Terms of use

These Terms govern your use of solarpanelcosts.com and everything on it. By using the site you accept them. If you do not accept them, do not use the site.

We may change these Terms at any time. The date above changes with them, and continued use after a change means you accept the revised version. Where a change is material we will describe it rather than quietly substituting it.

We may add, alter, suspend or discontinue any part of the site, any feature, any page and any data set, at any time and without notice or liability. Nothing here is a commitment to keep publishing anything.

You may read, print and share this material for your own personal or internal business purposes, and quote briefly from it with attribution and a link.

You may not:

• scrape, crawl or harvest the site systematically, or republish it in bulk;
• present our figures, analysis or text as your own;
• use the site or its content to train, fine-tune or ground a machine learning model that reproduces or substitutes for it;
• resell or commercially redistribute the content;
• interfere with the site, probe it for vulnerabilities, or place unreasonable load on it;
• use it for any unlawful purpose or in breach of any applicable law.

We may block or restrict access to anyone at our discretion, without notice and without explanation.

Every number here is an estimate computed from public data under stated assumptions, all of which are set out on the methodology page. They are not quotes, offers, appraisals, engineering advice, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and no professional relationship of any kind arises from your reading them.

What a system actually costs, produces and saves depends on your roof, its orientation and shading, your utility and its export and interconnection rules, your installer, your consumption pattern, and your tax position. This site can see none of those things.

Do not make a purchase, financing or tax decision on these figures alone. Get quotes, have a site survey done, read your utility’s terms, and take tax questions to a professional who can see your actual return. Where we describe tax law we describe published statute and guidance as accurately as we can, but law changes, our reading is not authority, and its application to you is a question we cannot answer.

We work hard to be accurate. Every number is traceable to a named source, the scripts that produce them refuse to publish a partial or implausible result, and we say plainly where the underlying data is weak. If you find something that does not survive checking, tell us and we will correct it with a note saying what changed.

Nevertheless, the site and everything on it is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. Source data can be wrong or stale, programmes close without notice, prices move and law changes. We do not warrant that the site will be available, uninterrupted, error-free or secure.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost savings, lost data, business interruption, or the cost of substitute services, arising out of or relating to the site or these Terms, whether in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability or otherwise, and whether or not we were advised of the possibility.

Our total aggregate liability to you for all claims relating to the site is limited to one hundred US dollars ($100), which reflects that the site is provided free of charge and that you pay us nothing.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Where an exclusion is unenforceable, our liability is limited to the minimum the law permits.

Some outbound links are affiliate links and are marked. If you buy, sign up or request quotes through one, we may be paid a commission or fee at no additional cost to you. This is disclosed in accordance with the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, 16 CFR Part 255, and in full on our disclosure page. We participate in the Amazon Associates Program and earn from qualifying purchases.

No commission arrangement changes any figure on this site. Prices come from Berkeley Lab’s dataset, production from PVGIS and electricity rates from the EIA, through scripts described publicly. There is no editorial lever to sell.

We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an agent for any installer, manufacturer or finance company, and we are not a party to any transaction between you and one of them. Anything you buy is between you and that company, on their terms. Company and product names belong to their owners and are used descriptively.

Our text, design, analysis and the code that generates these pages are ours and are protected by copyright. The underlying data is public and belongs to the bodies that publish it: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the US Energy Information Administration.

Incentive data comes from DSIRE, the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, published by the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center, NC State University and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. That licence travels with the data. The DSIRE trademark is theirs and is used only to identify the source. Product images and titles on the gear page belong to Amazon or the respective sellers.

Anything you send us through a form, including corrections, suggestions and feedback, may be used, reproduced, adapted and published by us without restriction, attribution or payment. Do not send us anything you consider confidential or proprietary.

If you believe material here infringes your copyright, write to us through the contact form identifying the work and the URL, and we will investigate and remove anything infringing.

Please read this section carefully. It affects how disputes are resolved.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to the site or these Terms will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court.

You and we each waive any right to a jury trial and to participate in a class, collective or representative action. An arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any form of representative proceeding.

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by writing to us through the contact form within 30 days of first using the site, saying so. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

If this section is found unenforceable in whole, the remainder of these Terms still applies and any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts sitting in New York County, New York.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of law rules.

If any provision is found unenforceable, it is severed and the rest stands. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them freely, including in connection with a sale of the site.

These Terms, together with the privacy policy and the disclosure, are the entire agreement between us about the site and supersede anything said elsewhere.