Best Solar Proposal Software in USA: Top 10 Ranked

Picking the best solar proposal software in USA in 2026 is a different problem from picking a design tool. A US proposal has to survive three audiences before it earns a signature: the homeowner or facility manager reading it, the lender or tax-equity desk funding it, and the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) that will eventually stamp the plan set. Miss the 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) stack, apply the wrong state export rate, or quote a layout that fails NEC 2023 rapid shutdown, and the deal either dies in review or comes back as a change order. Across the platforms we bench at Heaven Green Energy, SurgePV ranks first at $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, because the number on page one of the proposal comes out of the same 8,760-hour simulation the engineer signs off on.

Direct answer. The best solar proposal software in USA for 2026 is SurgePV at $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, ahead of Aurora Solar at $135 per user per month on Basic and $220 on Premium, both billed annually. A single Aurora Basic seat at $1,620 a year does cost less than a single SurgePV Individual seat at $1,899. SurgePV bundles white-label interactive proposals, e-signature, 30 percent ITC and MACRS modeling, 50-state net metering rules including California NEM 3.0, and NEC 2023 plan-set output into one license with a free trial.

This is a ranked roundup, not a feature dump. Every entry below carries real USD pricing, the single thing it does best, the buyer it suits, and an honest limitation. If you want the platform-level design comparison instead, read our solar design software USA guide. If you want the global proposal-category view, the solar proposal software breakdown covers non-US markets. This page is about American proposals specifically: ITC, MACRS, SRECs, state export tariffs, AHJ permitting and UL-listed equipment.

What Solar Proposal Software Must Do in the USA

A US proposal tool has five jobs. It has to produce a customer-facing document that converts, it has to compute incentives correctly, it has to reflect the real export tariff, it has to hand a compliant design to the permit team, and it has to do all of that without a copy-paste step between two licenses.

Incentive math is where most tools quietly fail. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) fixed the residential ITC under Section 25D and the commercial ITC under Section 48E at 30 percent, with adders for domestic content, energy-community siting and low-income qualification. On the commercial side the credit interacts with 5-year MACRS depreciation and the half-year convention, and the basis is reduced by half the credit. A proposal that shows a flat 30 percent saving on a commercial project without the depreciation schedule is understating the customer’s return, sometimes by a large margin. The U.S. Department of Energy publishes the current federal incentive framework and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory maintains the cost-benchmark work most US pro formas are calibrated against.

The export tariff is the second failure point. California moved to the net billing tariff (NEM 3.0) in April 2023, compensating exports at the avoided cost of generation rather than the retail rate. That change made self-consumption and battery attachment the deciding variables in a California proposal. Meanwhile net metering rules in Texas are utility-by-utility, Florida runs full retail netting, and states such as Arizona and Hawaii use their own export credit structures. The Solar Energy Industries Association tracks the state-by-state position, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes the retail rate data those savings models sit on.

How We Ranked These 10 Platforms: The 5-Signal US Proposal Test

Every platform below was scored 1 to 10 on five signals. We call it the 5-Signal US Proposal Test, and we run it before any tool touches a live American project.

1. Incentive fidelity. Does the tool compute the 30 percent ITC, the domestic content and energy-community adders, MACRS depreciation with basis reduction, and state SREC revenue where it exists?
2. Tariff accuracy. Does it apply the correct state and utility export rule, including California NEM 3.0 net billing, time-of-use rate periods, and demand charges on commercial accounts?
3. Engineering behind the number. Is the yield figure an 8,760-hour module-level simulation with P50, P75 and P90 outputs, or a sales calculator estimate?
4. Permit-path continuity. Does the accepted proposal produce a design a permit team can turn into an AHJ-ready plan set with a single-line diagram, without re-drawing it?
5. Total cost of ownership. Annual USD cost for a five-seat team, including the second license the tool forces you to buy.

Scores out of 50: SurgePV 46, Aurora Solar 43, Solargraf 34, Enact Systems 33, OpenSolar 33, Pylon 33, Solo 28, Sunbase 27, Demand IQ 24, HelioScope 26. OpenSolar and Pylon both moved up on signal 5 after we re-checked their published pricing: OpenSolar’s platform is free with no published add-on rates, and Pylon bills per project rather than per seat, so both cost a small US team far less than any per-seat licence here, ours included. The pattern is consistent. Sales-first tools score well on signal 1 and badly on signals 3 and 4, because the proposal number and the engineering number live in different systems.

The Top 10 Solar Proposal Software Platforms in the USA

All prices are 2026 published or reseller-quoted USD figures. Verify against a current quote before you sign, since several vendors negotiate per-seat rates at five seats and above.

1. SurgePV

What it does best. SurgePV puts the proposal and the engineering in the same license. You enter a US street address, the AI builds a 3D roof from satellite imagery with obstructions detected, Clara AI proposes a layout sized to the customer’s utility bill, the 8,760-hour module-level shading simulation returns P50, P75 and P90 yield, and the financial module applies the 30 percent ITC, the applicable adders, MACRS on commercial systems, the state export tariff and any SREC revenue. The white-label interactive proposal with e-signature comes out of the same run, so the savings figure the customer signs matches the yield the engineer will defend.

Real pricing. $1,899 per user per year on Individual. $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, which is $6,495 annually for five seats. Enterprise pricing is custom. Free trial with no credit card.

Who it suits. US installers and EPC firms shipping five or more designs a month, teams working across multiple states with different export rules, and anyone bidding commercial alongside residential where the MACRS interaction actually matters.

Honest limitations. SurgePV launched in early 2025, so the US template library is younger than Aurora’s and the brand recognition with long-established American installers is still being built. Some US lenders have workflows written around Aurora export formats and will ask questions the first time you submit a SurgePV report. Financing-partner integrations (Sunlight, GoodLeap, Dividend) are thinner than what Enact or Solargraf ship natively, so a heavily finance-led residential shop will still handle credit applications in a separate portal. If your entire motion is door-knocking with an iPad, Pylon’s in-home UX is more purpose-built.

2. Aurora Solar

What it does best. Aurora is the deepest US-trained proposal platform in the category, with a decade of American roof geometry, mature interactive proposals, strong lender familiarity and the widest set of pre-built US utility rate schedules. On pure US residential depth it is the closest thing to a default.

Real pricing. Aurora publishes two listed plans: Basic at $135 per user per month billed annually ($159 monthly) and Premium at $220 billed annually ($259 monthly), with Enterprise on quote. Both carry 1 user and 50 projects a month. Five Premium seats come to $13,200 a year and five Basic seats to $8,100. The older Grow, Scale and Run tiers no longer exist. Two things worth saying plainly. Plan sets are a separately priced Aurora service, not something a plan includes, and site models start at $9.99. And Aurora Basic at $1,620 per user per year is cheaper than a single SurgePV Individual seat at $1,899, so a one-person shop that only needs a polished residential document pays less with Aurora than with us.

Who it suits. Established US residential and commercial installers with existing Aurora muscle memory, mature template libraries and lender relationships built around Aurora outputs.

Honest limitations. Per-seat monthly pricing scales linearly with headcount, AutoDesigner and storage modeling sit behind add-ons, and onboarding a new designer typically runs two to three weeks. See our Aurora Solar alternative comparison for the full cost breakdown.

3. Solargraf

What it does best. Clean, fast residential proposals built for a North American sales motion, with strong permit-package add-ons and good US utility rate coverage. Owned by Enphase, so the microinverter and IQ Battery workflow is tight.

Real pricing. Solargraf prices by plan and project volume rather than by seat. Starter is $2,799 a year for 240 projects and 2 users, and the range runs up to Enterprise at $12,999 for 1,500 projects. API access is $4,000 a year on every plan except Enterprise. Budget the design tool you pair it with on top.

Who it suits. Residential installers who want proposal speed and are happy running a separate engineering tool for anything commercial.

Honest limitations. Shading and yield modeling is light next to a true 8,760-hour engine, so the proposal number and the engineering number can diverge. Commercial capability is thin. You are effectively buying a second license.

4. Enact Systems

What it does best. Financing flow. Enact wraps proposal generation around loan, lease and PPA options with integrated credit workflows, plus a customer-education layer that helps in consultative residential sales.

Real pricing. $279 a month covering 2 users on an annual commitment, or $299 billed monthly, so $3,348 a year for the pair. PVCAD is $267 a month and PVCAD with AutoCAD $333. Commercial projects are capped at 10 a month. Asset Management and enterprise tiers are not publicly listed.

Who it suits. US residential sales teams where financing approval is the bottleneck rather than engineering.

Honest limitations. Engineering depth is light, so it pairs with a design platform. Commercial and industrial modeling is limited, and shading analysis is not lender-grade.

5. OpenSolar

What it does best. A genuinely free design and proposal base tier, funded by hardware-partner referrals. For a solo installer doing two or three residential jobs a month, the economics are hard to argue with.

Real pricing. The core platform is free, for any number of users. OpenSolar has said that 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 those rates and they are geography-specific. We previously carried a stacked add-on figure of $80 to $150 per user per month on this page. It had no primary source and we have removed it. The honest position today is that a five-seat US team pays nothing, and nothing else on this list is cheaper.

Who it suits. Solo operators and very small residential shops in low-complexity jurisdictions.

Honest limitations. The free tier breaks down on commercial work, the code library update cadence is not something you want to bet an AHJ submission on, and stacked add-ons can end up costing more than a bundled platform. Our OpenSolar alternative guide walks through the stacked-cost math.

6. Pylon

What it does best. In-home closing. Pylon’s proposal is built for a rep sitting at a kitchen table, with fast scenario toggling, clean financing comparisons and a mobile-first presentation flow.

Real pricing. Pylon does not sell seats. It charges per project, $4.00 on Standard and $10.00 on Pro, with no monthly minimum. eSignature is $0.80 a project, payments cost 2.50 percent a transaction, and the separate Solar CRM add-on starts at $49 per user per month. A five-rep team running 40 Pro proposals a month pays $400, which is a fraction of any per-seat product here including ours. The “$99 per user per month” figure this page previously carried was wrong.

Who it suits. Door-to-door and in-home residential sales organizations that measure everything in close rate per appointment.

Honest limitations. The engineering behind the number is a sales calculator, not a bankable simulation. Rapid shutdown, string sizing and NEC detail are outside its scope, so the design team redoes the work after the sale.

7. Solo

What it does best. Proposal-as-a-service. Solo combines software with a human design desk, so a rep submits a request and gets back a finished proposal quickly without the company hiring designers.

Real pricing. Typically a per-proposal or per-seat model, commonly quoted around $100 to $200 per user per month or on a per-design basis at volume.

Who it suits. Fast-scaling residential sales organizations that want to add reps faster than they can hire designers.

Honest limitations. You are outsourcing judgment. Turnaround depends on someone else’s queue, engineering depth is proposal-grade rather than lender-grade, and unit economics get worse as design volume climbs.

8. Sunbase

What it does best. Sales operations. Sunbase is a solar CRM with proposal generation attached, covering lead capture, canvassing routes, commission tracking and follow-up automation.

Real pricing. Sunbase publishes an entry point of $59 per user per month and does not publish its higher tiers, so five seats start near $3,540 a year and anything above that is a quote.

Who it suits. Sales organizations where pipeline management is the primary problem and the proposal is a secondary output.

Honest limitations. The design and simulation layer is basic. Treat it as CRM first and expect to pair it with a real design platform. For a proposal-and-CRM pairing we use ourselves, QuickEstimate’s solar CRM buyers guide covers the evaluation criteria.

9. Demand IQ

What it does best. Top-of-funnel. Demand IQ turns a website visitor into an instant on-screen savings estimate and a booked appointment, which is a different job from producing the proposal a customer signs.

Real pricing. Demand IQ publishes its rates. Capture is $495 a month paid annually, Win is $775 and Scale is $995, priced per company rather than per seat, with an AI Texting add-on at a further $395 a month paid annually. Annualised that is $5,940, $9,300 and $11,940, and $16,680 for Scale with AI Texting.

Who it suits. Installers with meaningful web traffic who want to convert it without a rep on the phone.

Honest limitations. It is a lead-conversion product, not a proposal engine. The instant estimate is deliberately optimistic and has to be replaced by a real engineered proposal before contract.

10. HelioScope

What it does best. Commercial and industrial yield modeling. HelioScope’s simulation is well trusted by American engineers for C&I arrays, and its component library is deep.

Real pricing. Basic is $159 a month ($1,620 a year) and Pro is $259 a month ($2,640 a year), each covering 1 user and 10 projects a month, with Enterprise on quote. DC design is capped at 1.25 MW, 5 MW and 30 MW by tier. Five Pro seats come to $13,200 a year. HelioScope is Aurora-owned.

Who it suits. Engineering consultancies and C&I design teams that produce yield reports for someone else to wrap in a proposal.

Honest limitations. Proposal tooling is the weakest part of the product. There is no white-label interactive proposal or e-signature, so proposals get built somewhere else. See our HelioScope alternative comparison.

All 10 Compared: Price, Capability and Best Fit

One table, ten platforms, 2026 USD. The five-seat column is the number that actually decides most purchases.

#	Platform	5-seat annual cost	Key capability	Best for
1	SurgePV	$6,495	Proposal plus bankable 8,760-hour engineering in one license	Multi-state US installers and EPCs, residential and C&I
2	Aurora Solar	$8,100 on Basic, $13,200 on Premium	Deepest US residential proposal and rate library	Established US installers with Aurora-trained teams
3	Solargraf	$2,799 to $12,999 by plan, not per seat, + design tool	Fast residential proposals, Enphase-native	Residential-only shops
4	Enact Systems	$3,348 for 2 users + design tool	Financing and credit workflow	Finance-led residential sales
5	OpenSolar	Free; 2026 add-on rates not published	Free design and PDF proposal tier	Solo residential installers
6	Pylon	Per project, $4.00 or $10.00, not per seat	In-home sales presentation	Door-to-door sales orgs
7	Solo	~$6,000 to $12,000	Outsourced design desk plus software	Fast-hiring sales organizations
8	Sunbase	From $3,540, higher tiers not published	Solar CRM with proposals attached	Pipeline-first sales teams
9	Demand IQ	$495/mo Capture, $775/mo Win, $995/mo Scale, paid annually	Instant web-lead savings estimate	High-traffic installer websites
10	HelioScope	$8,100 on Basic, $13,200 on Pro, + proposal tool	C&I yield simulation	Engineering consultancies

Verdict. If your proposal has to hold up under lender or AHJ review, the shortlist is SurgePV and Aurora. Everything else in this table is either a sales layer that needs a design tool underneath it or an engineering tool that needs a proposal layer on top. SurgePV wins on bundled cost and on having one number flow from simulation to signature; Aurora wins on US brand familiarity and template maturity.

ITC, MACRS and the Financial Math US Proposals Get Wrong

The single largest credibility gap in American solar proposals is incentive modeling, and it splits cleanly between residential and commercial.

On residential, Section 25D gives the homeowner a 30 percent credit against federal tax liability. It is non-refundable, which means a customer whose annual federal tax liability is smaller than the credit carries the remainder forward rather than receiving a check. A proposal that shows the full credit landing in year one for a retired customer on modest fixed income is technically wrong and practically damaging when their accountant reads it.

On commercial, Section 48E pairs with 5-year MACRS depreciation. The depreciable basis is reduced by half the credit, so a $500,000 system claiming 30 percent depreciates against $425,000. Add bonus depreciation where it applies, apply the half-year convention, and the after-tax cash flow looks materially different from a naive 30 percent deduction. Layer the domestic content adder and the energy community adder on top and a qualifying project can reach 40 percent or higher. Any tool that cannot show the year-by-year after-tax cash flow is not a commercial proposal tool.

State-level revenue is the third layer. New Jersey SuSI, Massachusetts SMART, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois Shines and Washington D.C. all price solar renewable energy certificates differently, and the SREC stream can be 15 to 30 percent of project value in the strongest markets. A New Jersey proposal without SREC revenue quietly understates the customer’s return, and the customer finds out from a competitor.

Want a second opinion on a specific system? Run the numbers yourself with our free solar calculator, then talk to our engineering team about the design behind them.

Net Metering by State: What Actually Breaks a Proposal

Export compensation is where a national proposal template goes wrong fastest, because the rules are set state by state and often utility by utility.

California is the case everyone learns from. Under the net billing tariff introduced in April 2023, exports are compensated at avoided-cost values that vary by hour and season rather than at the retail rate. A 7 kW system that looked like an 85 percent bill offset under NEM 2.0 can land near 50 percent under NEM 3.0 without storage. Any tool that still runs retail-rate netting on a California address is producing a proposal the customer’s first true-up statement will contradict.

Elsewhere the picture varies. Florida retains full retail net metering for residential systems. Texas has no statewide mandate, so buyback is set by the retail electric provider and can range from generous to nearly nothing. Arizona uses an export rate reset periodically by the corporation commission. Hawaii, with the highest retail rates in the country, runs its own self-supply and grid-supply programs. The EIA electricity data is the neutral reference for the retail rates underneath all of it.

NEC 2023, AHJ Plan Sets and the Permit Handoff

A proposal is a promise about a design. In the USA that promise gets tested by the AHJ, and the gap between the sold layout and the permitted layout is where installer margin disappears.

NEC 2023 Article 690.12 sets module-level rapid shutdown requirements that constrain equipment choice. Article 705 governs interconnection, including the 120 percent busbar rule that decides whether a main panel upgrade is needed, which is often a four-figure line item nobody mentioned during the sale. Article 706 covers energy storage. Equipment must carry UL 1741 SA or SB listing for the utility to approve interconnection. Structural review, wind and snow loading under ASCE 7, and fire setbacks all vary by jurisdiction, and coastal Florida high-velocity hurricane zones add their own requirements.

The practical question for proposal software is continuity. When the customer signs, does the design flow into a permit set, or does someone start again in CAD? SurgePV generates the single-line diagram and bill of materials from the same model that produced the proposal, which is the difference between a two-hour permit package and a two-day one. For teams that outsource plan sets, our sister engineering practice publishes a useful walkthrough at how to submit a solar permit to an AHJ, and the code-change detail is covered in NEC 2023 versus NEC 2020 for solar designers. String sizing against inverter voltage windows is worth checking independently with QBits Energy’s string sizing calculator.

If permitting is the main constraint on your throughput rather than proposal speed, read our solar permit design software guide before you buy anything.

Mistakes US Sales Teams Make Choosing Proposal Software

These are the five patterns we see most often when an American installer switches platforms, ranked by how much they cost.

1. 1
   Buying on proposal aesthetics alone. A beautiful document backed by a sales calculator loses at the engineering review stage and produces change orders after contract.
2. 2
   Ignoring the second license. Solargraf, Enact, Pylon, Sunbase and Demand IQ all assume a design tool exists somewhere. Budget the pair, not the headline.
3. 3
   Treating the ITC as a rebate. Section 25D is a non-refundable credit against tax liability. Proposals that show it as an instant discount create angry customers in April.
4. 4
   Running one national savings template. California NEM 3.0, Texas retail-provider buyback and Florida retail netting produce different answers on identical hardware.
5. 5
   Skipping the main panel upgrade check. The NEC 705.12 busbar calculation decides a four-figure cost item. Discovering it after signature is a margin event.

Should You Standardize on SurgePV?

The honest tradeoff, written the way we would explain it to a partner installer.

The fair summary is that SurgePV wins on bundled capability, USD cost and engineering continuity, and loses on US brand tenure and native financing integrations. Both of those are real, and both are the kind of gap a 2025-launched platform closes over time rather than overnight.

How Heaven Green Energy Helps

Heaven Green Energy is a solar EPC with 200+ MW installed and a 12-person in-house design team. We evaluate proposal software the way an EPC does, by asking whether the document survives contact with an engineer, a lender and an inspector. That bias is why the ranking above weights simulation quality and permit continuity as heavily as proposal polish, and it is why the best solar proposal software in USA for most teams is the one that stops the number changing between the sale and the design.

• Solar EPC services for turnkey design, supply and installation with performance guarantees.
• Commercial solar for 10 to 100 kW systems with full financial modeling.
• Solar calculator for a sizing and payback check in 60 seconds.
• Contact our engineering team to review a specific proposal or design.

For the wider software cluster, start with the solar design software pillar guide, then read the best solar design software by use case breakdown and our solar design software USA comparison.

Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories

• Best solar the full software stack in the USA
• Best solar proposal software in Canada
• Best solar proposal software in the UK
• Best solar proposal software in Australia

Frequently Asked Questions

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

SurgePV ranks first at $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, scoring 46 of 50 on our 5-Signal US Proposal Test. It bundles white-label interactive proposals with e-signature, 30 percent ITC and MACRS modeling, 50-state export tariff rules including California NEM 3.0, and NEC 2023 plan-set output into one license. Aurora Solar is the closest competitor at $8,100 a year for five Basic seats or $13,200 for five Premium, with deeper US template maturity and stronger lender familiarity. Aurora Basic is genuinely cheaper than SurgePV for a single user, at $1,620 a year against our $1,899 Individual plan.

How much does solar proposal software cost in the USA?

Published 2026 US pricing runs from a free OpenSolar core platform to $220 per user per month on Aurora Premium billed annually, or $259 billed monthly. SurgePV sits at $6,495 for five seats with design and proposals bundled. Aurora is $8,100 for five Basic seats and $13,200 for five Premium. HelioScope is $1,620 or $2,640 per user per year. Enact is $3,348 a year for two users. Solargraf prices by plan, $2,799 to $12,999. Sunbase starts at $59 per user per month with higher tiers unpublished. Pylon is not a seat licence at all, charging $4.00 or $10.00 per project. Sales-first tools look cheaper on the headline but require a separate design license, so budget the pair.

Does solar proposal software calculate the federal ITC correctly?

It varies, and this is worth testing during a trial. The 30 percent Investment Tax Credit under the Inflation Reduction Act has residential rules (Section 25D, non-refundable, carries forward) and commercial rules (Section 48E, paired with 5-year MACRS, basis reduced by half the credit, plus domestic content and energy community adders). SurgePV and Aurora both model the full commercial stack. Most sales-led tools handle the residential 30 percent correctly but simplify or skip the depreciation interaction.

Which proposal software handles California NEM 3.0?

SurgePV, Aurora and Solargraf all apply California’s net billing tariff, which compensates exports at hourly avoided-cost values rather than the retail rate. That change, effective April 2023, typically cuts a non-storage residential offset from roughly 85 percent to nearer 50 percent. Any tool still running retail-rate netting on a California address produces a savings figure the customer’s first true-up will contradict. Ask the vendor directly how often the California avoided cost calculator values update.

Do I need separate design software as well as proposal software?

It depends which tool you pick. SurgePV, Aurora and OpenSolar bundle design and proposals in one license. Solargraf, Enact, Pylon, Sunbase, Demand IQ and Solo are proposal or sales layers that assume a design platform exists underneath, which means a second license. On published rates that is $8,100 a year for five Aurora Basic seats or $13,200 for five HelioScope Pro seats. HelioScope is the reverse case, strong engineering with weak proposal tooling. Budget for the pair whenever the tool is not bundled.

Does the proposal design carry through to the AHJ permit set?

Only if the platform generates the design and the proposal from the same model. SurgePV produces the single-line diagram, bill of materials and DXF export from the model that produced the proposal, so the permit package reflects what was sold. Sales-first tools produce a customer document with no engineered design behind it, so the permit team rebuilds the layout, and the rebuilt version sometimes differs enough from the sold version to need a change order.

Is there free solar proposal software for US installers?

OpenSolar’s core design and proposal platform is free for any number of users, funded by hardware referral fees, and it is not limited to solo installers. OpenSolar has said API Access, charged per project, and Connectors, charged as a flat monthly fee, become chargeable from 16 April 2026, but has not published those rates. SurgePV offers a free trial of the full platform including the proposal module with no credit card required, which is the better way to test whether bundled engineering changes your close rate.

How long does it take to train a US sales team on new proposal software?

SurgePV onboarding averages one working day, and most teams generate their first real customer proposal during the onboarding call. Aurora typically runs two to three weeks per new designer because of the breadth of its feature set. Sales-only tools such as Pylon and Solargraf onboard fastest, often in a few hours, because there is less engineering surface to learn. Factor training time into total cost of ownership, particularly if you hire seasonally.