THE SHORT ANSWER
For solar panel installers, Google Ads costs EUR 77 to EUR 550 per enquiry and works out at EUR 231 to EUR 2,750 per signed job once you allow for 3 to 5 enquiries per customer. Works for solar panel installers, because a job worth EUR 7,000 to EUR 14,000 absorbs a four-figure acquisition cost without flinching.
A channel that is a bargain for one trade is a money pit for the next one along, and the difference is arithmetic rather than opinion. This page runs Google Ads specifically for solar panel installers: the modelled cost, the volume ceiling, the skill it demands, and a plain verdict at the end.
The relevant economics for this trade: a typical project is worth EUR 7,000 to EUR 14,000, the buyer is a homeowner comparing three quotes for a roof-mounted system, demand peaks spring and early summer and bottoms out in November to January, and it takes 3 to 5 genuine enquiries to sign one customer.
The numbers, at a glance
Modelled cost per enquiry: EUR 77 to EUR 550, from clicks at EUR 5.40 to EUR 16.50 converting at 3.0 to 7.0 percent
Modelled cost per signed job: EUR 231 to EUR 2,750, once you allow for 3 to 5 enquiries per customer
Time to first enquiry: days from a standing start
Verdict for solar panel installers: Works for solar panel installers, because a job worth EUR 7,000 to EUR 14,000 absorbs a four-figure acquisition cost without flinching.
How Google Ads behaves in this trade
Google Ads produces enquiries whose intent is the highest of any channel, because the person typed the problem into a search box. It captures demand that already exists. Nobody searches for a roofer on a whim.
The constraint nobody mentions in the sales pitch: a minimum of around 30 conversions a month before the automated bidding has enough signal to work with. For a solar panel business working a single metro, that is the thing to check before anything else.
Against that, the cost of being wrong. You are bidding against every other installer in the postcode plus at least one lead marketplace with deeper pockets and better data than you. Skill required: Real. An untended account will spend a full budget on broad matches that were never going to convert.
The objection that appears on almost every solar quote
It is rarely the headline price. It is the assumption set behind the payback: export rate, self-consumption share, panel degradation and the inverter replacement that most calculators quietly omit around year twelve. Homeowners in this sector are unusually numerate because the internet has trained them to be. Publishing your assumptions, including that replacement, costs nothing and removes the one argument a competitor can use against you.
A defensible first ninety days
Decide before you start what would make you stop. For solar panel work at 3 to 5 enquiries per customer, a fair test needs enough volume to expect two or three signed jobs. Anything smaller measures luck.
Fix the service area and job types in writing before the first enquiry arrives.
Record median time to first call attempt from week one, because if that number is poor you are measuring your own follow-up rather than the channel.
Review at the end of the period on cost per signed job, not on cost per enquiry.
Change one variable at a time afterwards, or you will never know which one worked.
The arithmetic, with every assumption visible
Every step for solar panel is set out below with its assumption stated, so you can replace any of them with your own figures.
Click cost: EUR 5.40 to EUR 16.50 for solar panel keywords, which tracks job value rather than competition alone.
Landing page conversion: 3.0 to 7.0 percent of clicks become an enquiry, assuming a page built for one trade rather than a homepage.
Cost per enquiry: EUR 77 to EUR 550, which is click cost divided by conversion rate.
Enquiries per customer: 3 to 5 for this trade, because not everyone answers, quotes or proceeds.
Cost per signed job: EUR 231 to EUR 2,750.
Against a midpoint project of EUR 10,500, the worst-case figure of EUR 2,750 is 26.2 percent of contract value. Whether that is acceptable depends entirely on your gross margin, not on your revenue, and that is the calculation most contractors skip.
Radius targeting quietly buys you the wrong postcodes
A circle drawn around a depot includes the areas you do not want as readily as the ones you do. Postcode-level targeting, built from where your profitable jobs have actually come from over the last two years, outperforms a radius almost immediately. It also lets you bid differently on areas where travel time destroys margin, which a radius cannot express at all.
Keyword clusters and negatives that decide a solar account
Solar search splits into three intents that should never share a campaign: installation intent, price research and self-build. Only the first deserves a bid at full value, and the volume sits overwhelmingly in the other two.
Bid at full value on: solar panel installers plus a place name, solar panel installation cost for a stated system size, battery storage retrofit, solar quote, and brand plus installer combinations
Bid cautiously on: the bare phrase solar panels, which carries the highest volume and the worst intent anywhere in the sector
Negatives to load on day one: DIY, kit, wholesale, second hand, caravan, motorhome, shed, garden light, jobs, course, apprenticeship, calculator, free
Separate campaign, separate budget: payback and subsidy queries, which convert at a fraction of installation queries and will otherwise quietly consume the account
Who signs a solar contract and who quietly blocks it
Solar is close to a joint decision in nearly every household. One person is driving it on payback and energy independence, the other is weighing scaffolding, roof penetrations and what the array will look like from the street. Quotes that answer only the financial case lose at the second conversation, which happens after you leave. Send two pages with every quote: the return assumptions on one, a photograph of a comparable roof in the same postcode on the other. The second page is the one shown to the sceptic.
Phone calls are the conversion in most trades and most accounts do not count them
A large share of enquiries from search arrive as calls rather than forms, especially on urgent work. Accounts that count only form submissions systematically undervalue their best keywords and move budget away from them. Call tracking with a minimum duration threshold, imported as a conversion, usually reorders the keyword ranking inside a fortnight of being switched on.
Before you spend anything on Google Ads
Divide your ceiling per signed customer by 3 to 5, the enquiries-per-customer range for this trade, to get the maximum you can pay for one enquiry.
Compare your maximum per enquiry against the EUR 77 to EUR 550 per enquiry modelled above. If your ceiling is lower, fix conversion or job value before you touch the channel.
Confirm who answers the phone within five minutes during working hours, by name, because every figure above assumes it.
Check that a page exists for solar panel specifically, rather than a homepage listing every service you offer.
How these figures were built
These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote. Channel figures on this page carry a second layer of modelling on top of the lead-price band, since click cost and conversion rate both vary by market as well as by trade. Treat the spread as the important part rather than either end of it.
How Flock Leads prices this
For comparison, this is what exclusive solar panel enquiries cost outright, with no retainer and no contract term:
Starter - 10 leads for EUR 750, which is EUR 75 per lead
Growth - 25 leads for EUR 1,750, which is EUR 70 per lead
Scale - 45 leads for EUR 2,925, which is EUR 65 per lead
Pro - 70 leads for EUR 4,340, which is EUR 62 per lead
Max - 90 leads for EUR 5,400, which is EUR 60 per lead
No retainer, no contract term, and no lead sent to a second business. Unused volume rolls over under the Flock Lead Promise.
Want leads like this in your pipeline?
Flock runs the campaigns, screens the enquiries and hands you only the ones that match your service area, job size and capacity. You pay per lead, not per month.
Book a 15-minute fit check | See lead package pricing
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Frequently asked questions
How much should a solar panel business budget for Google Ads?
Work backwards from a signed job rather than forwards from a budget. At EUR 231 to EUR 2,750 per job and a typical target of one to two jobs a week, the monthly figure follows arithmetically. Setting a round number first and hoping it produces work is the most common and most expensive mistake in this channel.
What is the single biggest mistake in Google Ads for this trade?
Sending traffic to a homepage instead of a page built for solar panel alone. It typically halves the conversion rate, which doubles the cost per enquiry, and no amount of bid management recovers that.
What should a solar panel enquiry contain before it is worth quoting?
At minimum roof orientation, roof age, ownership, annual consumption and timeline. Those answers are what separate an enquiry from a phone number, and collecting them at the point of enquiry rather than on the call removes most of the wasted quoting time in this trade.
Does seasonality change the answer for solar panel installers?
Materially. Demand peaks spring and early summer and troughs in November to January, driven by electricity prices and payback-period anxiety. Paid channels follow that curve and get more expensive at the top of it; local search ignores it; purchased volume can be aimed deliberately at the trough, when fewer competitors are bidding for the same households.
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