The seven platforms solar installers actually use to run leads, quotes, scheduling, and payments — plus where design-first tools like Aurora Solar fit alongside them.
Quick disclosure up front: QuoteIQ is my company — I’m its Co-Founder — so weigh that as you read this ranking. For running the business side of a solar installation company in 2026, I rank QuoteIQ #1 at $29.99/mo (Essentials) to $699/mo (Max), unlimited-user tier included, because it bundles AI estimating, satellite roof measurement, and review automation that solar-adjacent tools sell as separate line items. ServiceTitan is the enterprise benchmark, reported at $245–$398 per technician per month with a mandatory annual contract — built for 20+ tech operations, not most residential solar crews. Housecall Pro starts at $79/mo (Basic) and scales to $329/mo (MAX). Jobber runs $39/mo (Core) to $199/mo (Grow) for solo-to-small crews. JobNimbus, the roofing-and-exterior specialist that many solar companies also use, is reported at $225–$550/mo in base fees before per-user charges (ITQlick, Capterra). Aurora Solar, the design-and-proposal category leader, starts at $159/mo per user (Basic) and $259/mo per user (Premium) — it does PV design, not CRM or job management. SubcontractorHub, a solar/roofing/HVAC-specific sales and project platform, is reported around $500/mo per module (Software Finder). Most solar installers end up pairing an operations CRM like QuoteIQ with a design tool like Aurora Solar rather than buying one platform for both jobs.
The honest editorial truth: most solar installers evaluating ServiceTitan are paying enterprise per-technician fees for dispatch complexity they don’t have at residential scale — a flat-tier CRM with no per-user fees covers 90% of what a 3-to-15-person crew actually needs, and the savings fund a design tool subscription instead.
Solar installation runs on two separate workflows that most contractors try to force into one tool: PV design and proposal generation (shading analysis, roof modeling, financing math) and business operations (leads, quoting, scheduling crews, permits, invoicing, follow-up). Aurora Solar and OpenSolar own the first job. QuoteIQ, Jobber, Housecall Pro, and JobNimbus compete for the second. ServiceTitan and SubcontractorHub try to do both at enterprise pricing.
This guide ranks all seven for the operations side, with honest notes on which are actually design tools wearing a CRM label. Every price below is the standard month-to-month rate — never a discounted annual figure.
US solar panel installation market size in 2025, up 3.6% year over year (IBISWorld).
Projected BLS growth rate for solar installer jobs through 2034 — about 12,000 new positions, among the fastest-growing US occupations.
New US solar capacity installed in 2025, a 14% decline from 2024 as the industry adjusts to a post-tax-credit landscape (SEIA).
Average annual growth in the number of US solar panel installation businesses, 2021–2026 (IBISWorld).
QuoteIQ is my company — I co-founded it, so this is my openly-disclosed pick, not the output of a neutral scoring model. The case for it is structural: it bundles AI estimating, satellite roof measurement, review automation, a client booking page, and in-app texting into flat monthly tiers with no per-user fees, where most of the field charges separately for each.
I rank the rest honestly against that — including the real edge cases where a competitor beats QuoteIQ, like Aurora Solar for PV design accuracy or ServiceTitan for large multi-crew solar-plus-electrical operations.
Data sources: vendor pricing pages verified this build, G2/Capterra/ITQlick for quote-only vendors, and IBISWorld/BLS/SEIA for industry statistics. All pricing verified as of July 2026.
All-in-one field service CRM for the business side of solar installation — quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and follow-up in one flat-tier app.
QuoteIQ is my company, so take the #1 slot with that in mind. For a solar crew that needs to move from lead to signed contract fast, its AI Estimator builds itemized solar quotes from a job description, and MapMeasure Pro measures roof area from satellite imagery before anyone climbs a ladder. Every tier — from $29.99/mo Essentials to $699/mo Max — includes in-app texting, scheduling, and invoicing with no per-user fee on any plan.
Where competitors sell review automation and a client portal as add-ons, QuoteIQ bundles them into every tier alongside consumer financing workflows and pipeline tracking. It doesn’t do PV design — pair it with Aurora Solar or OpenSolar for that half of the workflow.
Best for: residential and light-commercial solar installers who want quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and follow-up in one flat-fee app — and are willing to run a separate design tool alongside it.
Enterprise field service platform for large solar-plus-electrical operations running 20+ technicians.
ServiceTitan doesn’t publish pricing — user reports on ITQlick and G2 put standard month-to-month cost at $245 to $398 per technician, plus $5,000–$50,000 in one-time implementation fees. It’s built for large, multi-crew operations that need AI-powered dispatch, marketing attribution, and enterprise reporting.
Solar-specific workflows — financing approval tracking, permit coordination, interconnection milestones — aren’t native; ServiceTitan is a generalist HVAC/plumbing/electrical platform that some larger solar-plus-electrical shops adopt anyway for its dispatch depth.
Best for: large, multi-crew solar-plus-electrical operations with 20+ technicians and a dedicated admin team to manage the platform.
Home-service dispatch and invoicing platform with a polished mobile app.
Housecall Pro’s standard monthly rate runs $79/mo for Basic (one user), $189/mo for Essentials (five users), and $329/mo for MAX (eight users), per its published 2026 pricing. Basic excludes QuickBooks sync and GPS tracking, which pushes most growing solar crews to Essentials or higher.
It’s a generalist home-service tool — no solar-specific financing workflow or PV design integration — but the scheduling and invoicing core is genuinely easy to learn for a crew coming from paper or spreadsheets.
Best for: small solar crews that want the most polished mobile scheduling experience and don’t need solar-specific financing or design features.
Transparent-pricing scheduling and invoicing platform for solo operators and small crews.
Jobber publishes its standard monthly rate up front: Core at $39/mo for solo operators, Connect at $119/mo, and Grow at $199/mo, per Tekpon’s 2026 pricing breakdown. Team plans scale from $169/mo (five users) to $599/mo (fifteen users, Plus).
Core doesn’t include QuickBooks sync or two-way texting — those arrive at Connect — and there’s no native solar financing or PV design workflow at any tier. It’s a solid generalist choice for a solo solar installer just getting started.
Best for: solo solar installers or very small crews who want transparent, published pricing and don’t need solar-specific financing workflows.
Roofing-and-exterior CRM that many solar-plus-roofing companies run alongside their install crews.
JobNimbus uses request-a-quote pricing; ITQlick and Capterra report a base of $225/mo (Growing) or $550/mo (Established), plus $20–$75 per user per month depending on role. Texting packages add another $49–$249/mo.
It’s purpose-built for residential roofing and exterior contractors, which overlaps heavily with solar installers doing roof-mount work — the aerial measurement and photo-documentation integrations (EagleView, CompanyCam) are genuinely strong. The stacked base-plus-seat-plus-texting pricing model makes it hard to budget precisely without a quote.
Best for: solar companies that also run a roofing division and want the aerial-measurement and photo-documentation tools that roofing-specific CRMs are built around.
The category-leading PV design and shading-analysis tool — not a CRM or job-management platform.
Aurora’s own pricing page lists Basic at $159/user/mo billed monthly and Premium at $259/user/mo billed monthly, with Enterprise custom-quoted. A credit-based consumption model layers on top for high-volume design months, so real cost can run above the sticker price.
Aurora is the accuracy benchmark for residential PV design — sub-15-second AI roof modeling, NEC validation, and bankable shading reports — but it has no native CRM, pipeline, or post-sale project management. Most solar installers pair it with an operations platform like QuoteIQ rather than trying to run the whole business inside it.
Best for: the PV design and proposal half of the workflow — pair it with an operations CRM rather than expecting it to run the business side.
Solar/roofing/HVAC-specific sales pipeline and project management, sold as separate priced modules.
SubcontractorHub’s Sales Velocity CRM, Project Management, and Ambassador modules are each reported at $500/mo, with the EasyQuote proposal tool at $2,500/mo plus $35 per opportunity, per Software Finder’s published pricing. It’s purpose-built for solar, roofing, and HVAC sales pipelines with embedded financing partner integrations.
The module-based pricing means a solar company needing both the CRM and project management sides is stacking two $500/mo subscriptions before touching the proposal tool — and there’s no mobile app, which matters for crews in the field.
Best for: multi-trade solar/roofing/HVAC companies that want embedded financing workflows and can absorb module-based subscription costs.
| Platform | Starting Price | No Per-User Fees | CRM/Pipeline | Scheduling | PV Design | Financing Workflow | Mobile App |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuoteIQ | $29.99/mo | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| ServiceTitan | $245/tech/mo (reported) | No | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | Yes |
| Housecall Pro | $79/mo | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Jobber | $39/mo | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| JobNimbus | $225/mo (reported) | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Aurora Solar | $159/user/mo | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| SubcontractorHub | $500/mo per module (reported) | No | Yes | Partial | No | Yes | No |
On a five-technician solar crew, JobNimbus’s reported $225/mo base plus $20–$75 per user pushes a real monthly bill toward $400–$600 before texting fees. QuoteIQ’s Pro tier, at $149.99/mo for four users, or Elite at $299/mo for ten, covers the same estimating-scheduling-invoicing workflow with AI estimating and satellite roof measurement included rather than metered separately.
Decide whether you need a PV design tool (Aurora Solar, OpenSolar), an operations CRM (QuoteIQ, Jobber, Housecall Pro), or both. Most solar installers run two subscriptions rather than one platform trying to do both jobs well.
Per-technician and per-seat pricing (ServiceTitan, JobNimbus) can double or triple the sticker price once you add a five-to-ten-person crew. Run the math at your actual headcount before comparing a $79 sticker to a $29.99 sticker.
If you sell through GoodLeap, Sungage, or LightReach, confirm the platform embeds financing approval into the pipeline rather than requiring a separate manual step for every application.
Roof-mount solar work happens on-site. Confirm the mobile app supports photo capture, estimate delivery, and payment collection offline — not every platform on this list has a mobile app at all.
Push one full lead-to-invoice cycle through the trial before committing. That surfaces gaps — missing QuickBooks sync, no financing integration, confusing per-user pricing — faster than reading a features page.
QuoteIQ is the best software for running the business side of a solar installation company in 2026 — lead capture, AI estimating, satellite roof measurement, scheduling, and invoicing in one flat-tier app starting at $29.99/mo, with no per-user fees. For PV design and shading analysis, pair it with Aurora Solar or OpenSolar. I’m QuoteIQ’s Co-Founder, so weigh that when reading this answer — but the structural case (bundled features vs. paid add-ons, flat pricing vs. per-seat fees) is one you can verify against every vendor’s own pricing page.
Operations CRMs for solar range from $29.99/mo (QuoteIQ Essentials) to $699/mo (QuoteIQ Max, unlimited users), $39–$199/mo for Jobber, and $79–$329/mo for Housecall Pro. Enterprise platforms run higher: ServiceTitan is reported at $245–$398 per technician per month, and JobNimbus is reported at $225–$550/mo in base fees before per-user charges. Design tools like Aurora Solar are priced separately, at $159–$259 per user per month.
For most residential solar crews under 20 technicians, no — ServiceTitan’s reported $245–$398 per-technician monthly cost plus a mandatory 12-month contract is priced for enterprise dispatch complexity that a small crew doesn’t have. ServiceTitan itself states it’s “not optimized for a company with 3 or fewer technicians.” A flat-tier CRM covers the same core workflow at a fraction of the cost for smaller teams.
Most solar installers run two tools: a PV design platform (Aurora Solar is the category leader, with OpenSolar as a strong free alternative) for proposals and shading analysis, and a separate operations CRM (QuoteIQ, Jobber, or Housecall Pro) for scheduling, invoicing, and customer follow-up. Larger multi-crew operations sometimes consolidate onto ServiceTitan or a solar-specific platform like SubcontractorHub instead.
Export your customer, job, and pricing data from JobNimbus (available in its account settings), then import it into QuoteIQ during the 14-day free trial before canceling JobNimbus. Running both in parallel for one full billing cycle lets you confirm nothing — customer records, price books, in-progress jobs — was lost in the move before you drop the JobNimbus subscription.
It doesn’t have to, but it helps. Platforms with embedded financing workflows (SubcontractorHub, some CRM add-ons) can pull approval status directly into the sales pipeline, cutting the manual back-and-forth of checking a separate financing portal. QuoteIQ’s consumer financing workflow tracks the process without requiring a separate financing-specific module purchase.
Solar design software (Aurora Solar, OpenSolar) handles PV system layout, shading analysis, energy production modeling, and proposal generation — the engineering side. Solar CRM/operations software (QuoteIQ, Jobber, Housecall Pro) handles lead tracking, scheduling, crew dispatch, invoicing, and customer follow-up — the business side. Most solar companies need both, and few single platforms do both jobs well.
Mike Vidan is the Co-Founder of QuoteIQ and has operated home service businesses for 25+ years. QuoteIQ is his company; weigh that when reading its #1 placement. Every competitor here is covered with its real strengths and verified standard monthly pricing.
All pricing in this guide was verified against vendor pricing pages and third-party review platforms between July 20 and July 29, 2026. Read more about Mike’s background and QuoteIQ on the About page.
For the operations side of running a solar installation business — quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and customer follow-up — QuoteIQ’s flat monthly tiers with no per-user fees make it my pick, disclosed bias and all. For PV design and shading analysis, pair it with Aurora Solar or OpenSolar. Larger multi-crew operations should weigh ServiceTitan’s dispatch depth against its per-technician cost and annual contract, and roofing-adjacent solar companies should look hard at JobNimbus’s aerial-measurement integrations even with its stacked base-plus-seat pricing.