The best solar proposal software in France is the one that prices the tariff bracket correctly, because in France that single choice is worth more than every design refinement combined. The tarif d’achat steps by installed capacity, the steps are cliffs rather than slopes, and a devis that adds two panels without checking the boundary can hand the customer a twenty-year revenue line lower than the smaller system would have produced. Around that sit the prime a l’autoconsommation paid over the first years, the obligation d’achat contract with EDF OA under the S21 arrangement, a Consuel attestation that gates the switch-on date you just promised, TVA that varies by system size, and an RGE QualiPV qualification your customer needs you to hold. Across the ten platforms ranked below, the one that handles those without an add-on is SurgePV at US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, which is roughly EUR 1,180 at US$1.10 to the euro.
Direct answer. The best solar proposal software in France for 2026 is SurgePV, at US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan (US$6,495 for five seats), roughly EUR 1,180 and EUR 5,900 at US$1.10 to the euro. It holds the tarif d’achat and the prime a l’autoconsommation as bracketed tables rather than single rates, compares vente totale against vente du surplus, schedules the prime across the years it is actually paid, applies TVA by system size, dates the mise en service behind the Consuel attestation, and carries the installer’s RGE QualiPV credentials into the devis.
This ranking is written for installateurs, EPC firms, bureaux d’etudes and sales teams sending five or more devis a month, from a 3 kWc pavillon in Normandy to a 400 kWc logistics roof near Lyon. Every platform is scored on French tariff realism, document craft against French buyer and administrative expectations, engineering behind the yield number, and cost per finished devis at the vendor’s published price. Where a competitor genuinely wins we say so, including against the tool that places first.
What Makes a French Solar Devis Different
Six obligations decide whether your devis converts or produces a correction.
The tarif d’achat is a bracket table, and the brackets are cliffs. Under the obligation d’achat, the buyer purchases either your total production or your surplus at a published tarif d’achat. The applicable rate depends on the capacity bracket the system falls into, on whether the customer chooses vente totale or vente du surplus, and on the quarter in which the connection request entered the queue, since rates are revised quarterly. The steps between brackets are discontinuous. A system sitting just above a boundary can receive a lower rate on every kilowatt-hour it produces for twenty years than a slightly smaller system in the bracket below, which means the larger design can be worth less in total. A proposal engine that stores one rate and multiplies is structurally unable to see that. This is the highest-value thing France-aware software does for you, and the design side of the same problem is covered in our best solar design software in France ranking. The tariff framework sits with the Commission de Regulation de l’Energie.
The prime a l’autoconsommation arrives over time, not at commissioning. On self-consumption with surplus sale, the customer also receives an investment premium calculated per kilowatt-peak, itself bracketed by system size, and paid across the first years of operation rather than as a single payment at switch-on. That makes it a deferred receipt and it belongs in a dated cash flow like any other. A devis that shows the premium as a deduction from the purchase price overstates how much cash the customer keeps in year zero, which is exactly the year in which they are deciding whether they can afford the job.
The obligation d’achat contract is with a named counterparty. For most residential and small commercial work the contract runs with EDF Obligation d’Achat, and small self-consumption systems selling surplus follow the standardised S21 route with published tariff conditions rather than an individually negotiated agreement. That standardisation is what makes residential volume viable, and it also means the proposal can state precisely what the customer is signing: a twenty-year purchase commitment at a rate fixed by the bracket and the queue date, with an indexation mechanism, rather than a vague promise about selling power.
Consuel gates the switch-on date you are promising. Before Enedis will energise the installation, a Consuel attestation de conformite has to be issued for the work, and the process can include an inspection. If the attestation is refused or a defect is found, the mise en service moves and every date in your cash flow moves with it. A devis that promises production from a specific month without acknowledging that gate is making a commitment it does not control. The honest version states the sequence, gives a realistic range, and names who assembles the attestation dossier. The body is Consuel and the connection process is Enedis.
RGE QualiPV belongs inside the document. Public support routes and many financing products require the work to be carried out by an installer holding the relevant Reconnu Garant de l’Environnement qualification, with QualiPV the mark for photovoltaics. That makes your own credential part of the customer’s eligibility rather than a badge in your email signature. Put the qualification number and validity in the devis, alongside the decennale insurance attestation, because a customer comparing three quotes is checking exactly that, and audits sample completed jobs and read the technical file.
TVA varies by system size. French VAT treatment of photovoltaic supply and installation is not one rate across all systems: smaller residential installations sit under a reduced rate regime while larger ones fall at the ordinary rate, and the boundary is defined by system capacity. Proposal software with a single global tax field forces a manual edit on every job that crosses the line, and manual tax edits are a reliable source of expensive quoting mistakes. Confirm the current rate and threshold with your accountant before the template is set.
📘 Regulation note
A French devis is a contractual offer with statutory content requirements, including identification of the parties, a detailed description of the work, unit prices and quantities, the total excluding and including tax, the validity period and the withdrawal rights that apply to a consumer contract concluded at home. Proposal software that produces a beautiful savings brochure and calls it a devis leaves your team retyping the contractual document, and a devis missing required content is a weak position in any later dispute.
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](/glossary/shading-loss) simulation, and hand you the SLD, BOQ and branded proposal on the call.
Book a free SurgePV demo → Compare pricingThe 5-Point France Proposal Bench
This is the scoring frame used for every platform below. It is ours, and you can run it inside any trial. Each axis scores 1 to 10, for a maximum of 50.
- Tariff realism. Bracketed tarif d’achat and prime tables rather than single rates, vente totale against vente du surplus compared explicitly, queue-date awareness, twenty-year revenue built from the bracket the system actually lands in.
- French compliance handling. TVA by system size, statutory devis content, Consuel-aware dating of the mise en service, Enedis raccordement data captured at quote time, RGE QualiPV and decennale credentials carried into the document.
- Document craft. Itemised pricing with unit quantities, component datasheets attached, stated simulation method and specific yield in kWh per kWc, per-component warranty terms, and French that reads as French.
- Engineering behind the number. Module-level 8,760-hour shading, P50 and P90, honest degradation and soiling, and a specific yield defensible in Lille as well as in Perpignan.
- Cost per finished devis. Licence plus modules divided by realistic monthly volume, at the vendor’s own published price.
Axis one separates the field more sharply in France than tariff handling does in any other European market, because the penalty is not a rounding error. Getting the bracket wrong on a 9 kWc job can move twenty-year revenue by a four-figure sum, and the customer finds out from their first EDF OA statement rather than from you.
Top 10 Solar Proposal Software Platforms in France Compared
Each price below is the vendor’s own published 2026 figure in the currency that vendor bills in. Several of these are American and will invoice you in dollars, so a euro figure would be a conversion rather than a price. Where a vendor publishes nothing, we say so instead of estimating.
| # | Platform | Published price (vendor currency) | Key capability | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SurgePV | US$1,299/user/yr (5-user team) | Bracketed tarif and prime tables, TVA by size, Consuel-aware dating, French devis | Installateurs sending 5+ devis a month |
| 2 | Trace Software archelios Suite | ~EUR 1,000 to EUR 2,500/yr | UTE C15-712-1 technical file behind the commercial offer | Bureaux d’etudes on commercial work |
| 3 | French devis and facturation suites | ~EUR 30 to EUR 90/user/mo | Statutory devis, situations, facturation for building trades | Firms whose pain is contractual paperwork |
| 4 | OpenSolar | Core platform free, add-on rates not published | Broad templates and integrations at zero entry cost | New entrants and low-volume installers |
| 5 | Otovo France and marketplace quoting | Commission per delivered job | Demand plus a standardised customer-facing quote | Installers buying leads rather than software |
| 6 | Aurora Solar | US$135/user/mo Basic, US$220 Premium, billed annually | The most polished sales document in the category | Groups arriving with Aurora already in place |
| 7 | Solargraf | US$2,799 to US$12,999/yr by project volume | Fast residential quoting with e-signature | High-volume residential sales teams |
| 8 | Lead platforms and comparateurs | Cost per qualified lead | Volume at the top of the funnel | Sales-heavy firms with crew capacity to fill |
| 9 | PVsyst | CHF 700/user/yr Professional | Lender-grade yield report as an appendix | Financed commercial and ground-mount |
| 10 | Sunbase | From US$59/user/mo, tiers not published | CRM-first pipeline with basic proposals | Sales-led firms designing elsewhere |
Two honest observations before the detail. Positions five and eight are not licences in the ordinary sense, but both set what a French homeowner expects a quote to look like, so they belong in a truthful ranking of your competition. And position nine is not a proposal tool at all: PVsyst contributes an appendix that wins financed work, which is a real job even though it produces no customer document.
1. SurgePV
What it does best. SurgePV holds the French tariff structure the way it actually exists. The tarif d’achat and the prime a l’autoconsommation are bracketed tables rather than single stored rates, so the model will show you that pushing a design from just under a boundary to just over it reduces total twenty-year revenue, and it will show the customer the same thing. It compares vente totale against vente du surplus side by side rather than presuming the answer, prices the self-consumed kilowatt-hour against the customer’s own tariff instead of a national average, and schedules the prime across the years it is actually paid rather than netting it off the price. TVA follows system size rather than a global default.
The document side is built for the French process. The devis carries statutory content, unit quantities and itemised pricing rather than a lump sum, with datasheets attached, the simulation method and specific yield stated in kWh per kWc, and warranty terms per component. The RGE QualiPV qualification and decennale attestation are template fields rather than something a salesperson remembers to paste in. The mise en service is dated behind the Consuel attestation and the Enedis raccordement steps, with the sequence set out, so the customer’s expectation is calibrated before the contract rather than after the first delay.
Behind the document sits an 8,760-hour module-level simulation with P50 and P90 outputs, which matters in a country whose specific yield spans a wide range from the north to the Mediterranean coast and where dense village settings throw awkward shading. Roof geometry generates from satellite imagery in about a minute on a typical pavillon. Proposals export as white-label PDF and as an interactive web link with e-signature.
Pricing. US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, so US$6,495 for five seats, with the Individual plan at US$1,899 a year. At US$1.10 to the euro that is roughly EUR 1,180 per seat and EUR 5,900 for five, but the invoice is in dollars. Free trial, no card. Said plainly: PVsyst at CHF 700 a seat and Aurora Basic at US$1,620 a year are both cheaper than this, and OpenSolar’s core is free.
Who it suits. Installateurs RGE QualiPV and EPC firms sending five or more devis a month, particularly those quoting near bracket boundaries and mixing residential surplus sale with commercial rooftop.
Honest limitations. Four real ones, stated because a roundup where the sponsor wins everywhere is an advertisement. First, it does not assemble and file the Consuel attestation dossier: it produces the drawings and equipment schedule the attestation rests on and dates the sequence honestly, but the submission is still your team’s job, and that is the step French installers most want automated. Second, it is not a facturation system, so situations de travaux, acomptes and the fattura-equivalent side of French billing still happen in your accounting product, which means the signed devis and the invoice live in two places. Third, its DC-side electrical verification is competent but not as exhaustive as archelios Calc on protection coordination, so a bureau d’etudes on complex commercial work keeps that licence alongside. Fourth, brand recognition is thin: SurgePV launched in 2025, and a French bank’s technical adviser who reads PVsyst output daily has never seen its report format. For a firm sending three devis a month the licence is not justifiable.
Book a SurgePV demo and bring a real job sitting near a tariff bracket boundary, because that is where bracketed modelling either earns its keep or does not.
2. Trace Software archelios Suite
What it does best. archelios is French and it shows in the parts of the job that are specifically French. archelios Pro handles simulation with 3D shading while archelios Calc verifies cable sizing, voltage drop, protection selection and earthing against UTE C15-712-1, producing output in the vocabulary a French reviewer reads. On a commercial job where the technical file is what the client’s engineer scrutinises, the commercial offer is only as strong as the file behind it, and this is the shortest path to a defensible one.
Pricing. Roughly EUR 1,000 to EUR 2,500 a year depending on modules and term. Module-by-module purchase keeps a small bureau’s entry price below the headline.
Who it suits. Bureaux d’etudes and electrical designers whose deliverable is a technical file supporting a commercial offer.
Honest limitations. It is not proposal software. There is no white-label sales document, no e-signature, no bracketed tariff modelling, no TVA logic and no CRM handoff, and the customer-facing output is a technical report that a residential sales team rebuilds. It is desktop-first with limited collaboration and no satellite roof capture, so geometry entry stays manual.
3. French devis and facturation suites
What it does best. A group of French products exists specifically for building trades and produces the contractual documents the job actually needs: a devis with statutory content, situations de travaux, acomptes, avenants and facturation, usually with a bibliotheque d’ouvrages of priced work items behind it. For an installateur whose evenings disappear into paperwork rather than design, these remove more hours per euro than anything else here, and the document they produce is contractually solid because that is what they are for.
Pricing. Broadly EUR 30 to EUR 90 per user per month depending on vendor and modules.
Who it suits. Installation firms with a design tool already in place that need the contractual and billing side handled properly.
Honest limitations. They know nothing about solar. No yield model, no shading, no self-consumption analysis, no tarif d’achat brackets, no prime schedule. You produce the technical and financial pages elsewhere and attach them, which works but leaves the numbers unversioned against the design. Treat this category as the contract and billing layer rather than as proposal software.
Get an engineering second opinion. If a devis depends on a marginal roof, a constrained connection or a system sitting near a tariff boundary, get the numbers checked before the price goes out. Cross-check with our free solar calculator or talk to our engineering team.
4. OpenSolar
What it does best. A free core design and proposal product funded by hardware referral margin, with a large template library, wide integration coverage and a community that has answered most setup questions already. Entry costs nothing and the first usable quote comes quickly.
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. No honest figure exists yet for what a French team will pay for those, so we are not going to publish one.
Who it suits. New entrants and low-volume installers whose volume does not justify a licence.
Honest limitations. The French layer is shallow. Financial defaults assume flat export rates rather than bracketed tarifs, the incentive field behaves like a rebate rather than a premium paid over years, there is no Consuel concept and no statutory devis structure. The economics also steer you toward hardware partners. See our OpenSolar alternative comparison.
5. Otovo France and marketplace quoting
What it does best. Otovo acquires the homeowner, standardises the quote and routes the job to a local installer. For a French installer whose constraint is lead flow rather than document quality, that is a real answer, and the standardised quote removes the sales-document problem entirely.
Pricing. Commission on delivered jobs rather than a licence fee.
Who it suits. Installers with spare crew capacity who would rather buy demand than build a sales function.
Honest limitations. You rent the customer relationship rather than owning it. Pricing power sits with the marketplace, the document is not yours to differentiate, and margin per job is thinner than direct work. It contributes nothing on commercial rooftop or on anything outside the standardised residential product.
6. Aurora Solar
What it does best. Aurora produces arguably the most polished customer-facing sales document in the category, with strong automated design, good storage modelling and a workflow refined against enormous US residential volume.
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. Each covers one user and 50 projects a month, with LIDAR modelling, bankable shade reports and battery modelling on Premium. Five Basic seats are US$8,100 a year and five Premium seats US$13,200. Plan sets are a separately priced service rather than a plan inclusion, and site models start at US$9.99.
Who it suits. International groups extending into France with Aurora templates and training in place.
Honest limitations. The French layer is close to absent: no tarif d’achat brackets, no prime a l’autoconsommation schedule, no TVA by size, no Consuel awareness and no statutory devis content, so your team rebuilds and then maintains all of it inside the template. Price is not the objection: Aurora Basic at US$1,620 a year is cheaper per seat than SurgePV Individual at US$1,899, and we would rather concede that than have you check Aurora’s pricing page and doubt the rest of this page. See our Aurora Solar alternative breakdown.
7. Solargraf
What it does best. Speed. Solargraf is built for residential sales teams that need a decent quote out the same day, with e-signature and a short learning curve, so new salespeople become productive in days.
Pricing. Sold by project volume rather than by seat. Starter is US$2,799 a year 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 turnaround beats depth.
Honest limitations. Shading and yield modelling are lighter than the engineering-led tools, French tariff handling is generic, the devis falls short of statutory content expectations, and commercial capability is limited. Our Solargraf alternative note covers where it stops.
8. Lead platforms and comparateurs
What it does best. A layer of French lead generators and energy-renovation platforms sells qualified homeowner enquiries, often with the customer already educated on aid eligibility and RGE requirements. For a firm with idle crew capacity, buying volume at the top of the funnel is a faster fix than improving a document.
Pricing. Cost per qualified lead, with wide variation by region and season.
Who it suits. Sales-heavy installers who convert well and need more at-bats.
Honest limitations. Lead quality is uneven, the same enquiry is frequently sold several times, and a customer arriving pre-shaped by a comparison site tends to buy on headline price. None of it improves the quality of the quote you send, and if your close rate is the problem, more leads make the problem more expensive rather than smaller.
9. PVsyst
What it does best. PVsyst is the simulation engine that French banks and independent engineers name on financed commercial and ground-mount work. Its documented loss tree, near-shading model and P50 and P90 outputs need no explanatory call, and attaching one to a commercial offer removes an objection that no sales template can answer.
Pricing. CHF 700 per user per year for the Professional annual subscription, so CHF 3,500 for five seats before the 5 to 20 per cent group discount. Education is CHF 420, Training and Research CHF 560, Student CHF 25 and PVsystCLI CHF 3,000. It is a subscription, not a perpetual licence, and per seat it is cheaper than SurgePV.
Who it suits. Developers, bureaux d’etudes and anyone whose commercial offer has to survive technical due diligence.
Honest limitations. No proposal generation, no tarif d’achat modelling, no TVA logic, no CRM, desktop only, steep learning curve. It contributes an appendix, not a document. Our PVsyst alternative guide covers the pairing.
10. Sunbase
What it does best. Sunbase leads with CRM: pipeline, lead routing, follow-up and reporting, with proposal generation attached. If your bottleneck is sales process rather than document quality, that ordering is defensible.
Pricing. Sunbase states an entry price of US$59 per user per month and does not publish its tiers. Any wider range you see quoted elsewhere is an industry-observed estimate rather than a vendor-published figure.
Who it suits. Sales-led firms that already have a design tool and need pipeline discipline.
Honest limitations. As a proposal engine it is the weakest here on engineering depth and French compliance, and it assumes the design arrives from elsewhere. The same pairing logic applies to the sister-brand CRM QuickEstimate, which handles quoting and follow-up but not French tariff modelling.
The Bracket Cliff, Worked Through
This is the section worth reading twice, because it is the most common way a French devis quietly loses money.
The tarif d’achat and the prime a l’autoconsommation both step by installed capacity, and the steps are discontinuous. A system in the bracket below can receive a higher rate per kilowatt-hour and a higher premium per kilowatt-peak than one in the bracket above. Because the tariff applies to every kilowatt-hour for twenty years, crossing a boundary applies the lower rate to the whole system, not only to the marginal capacity you added. That produces a genuine local maximum: two extra panels can increase production and reduce revenue at the same time.
Three rules follow, and all three are software requirements rather than sales advice.
- Hold the table, do not interpolate it. A financial engine that takes one rate and multiplies is structurally unable to see the cliff. Only a bracketed table shows it, and only a tool that re-evaluates the bracket when the array changes shows it at the moment the designer is making the decision.
- Use the queue date, not the signature date. The applicable tariff attaches to when the connection request entered the queue, and rates are revised quarterly. A job quoted in one quarter and connected two quarters later may sit on a different number, and which one applies is a matter of dated process rather than optimism.
- Price both routes. Vente totale and vente du surplus pay different rates and imply different optimal sizes. On a site with strong daytime load, surplus sale plus a high self-consumption rate usually wins, but a tool that models only one route is answering half the question.
⚠️ Watch out
If your devis template carries a hard-coded cent-per-kilowatt-hour figure, check which bracket, which route and which quarter it came from. Rates are revised quarterly, and templates written a year ago frequently carry a stale number, a premium amount that has since changed, or an aid line that no longer exists. One stored rate will be wrong for most of your pipeline.
Cost Per Finished Devis
Licence price is the wrong unit. What matters is the cost per document a customer signs, and the ranking changes with volume.
Read those against your close rate. At fifty devis a month a five-seat bundled licence costs about eleven dollars per document, less than the fuel for one wasted site visit. At ten a month it still works if the tool removes a second licence or an hour of manual assembly per job. At three a month it does not, and the honest recommendation is OpenSolar’s free core plus a French devis product until volume forces the issue. Wider deployment context sits with the IEA renewables tracker and IRENA country profiles.
Devis Mistakes That Cost French Installers Money
-
1
Quoting one tarif d'achat instead of the bracket table. The rate steps by capacity and is revised quarterly. A design pushed just over a boundary can earn less across twenty years than a smaller one, and only a tool holding the table will show it before the customer signs.
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2
Netting the prime a l'autoconsommation off the price. It is paid across the first years of operation, not at commissioning. Treating it as a discount overstates the cash the customer keeps in year zero, which is the year the affordability decision is made.
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3
Promising a production start date the Consuel gate controls. The attestation and any inspection sit between installation and mise en service. Date the sequence honestly with a range, or expect the first complaint to be about a month you invented.
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4
Leaving RGE QualiPV and decennale out of the document. Your qualification is part of the customer's eligibility for aid, not a badge. A competitor who prints the number and validity dates looks like the safer signature.
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5
Applying one TVA rate across the pipeline. The rate depends on system size, and a single global tax field invites the error. Correcting a signed devis is expensive and it damages the impression of competence you spent the meeting building.
The pattern across all five is the same: the document promised something the tariff rules, the inspection calendar or the tax treatment could not support. Our note on common mistakes EPC companies make in rooftop solar covers the wider set, and a quick check on the string sizing calculator catches the technical ones before the price goes out.
Should You Standardise on One Platform?
- ✓ You send more than 10 devis a month
- ✓ You regularly quote near a tariff bracket boundary
- ✓ You mix vente du surplus with commercial rooftop
- ✓ More than two people touch a quote before it goes out
- ✗ You send fewer than 5 devis a month
- ✗ Your deliverable is a UTE C15-712-1 file (archelios)
- ✗ Your offer stands on a bankable report (PVsyst)
- ✗ Your bottleneck is lead flow, not documents
Verdict. SurgePV is the right default for a growing French installateur because the bracketed tariff logic, the prime schedule, the TVA handling and the Consuel-aware dating are bundled and the engineering under the yield number is real. archelios stays wherever the electrical technical file is the deliverable, PVsyst stays wherever the offer has to survive due diligence, and a French devis product stays wherever the contractual and billing side matters more than the sales page.
How Heaven Green Energy Helps
We run more than 10,000 installations and quote work every day, so we choose tools on what survives a customer meeting and an inspection rather than on the brochure. If you are a French installer weighing a switch, these are the reference points worth reading next:
- Best solar design software in France covers NF C 15-100, UTE C15-712-1 and the design side of the same tool set.
- Solar proposal software is the global version of this ranking without the French compliance layer.
- Best solar proposal software in Germany shows the same problem under EEG and Mieterstrom rules.
- Best solar proposal software in the UK shows it under MCS and SEG.
- Solar design software pillar guide covers the category structure.
- Commercial solar and solar EPC services show how we use these outputs on live projects.
- Heaven Designs electrical drawing packages when the DC and AC schematic set behind the offer is the bottleneck.
Bookmark the Commission de Regulation de l’Energie for tariff arrangements, Enedis for the raccordement process and Consuel for the attestation before any date reaches a customer. Choosing the best solar proposal software in France comes down to which platform removes the most manual tariff and compliance work at your real volume, and the answer at three devis a month is not the answer at fifty. You can compare SurgePV pricing against whatever you run today before starting a trial.
Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories
- Best solar the full software stack in France
- Best solar proposal software in Spain
- Best solar proposal software in Italy
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best solar proposal software in France in 2026?
SurgePV ranks first for French installers sending five or more devis a month, at US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, roughly EUR 1,180 at US$1.10 to the euro. It holds the tarif d’achat and the prime a l’autoconsommation as bracketed tables, compares vente totale against vente du surplus, schedules the prime across the years it is paid, applies TVA by system size and dates the mise en service behind the Consuel attestation. For a bankable yield appendix on financed work, PVsyst remains the document lenders name.
Why can adding panels reduce revenue on a French system?
Because the tarif d’achat steps by installed capacity and the steps are discontinuous. Crossing a bracket boundary applies the lower rate to every kilowatt-hour the system produces for twenty years, not only to the capacity you added, so a slightly larger design can generate more energy and less money. Only a proposal engine holding the bracket table and re-evaluating it when the array changes will surface that before the customer signs.
How should the prime a l’autoconsommation appear in a proposal?
As a deferred receipt in a dated cash flow. The premium is calculated per kilowatt-peak, bracketed by system size, and paid across the first years of operation rather than at commissioning. Showing it as a deduction from the purchase price overstates how much cash the customer retains in year zero, which is exactly when the affordability decision is made. Place each payment in the year it lands and let the payback curve show the real shape.
Does Consuel affect the dates I put in a devis?
Yes, directly. Before Enedis will energise the installation, Consuel has to issue an attestation de conformite for the work, and the process can include an inspection. Until that gate is passed there is no mise en service and no production, so a devis promising output from a specific month is committing to something outside your control. State the sequence, give a realistic range, and name who assembles the attestation dossier.
Should the installer’s RGE QualiPV appear in the proposal?
Yes. Public support routes and many financing products require the work to be performed by an installer holding the relevant Reconnu Garant de l’Environnement qualification, with QualiPV the photovoltaic mark, so your credential is part of your customer’s eligibility rather than a marketing badge. Print the qualification number and validity alongside the decennale insurance attestation. A customer comparing three quotes checks exactly that, and audits sample completed jobs and read the technical file.
What is EDF OA and what does the S21 arrangement change?
EDF Obligation d’Achat is the counterparty that purchases production or surplus under the obligation d’achat for most residential and small commercial French systems. The S21 arrangement gives small self-consumption systems selling surplus a standardised route with published tariff conditions rather than an individually negotiated contract, which is what makes residential volume workable. The proposal can therefore state precisely what the customer signs: a twenty-year purchase commitment at a bracketed rate fixed by the queue date.
How much does solar proposal software cost in France?
Compare in the currency each vendor bills in. OpenSolar’s core platform is free, with API Access and Connectors chargeable from 16 April 2026 at rates it has not published. PVsyst Professional is CHF 700 per user per year. Sunbase starts at US$59 per user per month with tiers not published. Aurora is US$135 per user per month on Basic and US$220 on Premium, billed annually. SurgePV is US$1,299 per user per year on a five-seat team and US$1,899 for a single seat. Solargraf runs US$2,799 to US$12,999 a year by project volume. French devis and facturation suites run roughly EUR 30 to EUR 90 per user per month and archelios Suite EUR 1,000 to EUR 2,500 a year. Several of these are cheaper than SurgePV on sticker price.
Do I still need a separate French devis or facturation product?
Usually yes, at least for billing. A solar proposal platform produces the technical and financial case and an itemised contractual offer, but situations de travaux, acomptes, avenants and facturation are handled better by a French building-trade product built for them. The realistic pattern is a proposal tool for the sales and technical document and an accounting product for the money, with the signed devis carried across once rather than the numbers being rebuilt.
Stop paying for four tools. Design it all in one.
SurgePV replaces Aurora + HelioScope + PVsyst + a separate proposal tool in a single license. AI 3D roof in under 60 seconds, bankable 8,760-hour simulation, auto-SLD, BOQ, DXF/DWG export and branded proposals.
Free trial, no credit card · $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team planDisclaimer: SurgePV is our own product. It is built by the Heaven Group, the same company as Heaven Green Energy, so treat this as a recommendation from its maker.