An honest answer to “is solar actually worth it for my house?”

Why another calculator?

Because the existing ones have a conflict of interest. Free solar calculators are overwhelmingly lead-generation tools: the business model is selling your contact details to installers, which only works if the calculator says solar looks great. The result is a set of predictable, systematic biases — retail-rate credit assumed for every kilowatt-hour, degradation ignored, aggressive utility rate escalation, sunny-year weather. We wrote up the specifics in why solar calculators overestimate.

What a SolarVerdict report is

• A verdict, not a sales pitch. “Worth it”, “marginal”, or “not worth it” for your house, with the break-even conditions stated explicitly.
• Weather-normalized. Savings estimates built on long-run local weather (degree days for heating, typical solar resource for panels), not one lucky sunny year. Here’s how weather normalization works.
• Your actual rates and rules. Your utility’s rate structure, your state’s current export-compensation rules, and the post-2025 federal incentive landscape — which changed substantially.
• Math shown. Every number in the report traces to a stated assumption you can check or change. No black box.
• One-time price, planned at $29–49. No subscription, no account, and we never pass your details to installers — that’s the whole point.

What it covers

Rooftop solar (buy vs. lease vs. do nothing), heat pumps vs. your existing furnace or AC (the break-even math), and the interaction between the two — electrifying heating changes the size of solar system that makes sense.

Guides while you wait

We publish our methodology openly. These guides contain the same math the report uses:

• The thesisWhy solar calculators overestimate your savings
• Core mathHow to calculate solar payback properly
• Heat pumpsHeat pump vs. furnace: the break-even formula
• IncentivesThe federal solar tax credit changed — what it means in 2026