Solargis Review 2026: Bankable Data, Not a Design Tool

Every yield number you have ever produced rests on an irradiance input, and almost nobody interrogates it. Solargis exists for the people who do. It is a satellite derived solar resource and meteorological data service, sold by subscription, whose output is a time series that banks and technical advisers accept in project finance. It is not a design tool, it does not draw an array, and this review is going to say that repeatedly because the single most common mistake buyers make is treating Solargis as an alternative to a design platform. It scores 29 of 50 on our bench, and two of those five axes measure things Solargis has never tried to do. Published pricing starts at EUR 2,400 a year. Here is what it is worth, what it actually costs, and the reader for whom it is the right purchase over anything else we cover, including our own sister product.

Direct answer. Solargis is a satellite derived irradiance and meteorological data service used as a bankable input to PV yield models, with a design and simulation layer called Evaluate on top. Published pricing is EUR 2,400 a year for Prospect Basic, EUR 4,800 for Professional and EUR 12,000 for Evaluate. It scores 29 of 50 on our bench. Buy it when the data input decides the answer, not when you need a layout.

This is a review, not a switching guide. The category comparison lives in our solar design software pillar and the best solar design software ranking. What follows is the evaluation you run before a procurement conversation.

What Solargis Is

Solargis produces modelled solar resource and meteorological data from satellite imagery and atmospheric models, and sells access to it through a set of applications. The company states on its own site that its data has 250 metre spatial resolution and 1 to 15 minute temporal resolution, that it has been validated at more than 1,500 public and commercial locations globally, that it covers more than 30 years of history and 99 percent of the world’s population, and that roughly 9,000 large solar projects a year are supported by its data and software. Those are vendor claims and we report them as such.

The product line is not one thing, and understanding the split is most of the buying decision:

1. Prospect. Fast site screening. Point a pin at a location, get a solar potential estimate and a report. This is the prospecting and early stage tool.
2. Evaluate. Data, design and PV simulation in one application. This is where a project gets a real yield model, with 15 minute time series and typical meteorological year data behind it.
3. Monitor. Real time comparison of actual plant output against modelled expectation.
4. Forecast. Power output forecasting out to 14 days.
5. Analyst and Integrations. Data management and API delivery for teams that want the data inside their own systems.

The bankability claim is the whole commercial proposition. Solargis states that its data is accepted by banks and investors, that its algorithms are grounded in peer reviewed literature, and that independent validation studies support the accuracy, as set out on the Evaluate product overview. In practice what a lender’s technical adviser wants is a documented uncertainty band attached to a named dataset, and Solargis supplies exactly that. If you do not know what a P50 or P90 figure means in that context, our sister engineering practice explains it in P50, P90 and P99 solar yield reports explained.

The 5-Axis Review Bench

Every tool on this site is scored on the same five axes, out of 10 each, for a total out of 50. This is the Heaven Green 5-Axis Review Bench. The axes are published so you can disagree with a score and still use the method.

Solargis is a data service. Marking it down for weak proposal output without saying so would be unfair and you would see through it, so the Notes column states for every axis whether Solargis is competing on it at all.

Axis	What it measures	Solargis	Notes
Design and simulation depth	Data quality, sub hourly resolution, yield physics, layout capability	8 / 10	The data is the best in class part. Evaluate adds real simulation with 15 minute time series and 150+ configuration options. Loses points only on array level geometry and near object shading, which are thin next to a design suite.
Compliance and documentation output	Reports a third party will accept, uncertainty documentation, export formats	6 / 10	Reports in 15+ languages, XLSX and CSV export, PVsyst and SAM compatible outputs. Not competing on drawings: no SLD, no bill of quantities, no CAD. The 6 is for the data documentation, which is genuinely strong.
Proposal and sales workflow	Branded customer proposal, financing, e-signature, CRM	1 / 10	Not competing, at all. There is no proposal builder and no pretence of one. Scoring this axis against a data service is meaningless and we flag it rather than hide it in the total.
Price against value	Cost per project decision at the published rates	6 / 10	EUR 12,000 a year for Evaluate is serious money that only pays back at development scale. Prospect at EUR 2,400 is reasonable for a pipeline screening team.
Support and onboarding	Documentation, consultancy, validation support, responsiveness	8 / 10	A large in house consultancy arm and public validation documentation. This is a company staffed by solar resource scientists and it shows.
Total		29 / 50	Two axes carry a not competing caveat

A 29 for Solargis and a 29 for some design platform would mean completely different things. Read the axis scores, not the total. On the axis that matters for its actual job, data and simulation depth, it scores 8 of 10, and the only tool we have benched higher on data provenance is PVsyst with a purchased dataset behind it.

Verdict. Solargis is an input, not an output. On the financed projects we have seen, it is one of a small number of datasets a lender’s technical adviser accepts without argument, and it has a competent simulation layer on top. It will never draw your array or write your proposal, and it does not want to.

Pricing

Solargis publishes list pricing for two of its products and not for the rest. Everything below was taken from the vendor’s own pricing pages in August 2026.

Product	Plan	Published price	What the allowance covers
Prospect	Basic	EUR 2,400 per year	Up to 500 new projects per year, up to 5 full access users
Prospect	Professional	EUR 4,800 per year	Up to 1,000 new projects per year, up to 10 full access users
Prospect	Enterprise	Not publicly listed	Project limit by agreement, unlimited users
Evaluate	Subscription	EUR 12,000 per year	60 early stage projects, unlimited 15 minute TMY P50 simulations, designs and collaborators per project
Time Series API	Yearly to 1-min tiers	Not publicly listed	Six published tiers by time resolution, all priced on request
Monitor, Forecast, Analyst	Various	Not publicly listed	Sales conversation

Two things deserve emphasis because they contradict what is widely repeated about this product.

There is no published per site price. Solargis sells annual subscriptions with project volume allowances, not a price per location. Third party sources quote per site figures in local currencies. None of those figures appear on any Solargis pricing page we fetched, and this review does not carry them. If you have been told a per site number, treat it as a negotiated quote for a specific scope rather than a list price.

The API is where large teams actually spend. The six Time Series API tiers run from yearly resolution up to 1 minute resolution, and none of them carries a published price. If your plan is to pipe Solargis data into your own models at volume, the number you end up paying is a negotiated one and you should budget the procurement time accordingly.

What Solargis Does Best

It is the input a technical adviser will not argue with. On a financed project, the yield report is only as defensible as the dataset behind it, and the argument about which dataset is legitimate is one you want to avoid entirely. In our experience, naming Solargis in a report removes that argument with most lenders’ advisers. That is worth more than any feature.

Sub hourly resolution changes the answer on real sites. Hourly data smooths out exactly the events that hurt you: fast passing cloud, morning fog burn off, a dust event. Solargis publishes down to 1 minute and 15 minute resolution, and on a site with high intermittency the clipping and inverter loading picture at 15 minutes is materially different from the hourly one.

The direct and diffuse split is done properly. Most yield disagreements between two engineers using the same layout trace back to the direct normal and diffuse horizontal components rather than to the total. Getting that split right matters more in humid and monsoon climates than the choice of simulation engine does. Our glossary covers direct normal irradiance and global horizontal irradiance if those terms are new.

It exports into the tools you already use. Time series and TMY downloads are available in CSV, JSON, PVsyst and SAM formats. That is the entire point: Solargis feeds your engine, it does not replace it. Pairing it with PVsyst is the standard utility scale workflow.

Monitoring closes the loop. Once the plant is built, Monitor compares actual output against modelled expectation using the same dataset that underwrote the financing. Being able to attribute an underperformance to weather rather than to plant availability, using consistent data, is how performance ratio disputes get settled without a fight.

Where Solargis Falls Short

It is not a design tool, and buying it will not give you one. No roof model, no near object shading geometry, no string sizing, no inverter selection, no single line diagram, no bill of quantities. Evaluate lays out modules for utility scale projects and that is a real capability, but it is a plant layout capability, not a rooftop design capability.

The price is a development scale price. EUR 12,000 a year for Evaluate is not a number a residential or small commercial installer can rationalise, and Solargis is not pretending otherwise. Prospect at EUR 2,400 is affordable, but Prospect is a screening tool and its output will not carry a financing decision.

Pricing transparency stops abruptly. Two products publish, the rest do not, and the API tiers, which is where a data hungry team will actually spend, publish nothing. That is a normal enterprise pattern and it still costs the buyer time.

Satellite data is modelled data. It is very good modelled data with a documented uncertainty band, and it is still not a pyranometer on your site. On a large utility scale project the ground measurement campaign remains a real line item, and Solargis is what you correlate it against rather than a substitute for it.

It says nothing about near object shading. A tree, a parapet, a chimney or a neighbouring shed is invisible to a 250 metre satellite grid. That gap is filled by a shading tool or by a field instrument, which is why our shading analysis guide and our Solmetric SunEye review exist as separate pages.

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Who Should Buy Solargis

There is a reader for whom Solargis is the correct purchase over every other tool on this site, including ours. Here is that reader.

You are a utility scale developer, an independent power producer or a technical adviser, running a pipeline of projects at tens to hundreds of megawatts, where the output of your work is a document somebody lends against. Your projects live in regions where public datasets disagree with each other by several percent, and a 3 percent difference in long term irradiance moves your debt sizing. Your bottleneck is not drawing speed. It is defensibility.

For that reader the arithmetic is easy. If a documented dataset shifts a lender’s assumed P90 by even 1 percent on a 100 MW project, the financing consequence dwarfs a EUR 12,000 subscription. This is the same logic that puts RatedPower and PVcase into utility scale toolchains rather than rooftop ones, and our utility scale design software guide covers how those pieces fit together.

Two more readers should buy it:

1. Teams screening large pipelines. Prospect at EUR 2,400 a year for 500 new projects works out to under EUR 5 per screened site, which is cheap for a first pass filter.
2. Asset owners running post construction performance analysis. Consistency between the underwriting dataset and the monitoring dataset is worth paying for.

Who Should Not Buy Solargis

Rooftop installers of any size. A 5 kW home system does not have a bankability problem, and no lender is asking for its P90. A design and proposal platform is the right purchase, ranked in our best solar design software guide.

Anyone who needs a proposal at the end. Solargis produces no customer facing document. Proposal first tools are compared in our solar proposal software guide.

Teams whose real problem is near object shading. If your losses come from a tree line rather than from resource uncertainty, better satellite data will not help. Buy a shading capable design tool, or measure the sky dome with an instrument.

Indian residential and small commercial installers. The PM Surya Ghar rooftop segment tracked by MNRE runs on volume, subsidy arithmetic and speed. A EUR 2,400 data subscription buys nothing that a good rooftop platform does not already include. Our India design software comparison covers the practical options.

Anyone buying it expecting to replace a design suite. This is the mistake, stated once more, because it is the one that wastes the most money.

Solargis vs SurgePV

Disclosure, stated plainly: SurgePV is a sister product of Heaven Green Energy, and we run it on our own EPC projects every day. That is first party operating experience and also a commercial interest. Read the table with both facts in view.

These two products sit at different points in the same chain, so read the table as a division of labour rather than a contest.

Axis	Solargis	SurgePV	Honest read
Irradiance data provenance	Own satellite derived dataset, documented uncertainty	Third party sourced meteorological data	Solargis, decisively. This is its entire product.
Sub hourly resolution	Down to 1 minute	8,760-hour hourly simulation	Solargis on resolution.
Lender and adviser acceptance	Named in project finance documents	We are not aware of a term sheet that names SurgePV	Solargis. A real SurgePV weakness.
3D roof and array layout	None for rooftop	AI 3D roof from a satellite address	SurgePV.
Near object shading	None	8,760-hour module level	SurgePV.
SLD and BOQ	None	Native auto generated	SurgePV.
Branded proposal	None	Native, white label	SurgePV.
Structural stamping	None	Not available in SurgePV	Neither. Do not buy either for this.
Racking database	Not applicable	Thinner than its module and inverter libraries	A real SurgePV gap.
Brand track record	Two decades in solar resource assessment	Launched 2025, thin brand recognition	Solargis.
Published price	EUR 2,400 to EUR 12,000 per year, per product	$1,299 per user per year, 5-User Team	Both publish partial lists.

SurgePV’s named weaknesses are in that table deliberately. It launched in 2025 and carries thin brand recognition, it has no drone capture, no structural stamping, a racking library thinner than its module and inverter libraries, and crucially no dataset of its own, which is exactly the thing Solargis sells. On a financed utility scale project the honest answer is that you may want both, with SurgePV’s simulation software doing the design and a purchased dataset doing the resource case.

How Heaven Green Energy Uses This In Practice

We build solar across residential, commercial and industrial segments out of Gujarat, and for the overwhelming majority of our pipeline a paid resource dataset is not the constraint. On a 6 kW rooftop in Ahmedabad the uncertainty that matters is the shadow of the neighbour’s water tank, not a 2 percent difference in long term global horizontal irradiance. We say so to customers plainly.

Where the calculus changes is ground mount and large captive projects. On land based work the resource question stops being academic, because the difference between two datasets across a 25 year term compounds into a number the client’s bank cares about. On those projects the resource case is bought or commissioned rather than assumed, and it is validated against whatever ground measurement exists nearby.

The pattern we recommend to partners: do not pay for premium resource data until somebody in the transaction is actually asking for it. When they do ask, do not try to negotiate it after the term sheet. And keep the dataset you underwrote with as the dataset you monitor against, because switching sources between financing and operations turns every performance conversation into an argument about methodology. Our sister engineering practice covers the reporting side through its PVsyst resource centre.

For readers on the buying side rather than the building side:

• Industrial Solar EPC: 100 kW+ turnkey where the resource case is a real document.
• Ground Mount Solar Park: land based projects where irradiance data drives the business case.
• Commercial Solar: 10 to 100 kW with ROI modelling and depreciation planning.
• Solar Calculator: subsidy and 25 year savings in 60 seconds.

Related evaluations in this series: PVsyst review, PVcase review, HOMER Pro review and RatedPower review. For global solar resource context outside vendor material, IRENA and the IEA both publish freely.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Solargis cost in 2026?

Solargis publishes prices for two products. Prospect Basic is EUR 2,400 per year and covers up to 500 new projects and 5 full access users. Prospect Professional is EUR 4,800 per year for up to 1,000 projects and 10 users. Evaluate is EUR 12,000 per year and includes 60 early stage projects with unlimited simulations, designs and collaborators per project. Enterprise plans, the Time Series API tiers, Monitor, Forecast and Analyst are all quoted on request.

Does Solargis charge per site?

Not on any published price list. Solargis sells annual subscriptions with project volume allowances rather than a price per location. Per site figures circulate in third party write ups, but they do not appear on any Solargis pricing page we could fetch. Treat any per site number you are given as a negotiated quote for a defined scope, not as a list price.

Is Solargis a solar design software?

Not in the sense most installers mean. It is a solar resource and meteorological data service with a simulation and utility scale layout application called Evaluate on top. It does not produce a rooftop 3D model, a near object shading study, a single line diagram, a bill of quantities or a customer proposal. If you need those, you need a design platform, and Solargis would sit alongside it as a data input.

Is Solargis data bankable?

Solargis states that its data is accepted by banks and investors, that its methods are grounded in peer reviewed literature, and that it has been validated at more than 1,500 locations globally. In practice it is one of a small number of commercial datasets that lenders’ technical advisers routinely accept. Bankability is decided by the specific lender and adviser on a project, so confirm acceptance before you buy rather than after.

Solargis or PVsyst, which do I need?

They are complementary. PVsyst is the simulation engine whose reports lenders name. Solargis is a source of the irradiance and meteorological time series that feeds such an engine, and it exports in PVsyst compatible format for exactly that reason. On a financed utility scale project, teams commonly run PVsyst with a purchased Solargis dataset behind it.

What is the difference between Solargis Prospect and Evaluate?

Prospect is a screening tool. It gives a fast solar potential estimate for a location and is priced for volume, at EUR 2,400 or EUR 4,800 a year depending on project and user limits. Evaluate is the project grade application, with 15 minute time series, typical meteorological year data, more than 150 configuration options and PV simulation, at EUR 12,000 a year for 60 early stage projects. Prospect filters a pipeline, Evaluate underwrites a project.

Does Solargis handle shading from trees and buildings?

No. Its data is a modelled resource grid at a stated 250 metre spatial resolution, which is far coarser than any near object obstruction. Tree lines, parapets, chimneys and neighbouring structures have to be handled by a design tool with shading geometry, or measured on site with a fisheye instrument. Buying better satellite data will not fix a near object shading problem.

Is Solargis worth it for an Indian EPC?

Only at ground mount and utility scale. For rooftop work under PM Surya Ghar, the resource uncertainty is not what decides the project, and a subscription starting at EUR 2,400 a year buys nothing a good rooftop platform does not already include. For land based projects where a bank is reading the yield report, a documented dataset becomes worth paying for.