Best Solar Proposal Software in Australia: Top 10 2026

📘 Regulation note

The design behind the proposal still answers to AS/NZS 5033 for PV array installation, AS/NZS 4777.2 for inverter grid connection, and AS/NZS 5139 where batteries are involved. The proposal is the sales artefact. These three standards decide whether the job can be built and energised as drawn, and a quoted inverter that is not compliant with the current AS/NZS 4777.2 settings will not pass commissioning.

Bring one of your own sites to a free SurgePV demo. We will build the 3D roof from a satellite address, run the 8,760-hour shading simulation, and hand you the SLD, BOQ and branded proposal on the call.

The 5-Point Australian Proposal Bench

This is our own scoring frame, and you can run it on any platform during a trial. Each axis scores 1 to 10, for a maximum of 50. We apply it before adding anything to our own workflow.

1. Certificate accuracy. STC entitlement calculated from the current deeming period and the correct zone rating, battery certificates under the current Cheaper Home Batteries factors, and a visible assumption for the STC price used.
2. Tariff realism. Retailer-level feed-in tariffs by state, time-of-use import tariffs, demand charges on commercial connections, and separate reporting of self-consumption savings versus export income.
3. Network awareness. DNSP export limit flags by postcode, inverter capacity versus array capacity handling, single-phase versus three-phase logic, and battery dispatch under a static or flexible export cap.
4. Proposal craft. White-label branding, interactive web version, e-signature, finance presentation, and correct GST treatment on residential versus commercial.
5. Cost per finished proposal. Annual licence plus add-ons divided by realistic monthly proposal volume, quoted in the currency the vendor actually bills in.

Axis two is where imported platforms fail hardest. In a market where the midday wholesale price is regularly negative and rooftop solar supplies a large share of daytime demand across the National Electricity Market, the value of a kilowatt-hour you use yourself is now several times the value of one you export. A proposal built on a blended average rate hides exactly the assumption the customer will test first.

Top 10 Solar Proposal Software Platforms in Australia Compared

Prices below are each vendor’s own published 2026 figure in the currency that vendor actually bills in. Most of these platforms, SolarPlus included, publish in US dollars and will invoice you in US dollars, so an AUD figure is a conversion rather than a price. Where we show one it is approximate, at roughly A$1.53 per US dollar as at August 2026, and your card rate on the day will differ. Get a written quote before signing, because several vendors negotiate above five seats.

Two honest observations before the detail. No platform on this list handles every Australian obligation perfectly, and the differences are in how much manual patching is left behind. And price rank is not capability rank: for a two-van installer doing straightforward 6.6 kW jobs, the correct answer is genuinely the free tier near the top of this table.

1. SurgePV

What it does best. SurgePV is a browser-based design and proposal platform that treats Australia as a first-class market rather than a localisation afterthought. The STC block on the proposal is calculated live from system size, the postcode’s SRES zone rating and the current deeming period, with the assumed certificate price shown as an editable line rather than buried in a template. The feed-in tariff library is retailer-level and state-aware, so a Victorian quote after the floor was abolished reads differently from a regional Queensland quote on the Ergon rate. Export limiting is handled as a design constraint rather than a footnote: set the DNSP cap and the yield model, the battery dispatch and the payback all recalculate, which is the only honest way to quote in South Australia or on a constrained Victorian feeder.

Behind the document sits an 8,760-hour module-level simulation producing P50 and P90 output, not a monthly-average approximation, and the shadow analysis module is on every plan rather than a higher tier. Roof geometry is generated from satellite imagery, which for a typical hipped brick-veneer roof with a skylight and a whirlybird takes about a minute. Self-consumption is modelled hourly against an uploaded interval file or a load profile, which is what actually decides an Australian payback figure now. Proposals export as white-label PDF and as an interactive web link with e-signature, and the same model produces the AS/NZS-labelled single-line diagram and bill of quantities the electrician needs.

Pricing. US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, US$6,495 for five seats, with the Individual plan at US$1,899 a year. At roughly A$1.53 per US dollar that is about A$1,990 per seat and A$9,950 for five, but the invoice is in US dollars. Free trial, no credit card. Worth saying plainly: Aurora Basic at US$1,620 a year is cheaper than SurgePV Individual, and OpenSolar’s core is free.

Who it suits. Accredited installers, retailers and EPC firms sending five or more proposals a month, particularly those mixing residential STC work with commercial rooftop where demand charges and export caps both matter.

Honest limitations. SurgePV is a newer brand in Australia than OpenSolar, which has an enormous installed base here and a hiring pool that already knows the interface. That matters when you recruit. It is not a CRM, so lead routing, follow-up cadence and commission tracking still need a second tool, and it has no crew scheduling at all, which is a real gap next to simPRO for an installer running three teams. The component library flags CEC approved products well for mainstream brands but occasionally lags a newly listed inverter SKU by a few weeks, so a specifier chasing the newest hybrid may need to add it manually. It does not do monitoring, so the twenty-five year job is somebody else’s software. And for an installer doing four jobs a year the licence simply is not justifiable against a free tier. We use it on our own solar EPC design work and would not pretend otherwise, so weigh the ranking accordingly and run the bench yourself during a trial.

2. OpenSolar

What it does best. OpenSolar was founded in Sydney by people who had already built and sold a solar software business, and it shows in how Australian the product is. STCs are native, not an add-on. The residential template library is the deepest of any platform here for Australian conditions, integration coverage with local distributors and finance providers is strong, and a very large share of Australian installers learned solar sales inside it. The core design and proposal product is free, funded by hardware referral margin, which for a small installer is close to unbeatable value.

Pricing. The core platform is free and stays free. OpenSolar has said API Access, charged per project on creation, and Connectors, charged as a flat monthly fee, become chargeable from 16 April 2026, but it has not published the rates and they vary by geography. Nobody can tell you today what an Australian team will pay for those, so we are not going to put a number on it.

Who it suits. Small to mid residential teams, and anyone whose volume does not justify a paid licence.

Honest limitations. The economics steer you toward hardware partners, which is fine until the day it is not. Commercial rooftop, ground mount and detailed export-constrained modelling expose the ceiling quickly. On price alone it beats everything else on this list, SurgePV included, and the case for paying is depth rather than licence arithmetic. Our OpenSolar alternative comparison covers the switching cost in detail.

3. SolarPlus

What it does best. SolarPlus is Australian-built and its strength is the part of the proposal Australian customers now actually care about: what happens to the bill. It ingests interval data, models time-of-use tariffs and demand charges properly, and produces a self-consumption analysis that stands up when the customer compares it against their next quarterly statement. For a retailer selling on bill reduction rather than on export income, that is the right centre of gravity.

Pricing. SolarPlus publishes in US dollars, not Australian dollars, which trips up a lot of local buyers. Starter is US$135 a month, Pro US$260 and Complete US$450 on annual pre-pay, or US$150, US$300 and US$520 month to month. Enterprise is quote only. Capacity caps run 900 kW, 2 MW and 3.9 MW commercial across the three tiers.

Who it suits. Australian retailers and consultants whose close depends on a defensible bill analysis, and teams doing a lot of small commercial work.

Honest limitations. The design and 3D shading side is weaker than the engineering-led platforms, so a complex multi-plane roof still wants a second tool. The interface carries a lot of history and onboarding is slower than the newer cloud products. And because the tiers are priced in US dollars, your real AUD cost moves with the exchange rate between renewals.

4. Aurora Solar

What it does best. Aurora produces arguably the most polished sales document in the category, with strong automated roof detection, mature storage modelling and a workflow refined against enormous US residential volume. If your proposal competes on presentation quality alone, it is hard to beat.

Pricing. Basic is US$135 per user per month billed annually, which is US$1,620 a year, or US$159 month to month. Premium is US$220 billed annually, which is US$2,640 a year, or US$259 monthly. Both cover one user and 50 projects a month, and LIDAR modelling, bankable shade reports and battery modelling sit on Premium. Plan sets are a separately priced service rather than a plan inclusion, and site models start at US$9.99. Five Basic seats come to US$8,100 a year and five Premium seats to US$13,200.

Who it suits. Groups extending an existing Aurora template library and training investment into Australia.

Honest limitations. The Australian regulatory layer is thin. STC calculation, SRES zone ratings, retailer-level feed-in tariffs and DNSP export limits are not native the way NEC and US utility rate handling are, so your team rebuilds and maintains those pieces inside the template. Price is not the objection it once was on this page: Aurora Basic at US$1,620 a year is cheaper per seat than SurgePV Individual, and we would rather concede that than have you check the Aurora pricing page and stop trusting the rest of this ranking. See our Aurora Solar alternative breakdown.

Get an engineering second opinion. If a proposal depends on a marginal roof, a constrained feeder or an unusual mounting arrangement, get the drawings checked before you quote. Our team reviews designs alongside our rooftop detailed engineering service. Talk to our engineers →

5. Solargraf

What it does best. Speed. Solargraf, now owned by Enphase, is built for residential sales teams that need a decent quote out the same day, with e-signature, a light learning curve and a tight Enphase microinverter and battery workflow. New salespeople become productive in days rather than weeks.

Pricing. Sold by project volume rather than by seat. Starter is US$2,799 for 240 projects and two users, rising to Enterprise at US$12,999 for 1,500 projects, with API access a further US$4,000 a year on every tier except Enterprise.

Who it suits. High-volume residential operations where quote turnaround beats engineering depth, particularly Enphase-standardised installers.

Honest limitations. Shading and yield modelling are lighter than the engineering-led tools, so the proposal number can drift from the engineered number. Australian tariff handling is generic and commercial capability is limited. Our Solargraf alternative note covers where it stops.

6. PVsell

What it does best. PVsell was built in Australia specifically around the self-consumption question, and its interval-data analysis for commercial and industrial quoting remains genuinely good. Feed it a year of half-hourly data from a factory or a supermarket and it will tell you what the array actually offsets against a time-of-use tariff with demand charges, which is the argument that wins a C&I job.

Pricing. PVsell publishes plan prices in Australian dollars, not per seat: a free tier, then Champion at A$130 a month for 1 user, Hero at A$260 for 2 users, Superhero at A$390 for 6 users and Villain at A$650 for 12 users, with 30 percent off on annual billing. The important caveat is on the same page: PVsell is no longer accepting new sign-ups, so treat the price list as a reference for existing customers rather than something you can buy into today.

Who it suits. Installers and consultants quoting small to mid commercial where load data exists and the customer is numerate.

Honest limitations. Residential polish and 3D design are not its strength, product development has been quieter than the venture-funded platforms, and you will pair it with a design tool rather than replace one. Treat it as an analysis layer.

7. Pylon

What it does best. Pylon combines quoting with hardware procurement, so the bill of materials you quoted is the bill of materials you order at a price you have already seen. For installers spending hours reconciling quotes against distributor stock, that is time returned every week.

Pricing. Pylon is not a seat licence. You pay per project, US$4.00 Standard and US$10.00 Pro, with no monthly minimum. The Solar CRM add-on starts at US$49 per user per month, eSignature is US$0.80 per project and payments carry a 2.50 per cent transaction fee. For a low-volume installer that structure is far cheaper than any per-seat platform here.

Who it suits. Installers who want quoting and buying inside one system.

Honest limitations. Design depth is modest, the procurement advantage depends on supplier coverage in your state, and commercial work is thin. See our Pylon alternative page.

8. simPRO

What it does best. simPRO was built in Brisbane for Australian trades and it owns the part of the job the design tools ignore: quote to job to schedule to invoice, with GST handled natively, technician timesheets, asset registers and recurring maintenance contracts. For an installer with a service arm doing warranty visits, panel cleaning and inverter replacements, the quoting module sitting inside the job system removes a whole category of retyping.

Pricing. Not publicly listed. simPRO puts a Request Pricing button where a price table would be and quotes against team size and add-ons, with monthly or annual billing. Get the quote before you shortlist it, because the number moves a long way with module set and user count.

Who it suits. Established installers running multiple crews and a maintenance business alongside new installs.

Honest limitations. It knows nothing about photovoltaics. No array layout, no string sizing, no shading, no STC calculation, no export limit logic. The solar proposal it produces is a trade quote with line items, not a designed system, so it sits alongside a design platform rather than replacing one.

9. SolarEdge Designer

What it does best. It is free, it is accurate within its own hardware world, and the string and optimiser layout checks are trustworthy because the manufacturer wrote them. For a SolarEdge-standardised installer the design-to-proposal path is short.

Pricing. Free.

Who it suits. Installers who fit SolarEdge on most jobs.

Honest limitations. It is a manufacturer tool. Mixed-inverter fleets, competitive hardware comparisons, STC arithmetic and independent yield reporting are outside its remit, and the proposal output is basic next to the commercial platforms. Treat it as a design aid rather than a proposal system.

10. PV*SOL premium

What it does best. Detailed 3D shading, thermal behaviour and component-level electrical simulation, with a German engineering pedigree that consultancy clients recognise. Attached to a commercial proposal, the technical report carries weight with a sceptical facilities manager.

Pricing. EUR 845 per named user per year plus VAT for Premium, with the standard PV*SOL edition at EUR 585. It is a subscription now: perpetual licences bought before 19 November 2024 still run, but maintenance renewals ended on 1 October 2024.

Who it suits. Consultancies and technical teams producing engineering reports rather than sales documents.

Honest limitations. Desktop software, weak collaboration, no STC calculation, no Australian tariff library and no white-label sales proposal. You will pair it with something else. Our PV*SOL alternative guide sets out the trade.

Cost Per Finished Proposal, in Australian Dollars

Licence price is the wrong unit. What matters is cost per proposal a customer actually signs, and that reorders the table substantially by volume.

At a five-seat SurgePV licence of US$6,495 a year, about A$9,950 at A$1.53 per US dollar, a team sending 50 proposals a month pays about A$16.60 per proposal. At 10 a month it is about A$83. At three a month it is about A$276, which is more than the gross margin on some small jobs. Read those against your own close rate. At fifty proposals a month a full-featured licence costs less than the fuel and labour on one wasted site visit. At three, it is not close, and the honest recommendation is the OpenSolar free tier until commercial work or volume forces the issue. IEA renewable deployment data shows Australian rooftop volumes still climbing, so most growing firms cross that threshold eventually rather than never.

Sizing a system or sanity-checking a payback? Use our solar calculator for a fast estimate, then speak to our engineering team about the design behind it.

Proposal Mistakes That Cost Australian Installers Money

1. 1
   Carrying last year's deeming period into January quotes. The STC multiplier steps down every 1 January. A template that was not updated overstates the discount by roughly a fifth, and you either eat the difference or have an ugly conversation after the handshake.
2. 2
   Quoting one national feed-in tariff. The NSW benchmark, the Ergon regional rate and post-floor Victorian offers are three different numbers. A single blended rate makes the payback wrong in most states, and wrong in the direction the customer notices.
3. 3
   Ignoring the export limit. Selling full export on a system the network will cap at 5 kW per phase, or at 1.5 kW static in South Australia if the inverter cannot accept a flexible limit, is selling revenue that does not exist.
4. 4
   Quoting equipment that is not on the CEC approved products list. Listings change quarterly. An unlisted module or inverter means no certificates, which turns your headline discount into a hole in your own margin.
5. 5
   Modelling self-consumption as a flat percentage. A retired couple home all day and a family out until six have completely different self-consumption ratios on identical hardware. In a market where export is worth 3 to 6 cents and import is worth 30 to 45, that assumption drives the whole payback.

The pattern across all five is identical: the proposal promised something the engineering or the regulation could not support. Running string voltages through the string sizing calculator before a quote leaves the office catches a surprising share of the technical half.

Why Self-Consumption Now Beats Export in Australian Proposals

Australia crossed a threshold that most solar markets have not reached yet. With rooftop PV supplying a very large share of daytime demand in several National Electricity Market regions and midday wholesale prices frequently at or below zero, the retailer has no commercial reason to pay much for an exported kilowatt-hour. That is why benchmark feed-in tariffs have fallen from 15 to 20 cents a few years ago to a 3 to 12 cent band in 2026, and why Victoria stopped mandating a floor at all. The feed-in tariff is no longer the engine of the payback story.

What replaced it is the gap between import and export price. A household paying 33 cents to import and receiving 5 cents to export gains roughly six times more from a kilowatt-hour consumed on site than from one sold. Every honest 2026 Australian proposal therefore turns on three modelled quantities: the hourly generation profile, the hourly load profile, and the battery or hot water diversion that shifts the first onto the second. A tool that computes annual generation, applies a flat 30 per cent self-consumption assumption and multiplies the remainder by a single export rate is producing a number with no engineering behind it.

Practical requirements to insist on during a trial:

1. Hourly, not monthly. Generation and load both need to be resolved at least hourly across all 8,760 hours, or the overlap between them is guesswork.
2. Real load data where it exists. Interval data from the retailer, uploaded and used, beats any assumed profile. For commercial jobs it is non-negotiable.
3. Battery dispatch under an export cap. Charging behaviour changes completely when export is limited, and the payback moves with it.
4. Separate line items. Self-consumption savings and export income shown separately, with the assumed rates visible, so the customer can check them against their own bill.
5. Tariff switching. The ability to model the customer moving to a time-of-use or demand tariff, because many will after installing.

Should You Standardise on One Platform?

Verdict. SurgePV is the right default for a growing Australian installer because the certificate, tariff and export-limit layers are bundled and the engineering under the proposal is real. OpenSolar is the right answer for a small residential outfit that needs Australian-native STC handling for free. SolarPlus is the right answer when the close depends on interval-data bill analysis, and PVsell was too, though it has stopped taking new sign-ups so it is only an option if you are already on it. Everything else is a specialist choice, correct for one shape of business and wrong for the rest.

How Heaven Green Energy Helps

Heaven Green Energy has delivered more than 10,000 solar installations with an in-house design team, so we evaluate proposal software as an operator rather than a reviewer. Our test is simple: does the number that reaches the customer survive the engineer, the network, the inspector and the customer’s first bill without changing. That test is why bundled design and proposal platforms rank above presentation-first tools here.

• Solar design software pillar guide covers the whole category and how the tools differ structurally.
• Solar design software for Australia goes deeper on AS/NZS 5033, CEC accreditation and layout workflow inside the design tools.
• Solar proposal software is the global version of this ranking without the Australian compliance layer.
• Best solar design software ranks the design engines rather than the proposal front ends.
• Best solar proposal software in the UK is the closest comparable market page if you operate in both.
• Solar EPC services and commercial solar show how we use these outputs on live projects.

Compliance references worth bookmarking: the Clean Energy Regulator on STC entitlement, the Clean Energy Council approved products lists, DCCEEW on the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and IRENA country statistics for benchmarking Australian deployment against comparable markets. Choosing the best solar proposal software in Australia comes down to which platform removes the most manual certificate, tariff and network work at your actual volume, and the answer at three proposals a month is not the answer at fifty. You can compare SurgePV pricing against whatever you run today before committing to a trial.

Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories

• Best solar the full software stack in Australia
• Best solar proposal software in New Zealand
• Best solar proposal software in Singapore

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best solar proposal software in Australia in 2026?

SurgePV ranks first for Australian installers sending five or more proposals a month, at US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, about A$1,990 at A$1.53 per US dollar. It calculates STC entitlement from the current four-year deeming period and the correct SRES zone, carries a retailer-level feed-in tariff library, flags DNSP export limits including South Australian flexible exports, models the Cheaper Home Batteries rebate and runs 8,760-hour module-level shading. For very small residential installers, the free OpenSolar core remains the better value answer.

How does solar proposal software calculate the STC discount?

It multiplies the system’s deemed annual output, which depends on capacity and the SRES zone rating for the postcode, by the number of years remaining in the deeming period, then multiplies the resulting certificate count by an assumed STC price. In 2026 the deeming period is four years, falling by one each year until the scheme closes on 31 December 2030. Good software shows the assumed certificate price as an editable field, because the market price moves and your margin sits inside that gap.

Why are Australian feed-in tariffs falling so quickly?

Rooftop solar now supplies a very large share of daytime demand in several National Electricity Market regions, so midday wholesale prices are frequently at or near zero and retailers have little reason to pay for exported energy. IPART’s NSW benchmark dropped to 3.4 to 6.5 c/kWh for 2026-27, Ergon cut its regional Queensland rate to 6.006 c/kWh from 1 July 2026, and Victoria abolished its mandatory minimum from 1 July 2025. Proposals must now be built on self-consumption rather than export income.

Does proposal software need to handle DNSP export limits?

Yes, in most of the country. South Australia runs flexible exports through SA Power Networks, where a compliant inverter accepts a dynamic limit and a non-compliant one falls back to a static limit as low as 1.5 kW. Victorian networks commonly apply 5 kW per phase, and Queensland and Western Australia have their own thresholds. If the yield model does not apply the cap, the exported kilowatt-hours in the proposal are fictional and the payback is wrong.

Which solar proposal software is Australian-made?

OpenSolar was founded in Sydney and handles STCs natively on a free core product. SolarPlus is Australian-built with strong tariff and self-consumption analysis, though it publishes and bills in US dollars rather than Australian dollars. PVsell was built here around interval-data commercial quoting but is no longer accepting new sign-ups, and simPRO was built in Brisbane for Australian trades and covers quote to job to invoice with GST handled natively. Locally built tools generally beat imported platforms on certificate arithmetic and tariff libraries, and lose to them on 3D design polish.

How much does solar proposal software cost in Australia?

Most vendors bill in US dollars or euros, so compare in those. OpenSolar’s core platform is free, with API Access and Connectors chargeable from 16 April 2026 at rates it has not published. Pylon charges per project, US$4.00 Standard and US$10.00 Pro. SurgePV is US$1,299 per user per year on a five-seat team and US$1,899 for a single seat. Aurora is US$135 per user per month on Basic and US$220 on Premium, billed annually. SolarPlus is US$135, US$260 or US$450 a month on annual pre-pay, in US dollars despite being Australian-built. Solargraf runs US$2,799 to US$12,999 a year by project volume. PV*SOL Premium is EUR 845 per named user plus VAT. Several of these undercut SurgePV on sticker price.

Do I still need CEC accreditation to create STCs?

Installer and designer accreditation for SRES work moved from the Clean Energy Council to Solar Accreditation Australia after the Clean Energy Regulator appointed SAA as scheme operator in 2024, so new and renewing accreditation is held with SAA. The Clean Energy Council still maintains the approved products lists for modules, inverters and batteries, and only listed equipment is eligible for certificates. Your proposal needs both facts right: an accredited signatory and listed hardware.

Do I need a separate CRM alongside proposal software?

Usually yes. Design and proposal platforms produce the document. They do not handle lead routing, follow-up sequences, commission tracking, or the audit trail of who promised what. Most Australian installers pair a design-led tool with a CRM or a trades job-management system such as simPRO, which also covers scheduling and invoicing. Running a sales pipeline out of a shared inbox and a spreadsheet is the single most common reason a quote sits unanswered for a fortnight.