Solar Appointments vs Solar Leads: Which Should UK Installers Buy? (2026)
An appointment seller offers you a booked survey for £130. A lead company offers you a verified enquiry for £45. Both promise the same thing: a homeowner who wants to talk about solar. So which should you actually buy?
The honest answer hangs on one question: can someone in your business ring a new enquiry within the hour? If yes, leads almost always win on the maths. If no, appointments might be worth the premium. Here’s how to work it out for your own numbers.
What Is the Difference Between Solar Appointments and Solar Leads?
A solar lead is a homeowner enquiry: name, address, phone number, delivered for your team to call. A solar appointment is a step further: the seller calls the homeowner, qualifies them, and books a diary slot for your surveyor. With leads you buy the conversation. With appointments you buy the diary slot.
That extra step is what you’re paying for. The appointment seller absorbs the calling, the chasing and the calendar juggling, and hands you a time and an address.
What you give up is the first conversation. Someone else has already spoken to that homeowner, set their expectations, and shaped their first impression of your company before you’ve said a word.
How Much Do Solar Appointments Cost Compared to Solar Leads?
Appointment sellers publish prices from around £130 per booked appointment. Published lead prices run from £8-15 for budget vendors, £15-30 for shared platform leads sold to 3-5 installers, and £50-150 for premium exclusive providers according to Phantom Digital. PoweredLeads sells verified exclusive leads from £45 per accepted lead.
Per-unit price is the wrong comparison, though. What matters is cost per sold job, and that depends on what happens after you pay.
Run your own numbers. If you sit four appointments to sell one job (no-shows, homeowners who were “just curious”, quotes lost on price), that’s £520 per sold job at £130 each. If you buy verified exclusive leads at £45, ring each one within the hour, and close one in five, that’s £225 per sold job. Close one in eight and it’s £360, still ahead.
The appointment only wins that comparison when your leads go uncalled. Which, for some businesses, is exactly what happens.
| Solar appointments | Solar leads | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A booked diary slot | A homeowner enquiry to call |
| Published price | From around £130 per booking | £8-15 budget, £15-30 shared, £45-150 exclusive |
| Who makes first contact | The seller’s caller | Your team |
| What you’re paying for | Certainty about the diary slot | The first conversation |
Note what the £130 buys: certainty about the diary slot, not the job. Nobody can sell you a guaranteed installation. For a fuller breakdown of lead pricing across the market, see our UK solar lead cost comparison and our guide to the best solar lead generation companies in the UK.
When Do Solar Appointments Genuinely Make Sense?
Buy solar appointments when you have no capacity to call new enquiries quickly and no structured sales process to qualify them. If every enquiry would sit in an inbox until Friday, a booked diary slot is worth the premium, because an uncalled lead is worth nothing at any price.
This is common and nothing to apologise for. A sole trader on a roof all day can’t ring enquiries at 2pm. A two-man team with no office support will burn leads they never call.
If that’s you, appointments buy you a working diary while you build the capacity to do it yourself. Just go in with your eyes open: you’re paying roughly three times the price of a verified exclusive lead for the booking service, and the job still has to be sold at the kitchen table.
When Do Solar Leads Win?
Leads win when someone in your business can ring a new enquiry within the hour. You pay less per contact, you make the first call yourself, and that first conversation is where trust is built. The installer who rings first, listens properly and books their own survey owns the relationship.
Solar is a considered purchase. Homeowners buy from the company they trust, and trust starts on the first call: how quickly you rang, whether you listened, whether you sounded like someone they’d let on their roof.
When a third party books the slot, the homeowner’s first impression of your company is someone else’s phone manner and someone else’s qualification questions. When you buy the lead, you set the standard yourself, the same reason exclusive leads beat shared ones: whoever controls the first contact controls the relationship.
If you have anyone who can pick up the phone fast, even part-time, the cheaper lead plus your own call beats the dearer appointment plus a stranger’s call.
What Should You Ask an Appointment Seller Before Buying?
Ask four questions before you buy solar appointments: who qualified the homeowner and how, what happens to no-shows, whether the appointment is exclusive to you, and how the enquiry was generated in the first place. The answers decide whether £130 buys a genuine survey or an expensive doorstep conversation.
- Who qualified it, and what did they ask? Homeownership, roof type, timeframe, or just “would you like a visit?” A weak qualification call books weak appointments.
- What happens to no-shows? Replaced, rebooked, or charged anyway? Get it in writing before the first block.
- Is it exclusive? Confirm no other installer is visiting the same homeowner that week.
- Where did the enquiry come from? Fresh demand generated this week is not the same as an aged list being re-called.
A good appointment seller will answer all four without flinching. Vague answers on no-shows and qualification are where the model quietly gets expensive.
Does PoweredLeads Sell Solar Appointments?
No. PoweredLeads sells verified exclusive solar leads, not booked appointments, and prices accordingly: from £45 per accepted lead, one installer per area, no retainer, no monthly fees, no contract. We think the first call belongs to your team, so we deliver the enquiry within minutes and you make it.
Every lead is verified before delivery: real name, full address, working phone number, homeowner, inside your agreed postcodes. Anything that misses The Four-Point Accepted Lead Standard is replaced free, with no claim window to argue about.
You buy leads in blocks, they arrive by email or straight into your CRM within minutes of the enquiry, and first leads usually land within three to five working days. The full process is on how it works, and pricing is published, so you can put our numbers next to any appointment quote.
Check If Your Area Is Still Open
Because it’s one installer per area, the practical first question isn’t appointments or leads. It’s whether your postcodes are still available.
Check if your area is still open
Takes two minutes. We’ll tell you if your patch is free and what your leads would cost, and you can run the per-sold-job maths against any appointment seller’s quote yourself.