What is a solar broker?
Almost everyone selling you solar works for one company and gets paid to sell you that company's system. A broker works the other way around. Here's how the model actually works, how brokers get paid, and when using one is — and isn't — worth it.
Someone whose job is the comparison, not the sale.
A solar broker is an independent adviser who shops multiple installers and equipment manufacturers on your behalf, then stays with the project through permitting, installation, and inspection. The broker doesn't build the system — a licensed installer does that. The broker's job is everything around it: gathering real competing bids, making them comparable, catching the things a homeowner has no reason to know to look for, and remaining reachable after the switch is flipped.
The distinction that matters isn't a title. It's who the person across the table is paid to represent. An installer's rep represents the installer, and that's not a scandal — it's the job description. A broker only has a business if you end up satisfied with a vendor you chose from several, which points the incentive in a different direction.
The same relationship you already accept as normal with a mortgage broker or an insurance broker — applied to a purchase most people make exactly once.
Not an installer
We hold no crews and no truck fleet, so we have nothing to keep busy. If the answer is "your roof isn't a good candidate," we can say it.
Not a lead seller
Your phone number doesn't get sold to five companies. We collect the quotes ourselves and bring them back to one conversation.
Not a single-brand shop
No panel line, inverter brand, or lender to protect. The recommendation changes with the roof, the usage, and the budget.
Still here afterward
Most solar relationships end at the handshake. Ours continues into inspection, monitoring, and warranty claims — because that's where the problems actually show up.
Broker vs. installer vs. lead-generation site.
Three very different businesses that all reach you the same way — a phone call about solar. Telling them apart before you spend an afternoon on a pitch is most of the battle.
| Independent broker | Installer's sales rep | Lead-generation site | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who they represent | You | Their employer | Whoever buys the lead |
| How many vendors you see | Several, side by side | One | Several — all calling you |
| Equipment options | Whatever fits the roof | What they stock | Varies by caller |
| Who normalizes the quotes | The broker | Nobody | You do |
| Your contact information | Stays with one firm | Stays with one firm | Sold, often repeatedly |
| Who you call in year three | The broker | The installer, if still trading | No one |
| Who you pay | Nothing directly | Built into the price | Nothing directly |
Worth saying plainly: a good local installer selling their own system is a perfectly fine way to buy solar, and some are excellent. The problem isn't that they're biased — it's that you can't tell whether their number is a good one without a second and third number to hold it against.
So how does the broker get paid?
This is the right question, and any broker who gets cagey about it has told you something useful. Here is the straight version.
The installer pays, not you. The winning installer compensates the broker out of the sales and marketing budget they already carry — the budget that would otherwise pay a canvasser, a call centre, or a lead-gen invoice.
It generally isn't additive. Customer acquisition costs an installer roughly the same whether the customer arrived from a broker, a door knock, or an ad. Broker compensation tends to replace that spend rather than stack on top of it.
Competition does the rest. The reason the model works in your favour isn't goodwill — it's that vendors bidding against each other for the same roof quote differently than a vendor who knows they're the only one in the room.
For the record, ours is yes — and we'll put the quotes in front of you unedited so you can see what we saw. We'd rather lose a deal than win one you resent in year two.
When a broker is worth it — and when it isn't.
We're not going to pretend everyone needs one.
A broker earns their keep when…
- You have no reference point — this is your first and probably only solar purchase, and $30,000 is a lot to spend on a hunch.
- The project is commercial, agricultural, or multi-site, where grant paperwork, depreciation, and offset modelling swamp the panel choice entirely.
- Your roof is awkward — shading, multiple planes, an old covering, or a panel upgrade lurking behind the whole thing.
- You want someone still reachable once the crew has driven away.
A broker adds little when…
- You already have an installer you trust from a neighbour's job you've seen with your own eyes.
- You're in the trade yourself and are comfortable reading a design and a proposal critically.
- You've already collected three genuine bids and normalized them — that's most of what a broker does.
If you're in the second group, we'd still happily look over a proposal before you sign it. It costs you nothing and occasionally saves someone from a very expensive twenty-year lease.
The cheapest quote is rarely the answer
Two proposals can differ by $9,000 and describe genuinely different systems — different degradation curves, different inverter architecture, a 10-year workmanship warranty against a 25-year one. Comparing the bottom line alone compares almost nothing.
Seven questions worth asking before you sign.
Ask these of us, of an installer, of anyone. A confident answer to all seven is a very good sign; a shrug at number four or five is worth pausing over.
Aligned incentives or misaligned ones, answered in one sentence.
"Three" with three reasons beats "we shopped it around."
The panel warranty and the labour warranty are different documents with different lifespans.
In California this is not hypothetical. Ask who services the system then.
Get the modelled annual kWh in writing, not a monthly-savings cartoon.
These have wildly different consequences when you sell the house. Know which one you're signing.
Most systems that underperform do so silently. Somebody has to be watching.
The interesting parts live in the pages nobody hands you.
Already have solar?
Brokering the purchase is only half of what we do. A large share of our work is with people who bought a system years ago from someone who is no longer answering the phone.
Independent solar inspection
A third-party inspection of a system we didn't sell and don't service — for homebuyers, for owners who suspect underproduction, and for anyone whose installer has vanished. From $399.
YES Monitor
Every brand on one dashboard, with an actual person reviewing production daily and calling you when it drops — rather than an app you'll stop opening after a month.
Grants & financing
SBA 504B green-loan compliance, the 48E credit, bonus depreciation, and USDA REAP — whose grant window is currently paused while guaranteed loans stay open. We write the applications.
Solar brokers, frequently asked.
What is a solar broker?
A solar broker is an independent adviser who shops multiple solar installers and equipment manufacturers on your behalf, then manages the project through to completion. Unlike an installer's sales rep, a broker isn't tied to one company's equipment, financing, or crew — so the recommendation can change based on what actually fits your roof, your usage, and your budget.
How does a solar broker get paid?
Reputable brokers are paid by the installer that wins the job, out of that installer's existing sales and marketing budget — the same money that would otherwise fund a commissioned door-to-door rep. You don't pay the broker a separate fee. Ask any broker directly how they're compensated and whether the amount is the same regardless of which vendor you choose.
Is a solar broker the same thing as one of those "compare quotes" websites?
No. A lead-generation site sells your contact details to several installers, who then compete for your attention by calling you — often for months. A broker collects the quotes themselves, normalizes them so they can genuinely be compared, and stays on the project after the contract is signed. One point of contact instead of a phone that won't stop ringing.
Does going through a broker cost more than going direct to an installer?
Usually not. An installer pays roughly the same customer-acquisition cost whether the customer came from a broker, a canvasser, or an ad, so broker compensation typically replaces that spend rather than adding to it. What does change is that you're looking at several competing bids at once, which tends to pull the winning price down rather than up.
Do solar brokers install the system themselves?
No. The licensed installer you select performs the installation and holds the contractor's licence and workmanship warranty. The broker sources and compares the options, reviews the design and the paperwork, and stays involved through permitting, installation, and inspection.
Is YES Solar Brokers licensed in California?
Yes. Both of our principals hold current California Home Improvement Salesperson registrations with the Contractors State License Board — Benny Tagory HIS #116409 and Drew Kedem HIS #116408, both registered since 2018. You can verify either number yourself at the CSLB license check. We are a brokerage and do not perform installations, so the contractor's licence, the permit, and the workmanship warranty all sit with the licensed installer you select — which is exactly why we tell you to check theirs too.
Can a broker help if I already have solar?
Yes, and it's a large part of what we do. We run independent inspections on systems we didn't sell, take over monitoring for owners whose installer stopped answering the phone, and help pursue warranty claims against manufacturers when equipment fails.
Do you only work in Sacramento?
We're based in Sacramento and do a lot of work across Northern California, but our commercial and agricultural projects run well beyond the state — including hotel and multi-site portfolios in other states. Call and ask; the answer is usually yes.