Professional installation · No sales rep · No pressure

Solar for $2.20 a watt.
Installed. Period.

The average quote is $2.85 a watt — after a rep spent two hours at your kitchen table. We skip the rep. One flat price, designed from satellite imagery, installed by licensed pros. That's the whole pitch.

60-second instant design · No phone number required · No spam, ever
Licensed local installers 25-year workmanship warranty Now in WA · OR · NV · ID · MT
The 2026 reality

The 30% tax credit is gone.
Our price gives half of it back.

The credit expired December 31, 2025. On a system this size it was worth about $5,985; pricing at $2.20/W instead of the market's $2.85 hands back $4,550 of it — a little over 76%. Not all of it, and we would rather say so than round it up. Most companies kept charging as though the credit never left, which is the actual comparison you get to make today.

2025 · With tax credit
Average company
$0 net
7 kW at $2.85/W minus the old 30% credit. This deal is gone.
2026 · No credit
Average company
$0 net
Same system, same price — you just eat the difference now.
2026 · No credit needed
FairWatt
$0 net
7 kW at $2.20/W, flat. No credit needed — and it is the same price next year.
The subtraction nobody runs in public

Last year’s deal, after last year’s credit.

The 30% credit was never a discount. You paid the whole price on install day and claimed up to 30% back at tax time — if you had the federal liability to absorb it, and carrying it forward if you didn’t. On a lease it went to the company that owned the panels, not to you. And on a financed deal the 15–30% dealer fee was already inside the number the credit came off. So here is the arithmetic, done out loud:

What you could buyPer wattOn a 7 kW roof
2025 door-to-door, minus the 30% credit$2.45$17,150
2026 FairWatt, installed$2.20$15,400
2025 average quote, minus the 30% credit$2.00$13,965
2026 FairWatt, you install it$1.55$10,850
Two of those rows deserve saying plainly. We beat last year’s door-to-door deal after its credit — by $1,750 on a 7 kW roof. That is real, and it is not a landslide, and we would rather print the number than let an advert imply it was bigger. And we do not beat a 2025 cash buyer who paid the average price and had the tax bill to use the whole credit: that came to $13,965 against our $15,400. If that was you, you got a good deal and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The only thing we sell that beats it is the kit, at $10,850 — and that one asks you to climb on the roof.
Instant estimate

Do the math yourself.
We'll wait right here.

Drag the slider — that's your price. Enter your address and we'll size it to your actual roof.

SYSTEM SIZE
7.0 kW
4 kW10 kW16 kW
Estimated production: 9,450 kWh/year — roughly 99% of a typical Northwest home's usage.
Dial in your usage 9,500 kWh/yr · typical home
Home sizes are typical use before electric heat and EV charging, so each question adds its load once — nothing is counted twice. Attach a power bill with your quote and we'll match your real numbers instead of these averages.
FairWatt price ($2.20/W)$15,400
U.S. average quote ($2.85/W)$19,950
Typical door-to-door ($3.50/W)$24,500
Your all-in price$15,400
You save $4,550 vs. the average quote — $9,100 vs. door-to-door
Get my exact roof design →
The physics, briefly

Where every kilowatt-hour goes.

ONE DAY ON YOUR ROOF 0.00 kW PRODUCING NOW DC DC→AC used first exported stored for tonight
Sun hits the roof
01

It starts with light, not heat

Panels don’t need a hot day — they need a bright one. A south-facing Boise roof at a normal pitch turns every kilowatt you install into roughly 1,600 kilowatt-hours a year, and the cold actually helps: panels lose efficiency as they warm up, not as they cool down.

02

Silicon turns photons into DC current

No moving parts, nothing burning, nothing to service. A panel is a sheet of silicon that pushes electrons when light lands on it. That is the entire mechanism — which is why the warranty runs 25 years and the maintenance plan is “let the rain wash it.”

03

An inverter makes it usable

Your house runs on AC; panels make DC. The inverter converts it — and it quietly decides how much of a bright afternoon you actually keep, because an inverter rated below your panels clips the peak right off the top of the best hours of the year.

04

Your house takes what it needs first

Every kilowatt-hour you use in the moment it is made is one you never buy. That one is worth full retail — about 10.7¢ on Idaho Power — and it is the most valuable power your roof will ever produce. On the day curve it is the green: production the house swallows before it can go anywhere.

05

The rest goes out to the meter

The blue sliver is the surplus — production above what the house is drawing at that moment. It flows to the grid and your utility credits it, almost always for less than it charges you. In Idaho that is about 4¢. Which is why sizing matters more than anyone selling you panels tends to admit, and why we would rather build the system that pays you back than the biggest one that fits.

That sliver is what a battery stops from leaving. A Powerwall holds it for the evening, so it is worth the retail rate you would have paid instead of the export credit — plus the house stays up in an outage. Being straight about it: on Idaho Power that gap does not repay the battery in bill savings alone. The full arithmetic is on your quote, not buried here.

How it works

Four steps. Zero kitchen tables.

Enter your address

We pull your roof's shape, sun, and shade from satellite data covering 95% of U.S. homes.

60 seconds

See your real design

Real panels on your real roof, with production from local weather data. Not a guess — a design.

Instant

Snap one photo

One photo of your electrical panel locks your price before you pay a dollar — not after.

2 minutes

Licensed pros install

Licensed, insured local crews handle permits, install, and inspection. 25-year warranty.

4–8 weeks
Radical transparency

Where your $2.20 actually goes

No other solar company shows you this. That's exactly why we do.

Equipment & materials
$0.85
Licensed labor
$0.65
Permits, design & engineering
$0.15
Marketing
$0.35
FairWatt platform & margin
$0.20
What your price is built from — including the $0.35 it sets aside to reach you. The industry is budgeting about $0.84 a watt to acquire a customer this year, and never shows you the line.
Equally important

What's not in the price

Most solar horror stories start with a surprise. Here's ours in advance:

Main panel upgrade $2,000–4,000 if needed

About 1 in 4 older homes needs one. Your panel photo tells us both — before you commit.

Tesla Powerwall 3 $11,500, or $10,500 over 10 kW

The grid going down is the part most people are actually buying protection from, and it is why storage is in every installed quote we write rather than sitting behind a tick-box. 13.5 kWh usable, 11.5 kW of backup power — enough to run a normal house, not just a fridge and a lamp. It is still on its own line rather than buried inside the per-watt number, so you can see exactly what it costs and take it off in one click. On systems over 10 kW it is $10,500, because the Powerwall’s own inverter replaces a second inverter the array would otherwise need — a real saving, passed on rather than pocketed. A $9,000 expansion pack adds a second 13.5 kWh on the same inverter if you want to run longer. Your quote shows exactly what the battery adds and what it saves on your roof, in your utility's rates — including the places it does not pay for itself. Straight answer up front: on Idaho Power's rates a battery does not repay itself on bill savings — it is backup power, plus a hedge on a retail rate that keeps rising while the export credit sits frozen. Where a battery does change the math is California, and we will tell you that too.

Roof repair Quoted before install

If your roof won't outlive the panels, we say so and stop. Panels on a bad roof help nobody.

The FairWatt promise: every add-on priced and approved by you before you pay anything. If the final price isn't the quote, you walk away owing $0.
Same licensed crews as the big brands. Minus the sales machine riding on their work.
Licensed, insured, warrantied for 25 years. The craftsmanship was never the expensive part.
The honest answer to "what's the catch?"

How is this thousands cheaper?
We deleted the expensive parts.

−$0.84/W

No commissioned sales force

The rep, the setter, the manager, the leads they bought — you paid for all of it. Wood Mackenzie puts the industry at $0.84/W to acquire one customer in 2026. Our sales team is this website.

−$0.40/W

No hidden dealer fees

"Zero down" loans bury a 15–30% lender fee in your price. We show cash pricing first, financing in the open.

−$0.30/W

Software does the paperwork

Design, engineering, and permitting run on software, not a back office. Two weeks of paperwork now takes 60 seconds.

If you would rather build it yourself

The same design, the same hardware,
without the crew.

Self-install is $1.55 a watt — our price less the licensed labor line on the chart above. We still do the part that stops most self-installs: the engineered plan set, the permit application, the interconnection paperwork, and the follow-through to permission to operate.

What turns up on the pallet

Panels, mounting rail and flashing, a Tesla string inverter with the shutdown device your inspector will look for, and the electrical balance of system — wire, conduit, breakers, disconnects, labels. That last line is the one to check against any other quote you get: most kit sellers leave it out, and you find out at the hardware store on install day.

What we do

Design the array on your actual roof from satellite imagery, produce the engineered plan set, prepare your building and electrical permit application, file the utility interconnection application, and stay on it through inspection and PTO. You sign as owner‑builder; we do the work behind the signature.

What you do

The install itself. A licensed electrician for the service tie‑in — budget $600–1,200. The permit fees, typically $400–500. And the roof penetrations, which means your roof warranty is yours to manage. You keep every manufacturer warranty on the hardware. You do not get our workmanship warranty, because we did not do the work.

Why not microinverters

Nearly every DIY kit sold is microinverter-based, and there is a fair reason for it: micros handle rapid shutdown at each panel, which makes an inspection simpler. We went the other way on purpose. If you ever add a battery, microinverters strand you — the battery has to be AC-coupled, which means buying a second inverter to do a job the first one is already doing. A Tesla inverter and a Powerwall are one system: past 10 kW the Powerwall’s own inverter takes the array over completely, which is exactly why the battery costs $1,000 less on a system that size. Rapid shutdown is covered by the shutdown device in the box. We would rather hand you a harder afternoon than a dead end.

How it ships

Curbside on a freight pallet, so someone has to be home and you need a way to move it. Inspect it before you sign the delivery receipt. Damage found on the truck is ours and we replace it. Damage found the following week is a freight claim, and those are slow and often lost.

And the part a competitor would never print: you can buy this hardware for around a dollar a watt. Discount kit sellers list complete arrays at roughly that, and the design-and-permit service they bolt on for a few hundred dollars sells you documents — you still file them, you still pay the fees, you still run the correction cycle with your building department, you still apply for interconnection and you still chase PTO yourself. If that sounds like a fine way to spend a few weekends, take it. You will save something like 75¢ a watt and we would rather say so on our own page than have you work it out on a forum afterwards. What the difference buys is that we run it, and that the array was designed off your roof rather than picked off a shelf.
Basket

Everything priced the same way: openly.

Your system is priced off your own roof, so it goes in the basket from the design above. Everything with a fixed price — storage, and the off-grid kits — sits on the shop page.

Priced from your roof

Your solar design

Whatever you built above — installed at $2.20/W, or the self-install kit at $1.55/W. Design it first and the exact price comes with it.

Design my roof first →
Storage

Tesla Powerwall 3

Included in every installed quote by default. 13.5 kWh usable, 11.5 kW of backup. $11,500, or $10,500 on a system over 10 kW — where the Powerwall’s own inverter replaces a second one you would otherwise buy. It attaches to a system we install: Tesla warrants a Powerwall only when a certified installer commissions it.

$11,500
See it on the shop page →
No utility, no interconnection

Off-grid kits

Ten kits on one EG4 inverter — 8 to 24 panels, one or two batteries, $13,150 to $22,975. For the cabin, the shop, the piece of land the poles never reached. Unlike a Powerwall, these are genuinely self-installable.

Open the shop →

Two prices, one basket. Add your design here, add a kit on the shop page, and they arrive at the same checkout — but only goods on a pallet are ever charged to a card. Anything we install is confirmed with you first.

Questions people actually ask

FAQ, minus the spin

Can I finance it, or is this cash only?

We take cash or card, and we do not broker loans — deliberately. A “zero down” solar loan buries a 15–30% dealer fee inside the price you are quoted, which is the single practice this whole company exists to avoid; we are not going to reintroduce it through the back door and call it a payment option. Buyers who need to spread the cost generally use their own bank, a credit union, or a home-equity line, where the rate is visible and nobody is paid to steer you. If financing is what decides it for you, say so in the notes on your request and we will tell you straight whether we have anything better to offer that week — and if we do not, we will say that too.

Who actually installs my system?

Licensed, insured regional crews — the same pros who install for the big brands, minus the markup. 25-year warranty serviced in your state, and you get your crew's name and license number before install day.

Is the online design accurate, or will the price change after someone sees my roof?

Satellite designs land within a few percent for most homes, and a certified designer confirms yours before you sign. If anything changes after the on-site check, you approve the new price or walk away free.

Do you offer batteries? What about leases?

Batteries, yes — a Tesla Powerwall 3 at $11,500, or $10,500 on systems over 10 kW where it replaces a second inverter, plus a $9,000 expansion pack for a second 13.5 kWh. All priced on their own lines so you can see exactly what they cost and what they save you. Leases, no. Leases are where the fine print lives, and we would rather sell you something you own.

The tax credit is gone. Does solar still make sense?

It depends on your utility far more than on our price, and we would rather you heard that here. In Nevada and Oregon, measured across six real pitched-roof homes, we get 12 to 15 years — or 13 to 18 if you assume your utility never raises a rate again — the spread is the roof itself, not the price: how much sun its planes actually catch, and how much of your own usage it covers — and note that the bigger the system, the slower it pays back, because the extra production goes out to the grid at a lower rate than you buy it for. That is why our tool argues you toward the size that earns the most rather than the one that zeroes your bill. On Idaho Power it takes longer — 16 to 19 years on the three roofs we have measured, or 22 to 27 if you assume your utility never raises a rate again. A heavily shaded roof runs longer than that — one Boise house we measured comes out past 30 because the satellite data sees obstructions, and we price off the pessimistic figure rather than the flattering one — and the reason is worth understanding, because it is also the reason we still sell there. Idaho charges roughly 10.7¢ but pays about 4¢ for power you export, so the value is in using your own. Crucially the IPUC has frozen that export credit until at least its April 2028 filing while retail rates keep climbing — Idaho Power's own January 2026 increase was 13.6% non-summer and 21.9% summer. We model that climb at 6% a year — less than half what they actually did this January — because a projection we can defend is worth more to you than a flattering one. The gap between what you pay and what you are paid widens every year, which is what makes the system pay off. On today's rates alone, with no increases ever again, it would not repay inside 25 years — we show you both numbers and let you decide which future you believe. Put your address in and the tool shows you your own numbers, including when the answer is no.

What's your angle? Nobody sells at cost.

We make about $0.20 per watt — it's printed two scrolls up, on the chart. We just don't budget $0.84/W finding you. Honest margins at volume beat markup at low volume.

Ready when you are

Your roof already knows the answer.

60 seconds to a real design and a real price. No phone number. No rep. No follow-up calls at dinner.

Price my roof — free → See the full price breakdown