Solar quotes without the cold calls
If you have ever put your details into a solar comparison site, you know what happens next. The phone starts within minutes and does not stop for a fortnight. That is not a fault in the system — it is the system.
It is worth understanding how most comparison sites actually make money, because once you do, the ringing phone stops being a mystery.
Where your phone number goes
The standard model is lead generation. You fill in a form. The site passes your name, address and phone number to two or three installers on its panel. Each of those installers pays a fee for your details — whether or not you ever buy anything.
Follow that through. Three companies have each paid real money for your phone number before speaking to you. Every one of them now has a commercial reason to reach you first, to keep calling if you do not answer, and to get someone into your lounge room. Nobody is behaving badly. They are responding rationally to what they were charged for.
"But it was free"
It was free to you. The installers paid, and that cost does not evaporate — it sits inside the price you are eventually quoted, along with the cost of every other lead that did not convert. You are paying for the leads that went nowhere.
This is now a regulatory issue, not just an annoyance
In 2025 the Consumer Action Law Centre lodged a designated complaint — a "super complaint" — with the ACCC, calling for a nationwide ban on unsolicited selling of solar, including door-to-door and telemarketing. The complaint describes exactly this pattern: people enter their details somewhere, and are then subjected to cold calls and in-home sales pressure, with the greatest harm falling on people in vulnerable circumstances.
You do not need to take a view on the regulation to draw the practical conclusion: the model that generates the calls is the model that sells your details. If you would rather not be called, the question to ask is not "is this site reputable" but "does this site get paid for my phone number".
Why the three quotes never line up anyway
There is a second problem with the lead model, and it is arguably worse. The three companies who call you are not quoting the same job.
Each sends its own salesperson, proposes its own system size, its own panels and inverter, and makes its own assumptions about your switchboard, your cable run and your roof. You end up with three numbers that cannot be compared, because they are prices for three different things. Most people, understandably, pick the middle one and hope.
What a different process looks like
| Lead-generation model | Assessed-design model | |
|---|---|---|
| Who visits | Two or three salespeople, separately | One technician, once |
| What is quoted | Three different systems | One design, priced by each installer |
| Who pays for you | Installers pay per lead, before contact | Installers pay for a seat on a real, assessed job |
| Your details | Released to several companies up front | Released to the installer you choose |
| Comparing | Different products, different prices | Same specification, so price is the variable |
The distinction that matters is when your contact details move, and what the installer is paying for. If they are paying for a phone number, you will be phoned. If they are paying to quote a specific job that a technician has already been to, the incentive is to price it well — because they are competing on the same design, in the open, against people who can see the same roof.
Questions worth asking any comparison service
- Do installers pay you for my contact details, and when do they receive them?
- Will each installer quote the same system, or propose their own?
- Does anyone actually look at my roof before I am quoted?
- How many companies will contact me, and can I stop it?
- What evidence will I get that the installation was done properly?
That last question separates a comparison service from a lead broker more sharply than any of the others. A broker's involvement ends when your details are sold. Nobody is checking the roof afterwards.
Quotes come to you. Not salespeople.
One technician assesses your roof and produces one design. Accredited installers price that same design, and you choose from a board — they get your details when you pick one, not before. Every install is photographed against a fixed protocol and compliance-checked, and you keep that record.
Start with your address →