Residential solar installers quote per watt installed. The only thing between an address and a real quote is sizing the system: how many usable square feet of south-facing roof, how many panels fit on it, what the production looks like in kWh/year, and what the 25-year savings shake out to net of the federal ITC. Done manually, that's a 30-minute drive to the property, a drone flight, manual proposal-software entry, and a few hours of sales-engineering time. Done with Solar Launch: about 30 seconds.
How instant solar property measurement works
When the Render Agent generates an AI render of a roof with panels, it simultaneously pulls a property + production measurement from a stack of Google data sources:
- Google Solar API provides per-facet rooftop geometry — every plane, ridge, and edge of the roof with precise dimensions and sun-exposure modeling across an annual cycle. This is the same data Google's own residential-solar savings widget uses.
- Google Roads API identifies which side of the home faces the street, which the system uses to confirm orientation and surface front-facing renders that match what the homeowner sees from the curb.
- Satellite imagery fills in shading from canopy and adjacent structures, plus detached garages or accessory buildings that could host overflow panels.
The output is four numbers attached to every render: roof area in usable square feet, system size in kW, annual production in kWh, and 25-year ITC-net savings. All four feed directly into the customer portal — the homeowner sees their projected savings the moment they scan the postcard.
Why this changes the unit economics
Without instant measurement, the installer workflow looks like this: render the address → drive to property → fly drone or use proposal tool to measure → manually size system → manually project savings → send proposal → wait. Each step adds friction and drops conversion, and the cost-to-quote a single cold lead is high enough that mailing 200 addresses isn't economic.
With instant measurement, the workflow collapses: render the street → press send. Homeowners get postcards showing their rendered roof + projected savings, scan, see their personalized customer portal, and pay a refundable site-survey deposit. Zero installer time spent on tire-kickers; homeowners self-qualify.
The math compounds. Solar Launch installers average $32 in install revenue for every $1 spent on mailed solar quotes, partly because the cost-to-quote a single lead is so low that mailing 200 homes at $1 each is rational. Without instant measurement, the cost-to-quote (driver time + sales-engineering hours) would make $1 mailings unworkable.
Accuracy and when to verify on-site
For typical single-family pitched roofs, the auto-measurement is within 5–10% of a hand-engineered system — accurate enough to quote, show savings, and collect a refundable deposit. The installer should still complete a full site survey before finalizing the install for three reasons: structural assessment, electrical panel evaluation, and shading walk-through under different sun angles. The auto-measurement gets you from cold address to deposit-paid lead; the site survey gets you from deposit-paid lead to permitted install.
For homes with unusual features (multiple gables, hidden valleys, mixed roof pitches, accent dormers), Solar Launch flags the geometry as complex and lets the installer adjust the system size manually before the customer portal goes live. A 15-minute on-site walk before contract catches anything the satellite data missed.
How auto-pricing uses the measurement
In Solar Launch, the installer sets two numbers in their account: per-watt installed rate and default financing terms (cash, loan, lease — whichever they sell). From that point on, every rendered roof auto-generates:
- System size = usable south-facing area × panel-density assumption
- Gross install price = system size (W) × per-watt installed rate
- Federal ITC = gross install price × 30% (current rate through 2032)
- Net cost = gross price − ITC
- 25-year savings = annual production × current utility rate × utility escalator − net cost
All four numbers appear on the homeowner's customer portal, anchored to the rendered photo of their actual roof. The homeowner pays a refundable site-survey deposit on the spot.
See the solar pricing guide for typical per-watt ranges by region, and how to price a solar job for the full margin math.
What this replaces
- Drone flights for measurement. A 30-minute on-site task that doesn't scale to mailed-quote volumes.
- Manual proposal-tool entry. Sales engineers spending hours per quote on Aurora or Solargraf for cold leads who never convert.
- Homeowner-reported utility bills. Often missing, often wrong, always slow to collect. Solar Launch surfaces a savings number on every render before the homeowner is even contacted.
- Eyeballed Google Earth estimates. Fast but inconsistent across reps. Solar API geometry is the same for every render, every installer, every region.
Size any roof in 30 seconds.
Free account, free rendering, automatic system-size + savings calculation on every render. $1 per mailed solar quote when you're ready to send.
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