Where the money in a solar quote actually goes
On a $30,000 system, the panels themselves are a minority of the price. Understanding that is worth more than comparing module brands, because it tells you which parts of a quote have room in them.
Roughly where an installed dollar goes
Indicative proportions for a typical American residential installation, not a measurement of any single company’s books. The point is the shape rather than the decimals: the soft costs together outweigh everything you can hold in your hands, which is why identical panels cost several times more to put on a roof here than in Australia.
Three practical consequences
Shopping around beats spec-shopping. Upgrading to a premium module moves a few percent of the total. Getting three real quotes moves far more, because you are competing away sales cost and margin, which together are over a third of the price.
A cheap quote is not automatically a bad system. The hardware is largely commodity. What separates installers is workmanship, the quality of the roof penetrations, and whether they will still exist when something fails in year nine.
Self-install saves the soft costs, not the hardware. Which is exactly why it saves so much, and also why it is hard: you are taking on the permitting, inspection and interconnection work that makes up most of what you are avoiding.
If you are building it yourself
Self-install is realistic for ground mounts, outbuildings, RVs and off-grid setups, and much harder for a grid-tied array on an occupied house, where the utility interconnection and inspection are the real obstacles rather than the wiring. A 400 W module is the standard building block, and an 8 kW array is about 20 of them.
New and used panels sold direct, for self-install and off-grid builds.
Inverters, batteries and the EG4 range, for whole-system DIY builds.
Panels, charge controllers and kits, mostly 12V, RV and off-grid.
Home batteries, portable power stations and balcony solar kits.
Portable power stations and balcony-scale solar.
Power stations and expandable home backup batteries.
Portable power stations and folding panels for camping and outages.
The standard 100 W panel for RVs, boats, sheds and gate openers. Not what goes on a house, and priced per panel rather than per watt installed.
Renogy 100 Watt Solar Panel N-Type, 16BB 25% High-Efficiency
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Sits between panel and battery and extracts noticeably more from the same panel than a cheaper PWM controller does. The one component worth not economising on in a small system.
Dyness MPPT Solar Charge Controller with Bluetooth APP Control 40A 12V/24V
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Turns 12V DC into household AC. Pure sine rather than modified: anything with a motor or a sensitive power supply objects to the cheaper waveform.
BELTTT 2000W Pure Sine Wave Inverter 12V DC to 120V AC, 4000W Surge
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100Ah at 12V, the standard off-grid building block. Lithium iron phosphate rather than lead acid: several times the cycle life and it tolerates being run down.
12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Battery, Group 24 Deep Cycle RV/Trolling Motor Battery
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Portable power, monitoring and the smaller parts are on the gear page.
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We do not ask for your phone number, we do not run a quote form, and we do not sell your details to installers. If you want quotes, you will leave this site and give your details to the company that will call you.
Competing quotes from vetted installers. You give your details to them, not to us.
Marketplace where installers bid against each other on a standardised quote.
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What people actually paid per watt is the number to hold a quote against.