How to design and price solar maintenance plans

A solar system needs care for as long as it's on the roof. A maintenance plan turns that care into recurring revenue.

A plan also keeps customers calling you, instead of whoever knocks on their door next.

This guide covers how to design, price, sell, and deliver a plan. It also covers the numbers that show whether it's working. The advice works with any software.

Start with what you can deliver

Write down what your team can do for each plan customer in a year. Use the people and trucks you have today.

Be honest about capacity. If a plan includes two cleanings a year, you need room for two cleanings per customer. That has to hold across your whole service area.

Promise a little less than you can deliver at first. It's easy to add a benefit later. It's hard to take one away.

What to put in a plan

Most solar plans are built from a few pieces. Choose the ones your team can deliver well.

• Monitoring. Your team watches each system and spots problems before the customer does. Say what you'll do when an alert comes in, not only that you'll see it.
• An annual inspection. This is a scheduled visit with a written report. It covers the inverter, monitoring, panels, racking, wiring, labels, and the battery if there is one. The report is what the customer sees, so make it worth reading.
• Panel cleaning. How often depends on the site. Homes near farms or dirt roads usually need more cleanings than homes that get regular rain.
• A response time. Say how fast you'll respond when something needs attention. Make clear that responding means contacting the customer and starting a diagnosis. It doesn't mean the problem is fixed by then.
• Underproduction checks. Choose a threshold you can stand behind. Base it on a share of expected production over a set number of days. Then say what you'll do when a system falls below it.
• What's not included. List the work you'll quote separately, like repairs, replacement parts, roof work, and removing and reinstalling panels.

Keep it to two or three tiers

Every tier you add is one more thing for reps to explain and customers to compare. Start with two or three.

• A monitoring tier. You watch the system and call when something's wrong. Visits are quoted when they're needed.
• A care tier. Monitoring, plus an annual inspection and a set response time.
• A full-service tier. Everything in the care tier, plus cleanings and a faster response.

Make the tiers differ in ways the customer can feel, like visits and response time. Plain names like Monitoring and Care tell a customer more than Silver and Gold.

Offer monthly and yearly billing

Offer both. Yearly billing puts a full year of cash in the bank up front. The customer also decides to renew once a year instead of every month.

Monthly billing is easier to say yes to at the kitchen table.

Monthly billing has one trap. A customer signs up, gets a cleaning in the first month, and cancels in the second. To prevent this, decide how many payments earn each visit, and put it in the plan terms.

In solarOS, customers who pay for the year up front can use their included visits right away. Monthly customers earn each visit after the number of payments you choose.

When you change a plan's price or what it includes, new customers get the new version. Customers already on the plan keep what they bought.

Sell plans at the install

The easiest time to sell a plan is while the customer is already buying. Bring it up at the kitchen table, next to the production estimate.

Keep the pitch simple. The plan is how you make sure the system keeps producing what you promised.

• Price the plan before the meeting, so the rep isn't doing math at the table.
• Give the rep one sentence that explains the plan. Also give them a straight answer to “What happens when something breaks?”
• Make the first step small. Give the first few months free. The customer adds a card, and billing starts when the free months end.
• Pay reps for plans that last. A bonus for plans still active at the first renewal rewards the right kind of sale.

Sell plans to past customers

Everyone you've installed for is a prospect. Start with customers whose workmanship warranty is running out, and systems you can no longer see in monitoring.

Homeowners whose installer has closed are prospects too. They have a system and nobody to call.

• Start with a list. Include the install date, the equipment, and whether you can see the system's production today.
• Call with a specific reason, not a sales pitch. Maybe production has dropped. Maybe the inverter warranty is about to end, or nobody has checked the system in years.
• Offer free months to start. Let the first visit show what the plan is worth.

Deliver every visit you sell

If customers never hear from you, the plan feels like a bill for nothing. Treat each included visit as something you owe, with a time window to deliver it.

• Track visits owed, not only visits scheduled. A visit that's owed but not on the calendar is a promise you're about to break.
• Use slow weeks and gaps between installs for plan visits. Group them by area to cut drive time.
• End every visit with a report the customer can see. Include photos, readings, and what you recommend.
• Quote whatever the visit turns up. If an inspection finds a failing part, send the quote that week.

What to measure

• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Track what you added this month, what you lost, and the difference. Count a yearly plan as one twelfth of its price each month.
• Churn. Divide the plans canceled in a month by the plans active at the start of it. Watch it by tier and by how the plan was sold.
• Visits earned versus visits completed. A growing gap means service you owe but haven't delivered.
• Missed visits. These are earned visits whose time window closed before you got there. Aim for zero.
• Attach rate. This is the share of new install customers who also buy a plan.
• Work from plans. Count the repairs, replacements, and upgrades you sell from plan visits and alerts.

What we've learned running plans

In our experience running service businesses, a few lessons come up again and again.

• The first visit matters most. A careful first inspection with a clear report does more for renewals than any reminder email.
• Simple plans are easier to sell. Customers choose faster when tiers differ by visits and response time.
• Set the earning rule for monthly plans on day one. Changing it later leaves you with two sets of terms to manage.
• Past customers are the best place to start. They already know your work, and many have nobody watching their system.
• Plans bring in other work. Repairs and upgrades found on plan visits add up, so track them next to plan revenue.

How solarOS helps you run plans

• Build plans with monthly and yearly prices. Set the included visits, monitoring, response time, and underproduction threshold for each one.
• Sell plans from your own plan shop or a direct link. Customers pay through your own Stripe account.
• Send an offer with free months by link or email.
• See all included visits in one list. When you fulfill one, solarOS creates the project and work order from your template.
• Customers can request their included visits from the customer portal.
• Reports show MRR added and lost, churn, active plans, and visits earned versus completed.