Aurora vs HelioScope: 2026 Head-to-Head for Installers

People search Aurora vs HelioScope because the two tools look interchangeable on a spec sheet. Both promise satellite roof capture, shading-aware energy simulation, and a cloud workflow that does not require a Windows desktop. The reality is that they are built for different ends of the market and a residential installer who picks the wrong one will spend the first six months paying for capability they do not use, or fighting the platform for capability they need every day. This guide is a working comparison written from the perspective of a design bench that has shipped both tools through permit on the same week.

Direct answer. Aurora Solar wins for US residential installers who need a 50-state AHJ library, AI-assisted roof design, and a polished sales-mode proposal motion at $159 to $259 per user per month. HelioScope wins for commercial and industrial designers who need 8,760-hour simulation with a documented wire-loss model on every tier, starting around $99 per user per month. The third option neither user usually considers is SurgePV: an all-in-one platform at $1,299 per seat per year that delivers Aurora’s proposal motion, HelioScope’s bankable simulation, and an NEC 2023 single-line diagram in one license. See the direct breakdown at the SurgePV Aurora vs HelioScope page for the side-by-side.

Both Tools at a Glance

The fastest way to understand where the line falls is to look at the dimensions that change the win for a project, not the marketing pages. The table below is what we use internally when an installer asks us to recommend one over the other for a specific job profile.

Dimension	Aurora Solar	HelioScope
Pricing range	$159 to $259 per user per month	$99 to $300 per user per month
Primary market	US residential and small C&I	C&I, utility-scale ground mount
Shading model	Hourly on Grow, module-level on top tier only	8,760-hour module-level on every tier
Wire-loss model	Limited transparency	Documented per-string DC and AC losses
AHJ library	50-state preset library	None, designer supplies code rules
NEC single-line diagram	Yes, on top tier	No
Proposal output	Sales Mode add-on, branded customer portal	None, third-party tool required
Bankability acceptance	Residential lender accepted	C&I IE accepted, utility-scale conditional
Browser-based	Yes	Yes
Typical learning curve	One to two weeks for a sales rep	Two to four weeks for a designer

The two platforms diverge on what the company optimized for. Aurora built a polished close-the-deal motion that a sales rep can run end to end. HelioScope built a bankable simulation engine that a project engineer can defend to an independent engineer (IE). Picking between them is mostly a question of which half of the workflow you are willing to outsource to a second tool, or to a design partner.

Where Aurora Wins

Aurora’s defensible advantage is the residential sales motion. A rep can pull a satellite image, drop a system, generate a shading-aware production estimate, and email a branded proposal in under thirty minutes. That speed is the reason Aurora became the default in the US residential market between 2018 and 2023, and it is still the reason most multi-state residential installers stay.

Fifty-state AHJ presets

Aurora ships preconfigured AHJ rule sets for all fifty US states, covering setback rules, fire access pathways, and structural attachment minimums. For a residential installer running California in the morning and Texas in the afternoon, this saves the designer from hand-coding the local AHJ requirements on every project. HelioScope does not ship anything equivalent, which means the designer has to track the rules separately and apply them at the layout step.

AI roof design and Sales Mode

Aurora’s AI roof recognition reads a satellite tile, traces the eave and ridge lines, and proposes a layout that a designer can edit instead of build from scratch. Combined with Sales Mode, this means a sales rep with two weeks of training can walk a homeowner through a system on a tablet, drop modules in real time, and lock the deal in the same visit. HelioScope does not offer a consumer-facing mode at all; the closest equivalent is exporting the design to a third-party proposal tool.

Residential lender acceptance

Most US residential lenders, including the large solar finance platforms, accept Aurora production estimates without an additional yield study. HelioScope outputs are also accepted but are more common in C&I underwriting, where the lender already expects a separate engineer review.

For a deeper read on Aurora’s positioning and where installers are pulling away from it, see our full review of Aurora Solar alternatives.

Where HelioScope Wins

HelioScope was built for a different buyer: the project engineer who has to defend a yield estimate to an IE and a lender. Every design decision in the platform leans toward simulation honesty over sales polish. That trade-off makes it the right pick for commercial, industrial, and small utility-scale work, and the wrong pick for a residential sales motion.

Bankable 8,760-hour shading on every tier

HelioScope has shipped hour-by-hour module-level shading since launch, on every price tier. According to NREL’s 2024 US PV cost benchmark, simulation fidelity is the single biggest driver of underwriting uncertainty above 500 kW, and HelioScope’s transparency on the shading method is part of why it became the default for the C&I segment. Aurora reserves module-level shading for the top tier, which means a Grow-tier customer running a 750 kW carport is doing the wrong simulation by default.

Documented wire-loss model

HelioScope exposes per-string DC loss, AC loss, and combiner-to-inverter loss as separate line items in the simulation output. An IE reviewing the report can trace each loss back to a layout decision and a conductor spec. This is the level of transparency a C&I underwriter expects, and it is the reason HelioScope reports survive IE review with minimal back-and-forth.

Ground-mount, carport, and small utility-scale

HelioScope handles row pitch, tracker geometry, and inverter clustering in ways Aurora was never built to. A designer can model a 5 MW ground-mount with realistic row-to-row shading and a defensible inter-row loss in a single afternoon. For a working comparison of the platforms in this segment, see our guide to utility-scale solar design software.

For the full HelioScope replacement landscape, including the platforms that close the proposal gap, see our review of HelioScope alternatives.

The Hidden Third Option: SurgePV

Most teams running the Aurora vs HelioScope decision do not realize there is a platform that ships both halves of the workflow in a single license at a fraction of the per-seat cost. SurgePV entered the market with a deliberate position: combine Aurora’s residential close motion with HelioScope’s bankable simulation, price it under both, and ship every feature on the standard tier.

What SurgePV replaces in one license

The standard SurgePV plan at $1,299 per seat per year (on a five-team minimum) ships AI 3D roof design, 8,760-hour shadow analysis, an NEC 2023 single-line diagram generator, white-label solar proposals, an AutoCAD DXF export, and Clara AI for design-time assistance. A residential installer who currently runs Aurora plus a separate proposal tool, and a C&I designer who runs HelioScope plus a separate proposal tool, both collapse to a single platform.

Why most teams miss it

SurgePV does not show up in the same RFP shortlist as Aurora and HelioScope because the platform is younger and the marketing spend is smaller. The installers who do find it are usually three years into an Aurora subscription, looking for a way to drop the per-seat cost without losing the proposal motion, and they discover that the standard SurgePV tier already includes the simulation tier they were going to upgrade Aurora to. You can book a SurgePV demo to run your own residential and C&I projects through the platform.

Pricing Comparison

Per-seat list price is only the first layer. The real comparison is what each platform costs to ship one permitted, fundable project across a year of normal volume.

Cost line	Aurora Solar	HelioScope	SurgePV
Entry tier	$159 per user per month	$99 per user per month	$1,299 per seat per year
Top tier	$259 per user per month with Sales Mode	$300 per user per month	$1,899 per seat per year
Module-level shading	Top tier only	Every tier	Every tier
NEC single-line diagram	Top tier only	Not included	Every tier
Customer proposal	Sales Mode add-on	Not included	Every tier
AutoCAD DXF export	Add-on	Add-on	Every tier
Three-seat annual cost	$5,700 to $9,300	$3,600 to $10,800	$3,897 flat
Five-seat annual cost	$9,540 to $15,540	$5,940 to $18,000	$6,495 flat

The five-seat row is where the picture changes for most installers. A five-seat Aurora subscription on the Sales Mode tier costs around $15,540 before any add-ons, and a five-seat HelioScope subscription on the top tier costs around $18,000 before the proposal tool you still have to buy separately. SurgePV pricing at the same seat count is $6,495 and the proposal tool is already in the box.

The 3-Way Decision Framework

We tell installers asking us this question to walk through three questions in order. The answer is usually one of the three platforms, not a coin flip.

A separate decision matrix sometimes recommends a third tool entirely. For installers selling against high-shading suburban roofs in California or Arizona, the LiDAR-driven measurement tools (Scanifly, Solo) close a gap neither Aurora nor HelioScope was built for. See our review of Scanifly alternatives for that segment.

Or Skip Both: SurgePV in One Tool

The cleanest way to read this comparison is that Aurora is half a workflow and HelioScope is the other half, and the installer pays twice if they want the whole thing. SurgePV ships both halves in one license at a quarter of the combined cost. For an installer running mixed residential and C&I, the per-project margin recovery typically pays for the entire annual subscription inside the first month.

How Heaven Designs Helps

We are a working solar design bench. We do not sell software; we ship permitted, fundable design packages on behalf of installers who already pay for Aurora, HelioScope, or both. The reason the comparison above is granular is that we run all three platforms on live projects every week, and the differences show up in time-to-permit, not in marketing copy.

When an installer asks us which to pick, we typically recommend keeping the existing license for the first six months of a migration and routing new projects through the candidate platform. The Heaven Designs rooftop detailed engineering design and permit design services are platform-agnostic, which means an installer can test SurgePV on three projects without committing the whole team. For pre-construction visualization, our 3D pre-design service runs on whichever platform produces the cleanest output for the specific roof. If the installer also runs a finance-side workflow on a sister CRM like QuickEstimate, we coordinate the design hand-off directly.

For installers who want a deeper read on the segment-by-segment landscape, see our long-form reviews of Aurora Solar alternatives, HelioScope alternatives, and the broader solar design software map. For more on what bankability actually requires, our bankability glossary entry walks through the IE-side checklist most installers do not see until the report comes back. And for an introduction to the simulation engine that underwrites most of the industry’s yield modeling, see the PVsyst glossary entry.

According to SEIA’s market research, US residential installer margins compressed by 18 percent between 2023 and 2025, and the C&I segment grew faster than residential for the first time in four years. The platform choice is not just a productivity decision; it is the line item that most directly controls per-watt soft cost in 2026. The IEA PVPS research program tracks the same trend across major PV markets.

To talk through a specific job profile and which of the three platforms fits, contact us with a project sample.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Aurora better than HelioScope for residential?

Aurora is built for the residential close motion, with a 50-state AHJ library and a Sales Mode add-on that lets a rep walk a homeowner through the system on a tablet. HelioScope does not ship a customer-facing proposal and does not preload AHJ rule sets, which means a residential installer ends up doing more work outside the platform. For a residential-heavy team, Aurora is the better single-tool pick of the two. SurgePV ships the same residential motion at lower per-seat cost.

Is HelioScope better than Aurora for commercial?

HelioScope ships 8,760-hour module-level shading on every tier and exposes a documented per-string wire-loss model, which makes the simulation report defensible to an independent engineer. Aurora reserves the equivalent shading fidelity for the top tier and is less transparent on wire losses. For C&I projects above 100 kW, HelioScope is the better of the two. SurgePV ships the same simulation fidelity on the standard tier and adds a proposal output.

How much does Aurora Solar cost in 2026?

Aurora’s Grow tier runs around $159 per user per month and the Sales Mode add-on pushes the effective cost to roughly $259 per user per month. A five-seat team typically pays between $9,540 and $15,540 per year before AutoCAD export or additional storage. For the full pricing breakdown across the residential alternative set, see our Aurora Solar alternatives guide.

How much does HelioScope cost in 2026?

HelioScope ranges from around $99 per user per month at the entry tier to roughly $300 per user per month at the top tier. A five-seat team pays between $5,940 and $18,000 per year. The platform does not include a proposal tool, so most teams add a third-party proposal cost on top.

Can SurgePV replace both Aurora and HelioScope?

Yes. SurgePV ships AI 3D roof design, 8,760-hour shadow analysis, NEC 2023 single-line diagrams, a customer-facing proposal, and an AutoCAD DXF export on the standard tier at $1,299 per seat per year. It is the only platform we recommend to mixed-segment installers as a true one-tool replacement for the Aurora plus HelioScope stack.

Which tool produces the most bankable yield reports?

HelioScope and SurgePV both ship 8,760-hour simulation on every tier, which is the threshold most C&I underwriters expect. PVsyst is still the gold standard for utility-scale bankability above 5 MW, with a .PRJ file format that lenders treat as the default. For projects in the 100 kW to 5 MW range, HelioScope and SurgePV reports are typically accepted without an additional yield study.

Does Aurora generate NEC single-line diagrams?

Aurora generates NEC 2023 single-line diagrams on the top tier. HelioScope does not generate single-line diagrams at all. SurgePV generates NEC 2023 SLDs on the standard tier without an add-on. For the difference between an SLD and a full AutoCAD electrical drawing, see our review of AI solar design software.

Where does Heaven Designs fit in this comparison?

Heaven Designs is a working solar design bench. We ship permit-ready packages, detailed engineering designs, and 3D pre-design visualizations on whichever platform the installer prefers. We do not sell software. We typically run Aurora, HelioScope, and SurgePV side by side on live projects, which is the reason this comparison is written from a working-bench perspective rather than a marketing one.