Solar contractor software covers four jobs no generic field service app handles well: roof design and proposals, point-of-sale financing, permitting and interconnection tracking, and door-to-door canvass management. A typical residential installer in 2026 runs a design tool like Aurora Solar or OpenSolar, one or two financing platforms, a CRM that tracks every project milestone from site survey to permission to operate, and a canvassing app for the sales team. This guide explains each category, what changed after the Mosaic bankruptcy, and how to pick tools that survive the industry's current turbulence.
Key takeaways
- Solar projects pass through 15 to 20 milestones (survey, design, permit, install, inspection, interconnection, PTO), so milestone tracking matters more than in any other trade.
- OpenSolar is free for installers with full 3D design and proposals; Aurora Solar is the paid standard, with residential tiers starting around $159 per month as of 2026 comparisons.
- Mosaic stopped originating loans in May 2025 and filed Chapter 11 that June; Sunlight Financial went through Chapter 11 in 2023 but emerged and still originates. Never depend on one lender.
- SolarAPP+ now issues instant residential permits in over 450 jurisdictions as of early 2026, but it does not handle utility interconnection, so you still need internal tracking.
- Door-to-door canvassing apps run roughly $25 to $49 per rep per month (SPOTIO from $25, SalesRabbit Team from $39, per their published pricing).
Why solar breaks normal contractor software
Solar installation has the longest and most fragile pipeline in home improvement. An HVAC replacement closes and installs in days. A residential solar project moves through lead, site survey, shading analysis, system design, proposal, financing approval, contract, permit submission, utility interconnection application, installation, inspection, and finally permission to operate (PTO). Each handoff is a place where a deal stalls and a customer cancels.
That pipeline shape drives every software decision. A general contractor CRM can track leads and jobs, but most cannot model a 90-day, 18-step project without heavy customization. Solar-specific platforms exist because installers kept losing deals in the gaps between a design tool, a lender portal, a permit office, and a spreadsheet. When you evaluate any tool in this guide, the first question is always the same: does it show, on one screen, exactly where every project sits and what is blocking it?
Design and proposal tools: the heart of the solar stack
Design and proposal software turns a satellite image of a roof into an engineered layout, a production estimate, and a signable proposal with financing options attached. This is the one category where solar has no generic substitute: irradiance modeling, shading analysis, and panel-level layout are trade-specific by definition.
Two platforms dominate residential design in the US:
- Aurora Solar is the paid industry standard, known for LIDAR-based shading accuracy and AI-assisted design. Independent 2026 comparisons (SurgePV, Formfy) list residential plans starting around $159 per month per seat, with some AI features metered on credits. Established installers tend to land here because proposal accuracy directly affects close rates and change orders.
- OpenSolar is free for installers, funded by hardware and financing partners rather than subscriptions. Its 3.0 release in late 2025 added enough CRM depth (pipeline stages, tasks, e-signatures) that many smaller shops run their whole front office on it. The trade-off is design accuracy and support depth versus Aurora.
Solargraf (owned by Enphase) is the notable third option, with financing comparisons from multiple lenders built into the proposal screen. Whichever you choose, the proposal layer is where financing, design, and sales meet, so check integration lists before committing. Our guide to proposal software for contractors covers the general-purpose options if you also sell non-solar work like roofing or electrical.
The financing market after Sunlight and Mosaic
Solar financing went through a brutal shakeout, and any installer picking lenders in 2026 needs the current facts rather than 2023 assumptions. Here is the verified state of the major names:
- Sunlight Financial filed Chapter 11 in October 2023, was acquired by a consortium including an affiliate of Greenbacker Capital and its lender Cross River Bank, and emerged in December 2023. It is operating and originating loans today, per its own announcements and coverage in pv magazine.
- Mosaic paused operations and warned installers of delayed milestone payments in May 2025, then filed Chapter 11 on June 6, 2025. Its roughly $8 billion loan portfolio moved to new servicers, and Solar Servicing LLC took over many accounts in late 2025, per EnergySage and bankruptcy filings. Mosaic is not originating new loans.
- GoodLeap remains the largest residential solar lender. Lender comparisons published in 2026 (NuWatt Energy) put its dealer fees among the highest in the industry, in the high teens to 30 percent range depending on rate buy-down.
- Third-party ownership (TPO) providers like LightReach (Palmetto) and EverBright (NextEra) grew fast after the residential 25D tax credit ended on December 31, 2025. Wood Mackenzie forecast TPO reaching roughly 41 percent of the residential market by 2026, since leases and PPAs can still monetize commercial credits.
The operational lesson from Mosaic is blunt: installers who ran all volume through one lender ate weeks of frozen milestone payments. Keep at least two active financing partners, and understand exactly what dealer fees cost you on each. For a deeper comparison of how the failed lenders stack against marketplace models, see our breakdown of Hearth vs Sunlight, Mosaic, and EnerBank and the Hearth vs GoodLeap fee math. Marketplace platforms that shop one application across many lenders carry less single-lender risk for smaller shops, and for battery retrofits or service work, simple unsecured home improvement loans still close fine at the kitchen table.
Permitting and interconnection tracking
Permitting is where solar projects go to die quietly. NREL's timeline research has consistently shown that permitting, inspection, and interconnection together add weeks to months between contract and PTO, and every one of those days raises cancellation risk.
Two layers of tooling address this:
- SolarAPP+, built by NREL, automates plan review for standard residential systems and issues instant permits. As of early 2026 it is adopted by more than 450 jurisdictions, per SEIA. If your territory includes SolarAPP+ jurisdictions, integrate it: code-compliant applications get approved the same day instead of sitting in a plan-review queue. Know its limit, though. SolarAPP+ handles the building permit only, not utility interconnection.
- Milestone tracking inside your CRM or project platform. Interconnection applications, utility approvals, inspection dates, and PTO have no national automation, so your software must track them per project with owners and due dates. Solar-specific CRMs ship these stages out of the box; if you adapt a general platform, you will build the stage list yourself. Permit-service marketplaces like GreenLancer can also offload plan sets and engineering stamps when your backlog spikes.
A useful test during any demo: ask the vendor to show every project currently waiting on the utility, sorted by days in stage. If that report takes more than ten seconds to produce, the platform does not really understand solar.
Door-to-door sales management
Door-to-door canvassing still produces a large share of residential solar deals, and it has its own software category. Canvassing apps put territory maps, homeowner data, lead status pins, and rep tracking on a phone, then push appointments into your CRM.
The two established options both publish pricing:
- SPOTIO starts at $25 per user per month billed annually with a five-user minimum, per its published plans.
- SalesRabbit offers a free Lite tier for tiny teams, with its Team plan from $39 per user per month. It is the more solar-centric of the two, with integrations into solar CRMs and digital contract tools.
Beyond mapping, the features that separate serious canvass operations are lead disposition tracking (knock outcomes by rep and street), commission visibility for reps, and instant proposal handoff, so a setter can book a qualified appointment while standing on the porch. Pair the app with a disciplined speed-to-lead process for web leads too; door teams and inbound leads should land in the same pipeline, not two systems. And because financing objections kill more solar deals than price does, arm every rep with answers from our list of homeowner financing objections and responses.
The solar software stack at a glance
| Category | What it does | Example tools | Typical cost (as of 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design and proposal | Roof modeling, shading, production estimates, signable proposals | Aurora Solar, OpenSolar, Solargraf | Free (OpenSolar) to ~$159+/mo per seat (Aurora, per 2026 comparisons) |
| Financing platform | Point-of-sale loans, leases, PPAs; milestone payments to you | GoodLeap, Sunlight Financial, LightReach, EverBright, marketplaces | No subscription for most lenders; dealer fees from mid single digits to 30%+ of contract |
| Permitting automation | Instant plan review and permit issuance in adopting jurisdictions | SolarAPP+, GreenLancer (plan sets) | Per-permit fees; SolarAPP+ fees set per jurisdiction |
| CRM / project tracking | Pipeline plus 15 to 20 install milestones through PTO | Solar CRMs, OpenSolar 3.0, adapted general CRMs | Free to $300+/mo depending on platform |
| Canvassing / D2D | Territory maps, knock tracking, rep management | SPOTIO, SalesRabbit | $25 to $49 per rep per month (published pricing) |
How to evaluate solar contractor software
Work through this sequence before signing anything. It forces the pipeline question first and the shiny-feature questions last.
- Map your real pipeline. List every stage from first knock to PTO, with the average days each takes today. This list is your requirements document.
- Pick the design tool first. It anchors proposals and financing. Trial OpenSolar (free) against Aurora on five real roofs and compare production estimates and close rates.
- Line up two or more financing partners. Check origination status, dealer fees, milestone payment speed, and what happens to your pipeline if one pauses, as Mosaic did in May 2025.
- Demand a milestone report in the demo. Projects by stage, days in stage, blocked reason. No report, no deal.
- Check integrations in the direction you need. Canvass app pushes to CRM, CRM pushes to design tool, design tool returns signed proposal and financing status. Ask to see each handoff live.
- Price the whole stack per install. Add subscriptions, per-seat fees, permit fees, and dealer fees, then divide by monthly installs. Judge tools on cost per installed project, not sticker price.
- Confirm exportability. The last two years proved solar vendors can vanish. You must be able to export customers, projects, and documents in a usable format.
Frequently asked questions
What software do most solar contractors use?
Most US residential installers run a design and proposal platform (Aurora Solar or OpenSolar), one or two lender platforms, a CRM with solar milestones, and a canvassing app if they sell door to door. Smaller shops increasingly consolidate on OpenSolar because its free tier now covers design, proposals, and basic CRM in one login.
Is OpenSolar really free, and what is the catch?
Yes, OpenSolar's core design, proposal, and CRM tools are free for installers, with the company earning revenue from hardware and financing partners featured inside the platform. The practical trade-offs are less accurate shading analysis than Aurora's LIDAR-based modeling and lighter support, which matters more as volume grows.
What happened to Mosaic and Sunlight Financial?
Mosaic stopped originating loans in May 2025 and filed Chapter 11 on June 6, 2025, with its loan portfolio moving to new servicers; Sunlight Financial filed Chapter 11 in late 2023 but was acquired by industry investors and continues originating today. Existing homeowner loans from both remain valid and payable. The takeaway for installers is to keep multiple active lenders at all times.
Does SolarAPP+ replace my permitting process?
Only partially: SolarAPP+ issues instant building permits for standard residential systems in the 450+ jurisdictions that have adopted it, but it does not process utility interconnection applications or inspections. You still need your CRM to track interconnection, inspection, and PTO on every project.
How much does solar contractor software cost in total?
A five-person shop can run a workable stack from roughly $200 to $1,000 per month: OpenSolar free or Aurora from around $159 per seat, a canvassing app at $25 to $39 per rep, and a CRM anywhere from free to several hundred dollars monthly. Financing costs you dealer fees per funded deal rather than a subscription, and those fees usually dwarf every software bill combined.
Can I just use a general contractor CRM for solar?
You can, but only if you rebuild its pipeline around solar's 15 to 20 milestones and accept manual design and financing handoffs. Installers doing more than a few projects a month usually save money with solar-specific tooling because fewer deals die waiting in untracked stages.
Start with the pipeline map, trial a free design tool against a paid one on real roofs, and lock in a second financing partner before you need it. Then get your sales team fluent in money talk: our guide to pitching financing at the kitchen table is the logical next read.