About SolarPayback

SolarPayback exists because asking a simple question — will solar pay off on my house? — used to mean handing your email to a lead-generation form and waiting for a sales call. We wanted the number first, and we could not find a calculator that priced the current policy honestly, so we built one. Every estimate on this site runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is uploaded, stored, or sold, because there is no server in the loop at all.

The editorial rules are short. One: policy figures come from official sources — IRS and Energy.gov for the federal side, state energy offices for the rest — and every page that states them carries the date we last read the source. Two: where numbers change too fast to print responsibly, we publish bands and mechanisms instead of decimals, and we say so. Three: the calculators are conservative by design — realistic loss assumptions, actual export tariffs rather than ideal one-to-one credit, and the federal treatment your purchase year actually qualifies for.

We are not installers, we do not sell systems, and we take no referral fees from solar companies. The site is funded by advertising, kept clearly separated from the estimates. Pages are edited by the SolarPayback team and reviewed on a yearly data cycle; corrections go to the contact address in the footer.