any lead provider

Ask what share of your leads come from Google search and what share come from Meta. Most won't answer, and that's the answer. A blended cost per lead hides the mix, and the mix decides how your team should work the lead and what price you can hold.

None of this makes one channel better. They're different products that happen to share a name and get priced as though they were the same thing. Knowing which one is landing in your CRM is most of the skill.

The rules, before you dial

Three regimes apply the moment you contact a lead, whether you generated it or bought it. ACMA has said plainly that where a business uses leads gathered by third parties, the compliance obligations sit with the business using them. Outsourcing the marketing doesn't move the liability.

Generate or buy: the maths that decides it

Cost per lead is the wrong number to compare. A $30 lead that never answers the phone is worse than a $90 lead that books. The number that decides it is cost per install.

Work it out like this. Take what you spend to get one lead, divide by the share of leads that become a sale, and you have your cost per install. On our own book, exclusive verified leads run 36 to 40% to a booked appointment and 6 to 12% to a sale. Those are our figures from our partners, not an industry average, because no industry average exists.

Across Capital Leads partners, cost per install lands between $500 and $1,600 depending on your area, density and sales team, on solar and battery jobs worth $12k to $18k. If your own channel beats that, keep building it. If it doesn't, you're paying for the privilege of running a marketing department.

Where to start if you are building it yourself

Pick one channel. Installers who start three at once learn nothing from any of them. Google Ads first if you have budget and want data this month. Referrals first if you have none and can be patient. Then:

Fix the follow-up before you spend a dollar on traffic. Speed to first call moves conversion more than any targeting change, and it's free. Then measure the whole funnel, not just the top: contacted, qualified, booked, quoted, signed, installed. Our conversion benchmarks guide has the funnel laid out with the CAC formula, and the appointment setting scripts are free and ungated if you want the call structure.

And if you'd rather not build any of it: exclusive leads from Capital Leads start from $60 + GST in Melbourne metro and run $75 to $120 + GST in other states, verified on a real mobile, one installer per lead. Compare it against your own cost per install and take whichever wins.