THE SHORT ANSWER
A typical solar panel project in Ireland lands at EUR 8,000 to EUR 15,950 in 2026, with a midpoint near EUR 11,950. Gross margin on that midpoint is usually 18 to 28 percent, or EUR 2,150 to EUR 3,350. Against a modelled cost per lead of EUR 100 to EUR 150 and 3 to 5 exclusive leads per signed customer, acquisition consumes roughly 8.7 to 37.6 percent of the gross margin on one job.
Job value is the number every other commercial decision divides into, which is why roughly right beats precisely wrong. This page gives a modelled band for solar panel work in Ireland in 2026, then does the arithmetic that makes a band useful: what it leaves as gross margin, and how much of that margin a customer costs to win.
A narrower average would be more comforting and less true, because system size in kilowatt-peak, whether a battery is included, and roof complexity all move the number materially. The market adds its own layer: in Ireland, the small population means volume runs out quickly: a national campaign can saturate its audience in weeks, and cost per lead climbs once it does.
The numbers, at a glance
Midpoint contract value: around EUR 11,950, inside a working band of EUR 8,000 to EUR 15,950 for solar panel work in Ireland
What is left after materials and labour: EUR 2,150 to EUR 3,350 of gross margin, being 18 to 28 percent of the midpoint contract
Lead spend per signed customer: EUR 300 to EUR 800, at 3 to 5 exclusive leads each costing EUR 100 to EUR 150
Margin consumed by acquisition: 8.7 to 37.6 percent of one job's gross margin, counting nothing from repeat or referral work
What a typical solar panel project is worth in Ireland
The solar panel band above describes a complete, permitted, installed project for a private homeowner. It excludes VAT, excludes anything a landlord or housing association would tender competitively, and excludes emergency call-out work, which prices on a different logic entirely.
What separates the bottom of the band from the top is system size in kilowatt-peak, whether a battery is included, and roof complexity. Ireland is a small market of roughly 5.3 million people, and the number of installers chasing that population is what decides how firmly you can quote the upper half.
Bottom of the band, around EUR 8,000. A straightforward job on an accessible property with standard specification and nothing unexpected behind the wall.
Midpoint, around EUR 11,950. The job most quotes are written for, with one or two upgrades the customer asked for after the first visit.
Top of the band, around EUR 15,950. Larger scope, difficult access, or a household that chose the premium option in every category.
SEAI grants and the one stop shop model
Irish home upgrade funding runs through SEAI, and for deeper retrofits through the One Stop Shop route where a single registered provider manages the survey, the works and the grant claim. That structure favours contractors who can either become a one stop shop or partner reliably with one, because it aggregates several measures into a single large contract instead of a sequence of small ones. Irish job values are high partly for that reason: the buyer is often purchasing a package to reach a BER target rather than one measure. Registration is the entry ticket for grant work, and being outside it costs volume rather than margin. It also drags neighbouring trades along: a house opened up for a deep retrofit is a house where the frames, the bathroom and the finishes get done at the same time, so the useful question on an Irish enquiry is not what one measure costs but what else is happening in the same twelve months.
Batteries move average job value more than any other option
Storage is the single biggest lever on solar contract value. A 5 to 10 kWh domestic battery adds roughly EUR 3,500 to EUR 7,000 to a job that started near EUR 8,000, fitted by the same crew on the same visit, so almost none of the mobilisation cost repeats. Attach rates vary enormously between installers selling identical hardware, from under 15 percent to more than half, and the difference is nearly always whether the battery appears as a priced line on the first quote or as something to discuss later. Quote it as a line the customer removes, not one they have to request.
Break-even on a block of 70 leads
A single lead price is hard to judge. A block is not. 70 exclusive leads cost EUR 4,340 and should convert into 14 to 23 signed solar panel jobs at a midpoint of EUR 11,950 each, which is EUR 167,550 to EUR 275,300 of work booked and EUR 30,150 to EUR 77,100 of gross margin.
Break-even therefore arrives inside the first job. The useful question is not whether EUR 62 per lead is expensive in the abstract, but what happens to that arithmetic if your conversion is half the modelled rate, because that is the scenario worth planning for.
The lever is scope, not negotiation
Every ratio on this page improves faster from the revenue side than from the cost side. Adding a battery to a solar panel job adds roughly 40 to 70 percent to the contract value on the same site visit, and it is sold to a household that has already chosen you. Winning one more customer at the same margin costs EUR 300 to EUR 800 in lead spend; upgrading the scope of one you have already won costs a better quote and twenty minutes.
Price the option, do not mention it. An option with a number attached is bought roughly three times as often as an option described in a sentence.
Put both versions on one page. Two priced columns beat two separate documents, because the comparison is the sale.
Give the upgrade a reason that is not money. Noise, comfort, disruption avoided later, and a guarantee that covers the whole job rather than half of it.
When these numbers say do not buy leads
Be willing to reach the negative conclusion. If acquisition already consumes more than a quarter of gross margin at this job value, buying more volume makes the problem bigger rather than smaller. Here that line is crossed at roughly EUR 550 per signed customer, and the modelled cost is EUR 300 to EUR 800.
Three situations where the honest answer is no. You cannot call a new enquiry within an hour during working hours. Your quote-to-win rate on solar panel work is below one in eight. Or your diary is already full for the next six weeks, in which case extra leads become slower callbacks on all of them rather than extra jobs. Fix the constraint first; the leads will still be for sale next month.
What that means for what a lead is worth
A modelled exclusive lead for solar panel work in Ireland costs EUR 100 to EUR 150, and it takes 3 to 5 of them to sign one customer, because some enquiries never answer, some quotes lose and some projects are not ready. That puts the cost of a signed customer at EUR 300 to EUR 800 against gross margin of EUR 2,150 to EUR 3,350, so acquisition consumes 8.7 to 37.6 percent of the margin on a single job.
At the favourable end that is comfortably profitable on the first job alone. At the unfavourable end it works only if you convert above average, sell the fuller scope, or earn repeat and referral work. Which end you land on is mostly a function of how quickly you answer the phone, not how hard you negotiate the lead price.
Where the margin actually sits in a solar quote
Modules have been priced as a commodity since 2023 and the homeowner can check that line against a wholesaler in ninety seconds. The margin sits in what they cannot price: the mounting system, the DC and AC cabling, inverter selection, the work at the consumer unit and the design itself. Installers who discount to win usually take a percentage off the whole quote, which strips margin out of the labour lines that were carrying it. Holding the installation lines and letting the module line float with the market protects the same contract value with a much better outcome.
Irish labour is genuinely expensive, and it is not a rounding error
Ireland carries one of the highest construction cost bases in this comparison, driven by a tight labour market, sustained housing demand and the cost of living in and around Dublin. On a like-for-like job an Irish quote can sit around 15 percent above the Benelux equivalent with no difference in specification at all. Two things follow. Do not benchmark against UK figures out of habit, because the sterling comparison flatters in the wrong direction. And plan capacity carefully, because in a market this tight the constraint on growth is almost never demand.
Turning this benchmark into your own figure
Start from invoices, not quotes: a median of twenty signed solar panel contracts is worth more than any published average, including this one.
Take materials and installation labour out of each contract so you are working with margin rather than turnover.
Divide the number of enquiries you received by the number of customers you signed. That ratio, not the lead price, is what most contractors get wrong.
Price a signed customer by multiplying that ratio by the quoted lead price, then express it as a share of your median margin.
Re-run all five twice a year. Job values drift, conversion drifts faster, and a benchmark from eighteen months ago is a guess.
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. Every figure derives from two inputs: a base band for solar panel work and a labour and materials index of 1.14 for Ireland against a Benelux baseline of 1.00. The index is not the ad auction multiplier, and treating the two as one number is the most common error in cross-border benchmarking.
How Flock Leads prices this
For comparison against the acquisition figures above, this is what Flock Leads charges for exclusive volume in this market:
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
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
How much does a solar panel project cost in Ireland?
Between EUR 8,000 to EUR 15,950 for a private household in 2026, midpoint around EUR 11,950, excluding VAT and excluding competitively tendered work. Where a specific job lands depends on system size in kilowatt-peak, whether a battery is included, and roof complexity.
Does this figure include VAT?
No. Every number here is exclusive of VAT, because rates on home improvement work vary by country, by measure and sometimes by the age of the property. Quote your customer inclusive if that is the local convention, but do your margin arithmetic exclusive, otherwise the tax looks like profit.
Is job value in Ireland rising or falling in 2026?
Material prices have largely stabilised after the volatility of the early decade, while installation labour remains the tighter constraint across most of Western Europe. The practical effect is that job values drift upward slowly and the labour component grows as a share of each quote. Re-check your own median twice a year rather than trusting a published figure.
How does this compare with what a lead costs?
A modelled exclusive solar panel lead in Ireland runs EUR 100 to EUR 150, and it takes 3 to 5 of them to sign a customer. Against gross margin of EUR 2,150 to EUR 3,350 on the midpoint job, that is 8.7 to 37.6 percent of the margin from one project.
Does a higher job value make lead buying easier?
Usually, yes, because the lead price is close to fixed while the margin scales with the contract. At the EUR 11,950 midpoint, acquisition is 8.7 to 37.6 percent of gross margin. Raise the average job by a fifth and that percentage falls by roughly the same proportion without a single change to what you pay per lead.
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