Teams looking for a Solo alternative are rarely unhappy with the designs. They are unhappy with a cost line that grows with every deal, or with a turnaround window they cannot compress. Solo, sometimes written GetSolo, sells software paired with delivered design for US residential sales organisations. Replacing it is not a feature swap. It is a decision about which parts of your design function you own and which parts you buy.
Direct answer. The best Solo alternatives in 2026 are SurgePV at $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year for installers who want to own design capability in-house, Aurora Solar at $1,908 to $3,108 per user per year for high-volume US residential sales, OpenSolar for teams leaving on cost alone, HelioScope for work shifting commercial, PVsyst for funder-reviewed yield studies, and outsourced design partners if you truly do not want design staff.
TL;DR
- The alternatives split into two groups: tools you operate yourself, and other people who deliver designs for you. Decide the group before you compare products.
- SurgePV ranks first for owning the capability. One licence covers 8,760-hour simulation with module-level shading, single-line diagrams, DWG export, and a white-label proposal.
- Per-design pricing scales down cleanly in a slow quarter, which salaried capacity never does. It also scales up linearly, so at volume it can exceed the cost of owning.
- Turnaround sits inside your sales cycle. With a delivered model you cannot shorten it by working harder, and incentive deadlines queue everyone at once.
- Heaven Designs sells outsourced solar design services, so we are inside this market. We are not against outsourcing. We are against outsourcing without deciding what you keep.
The Two Kinds of Solo Alternative
Every list of Solo alternatives you will read mixes two different purchases and pretends they compete. They do not.
The first group is tools you operate. You buy a seat, your people learn it, and the design work happens inside your company. Cost is fixed per user and the cost per design falls as volume rises. SurgePV, Aurora, OpenSolar, HelioScope, and PVsyst all sit here.
The second group is other providers who deliver finished designs. You submit a request and a design comes back. Cost tracks volume in both directions, and no capability accumulates in your business. Heaven Designs sits here, and so does Solo.
Moving between products inside one group is a preference. Moving between groups changes how your company works.
When Staying on a Delivered-Design Model Is the Right Answer
This section is not a courtesy. For a meaningful number of readers, the correct outcome is to stay put.
Solo’s delivered-design model genuinely removes the need to staff a design function. That is the strongest argument in its favour and it is a real one. Hiring designers means recruiting for a role most sales leaders cannot interview for, then training them, reviewing their output, and retaining them. Removing that job removes an entire management problem.
Per-design pricing also scales down cleanly. If lead flow drops for a quarter, salaried capacity costs the same and does less. A per-design fee simply gets smaller. For a seasonal business, or one growing in uneven steps, that elasticity is worth paying for.
And reps stay reps. A closer learning a design tool is a closer not closing.
So stay if all of the following hold. Your work is clean US residential. Your volume is uneven or still climbing. You have no intention of managing designers. Your current turnaround is not costing you deals. If that is your company, switching tools will cost you more than it returns.
Everyone else should read on.
1. SurgePV. Best If You Want to Own the Capability
Who it is for. Installers and EPCs who want design competence inside their own walls at a predictable per-seat cost, rather than a fee attached to every deal.
How it compares to a delivered model. SurgePV is browser-based and your own people operate it. It runs 8,760-hour simulation with module-level shading, mismatch, and string topology, produces single-line diagrams and DWG export from the same model, and ships a white-label proposal layer. That last point matters when you are replacing a delivered offering, because the proposal is part of what you were buying. You are not just replacing the drawing. Turnaround becomes yours, and a live customer change is made rather than requested.
Honest limitation. Somebody has to learn it and keep using it. A seat licence you do not staff produces nothing, and the elasticity you had disappears. In a slow quarter the licence costs the same. If your volume genuinely collapses in winter, that is a real cost you should price before switching.
Price. $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year. See it on your own project at surgepv.com/demo.
2. Aurora Solar. Best for High-Volume US Residential Sales
Who it is for. Teams that want to own design but whose motion is unmistakably high-volume US residential selling, with reps producing proposals at the kitchen table.
How it compares to a delivered model. Aurora keeps the sales-first shape that made a delivered offering attractive, and puts it in your hands. Reps produce the proposal instead of waiting for one. The dependency on an external queue disappears, which is often the specific pain that started the search.
Honest limitation. It is the most expensive option on this list per seat, and higher-tier capability sits behind the higher price. If cost was the reason you started looking, Aurora may not solve it. Commercial work above roughly 1 MW is also not the audience the product was built around.
Price. $1,908 to $3,108 per user per year.
3. OpenSolar. Best Free Option If Cost Is the Reason You Are Leaving
Who it is for. Small and mid-size residential installers whose search began with an invoice, not a workflow complaint.
How it compares to a delivered model. OpenSolar is free at the seat because it is transaction-funded rather than licence-funded. Against a per-design fee that grows every month, a zero-dollar seat is a straightforward answer. Your team does the work, so you also stop paying per deal and start accumulating some capability.
Honest limitation. Free at the seat is not free in total. You are paying with your own people’s time, and the funding model means the vendor’s interests sit in the transaction layer rather than in your licence. Teams with commercial or funder-reviewed work usually add a second tool alongside.
Price. Free at the seat, transaction-funded.
4. HelioScope. Best If the Work Is Shifting Commercial
Who it is for. Companies whose book is drifting from residential rooftops toward commercial and industrial projects, where the design question changes shape.
How it compares to a delivered model. A residential-focused delivered offering is a poor match for commercial work, because commercial design decisions are engineering decisions made against a specific site. HelioScope puts module-level hourly simulation in your team’s hands, which is what a commercial buyer’s engineer expects to see behind the numbers.
Honest limitation. HelioScope does not ship a customer-facing proposal, so if you were relying on a delivered proposal you now need something else for it. It is also built for engineers rather than reps, so a residential closer will not pick it up unaided.
Price. Around $1,188 per user per year.
5. PVsyst. Best If a Funder or Consultant Now Reads Your Yield Studies
Who it is for. Companies whose projects have started attracting financing scrutiny, where an independent engineer or lender reviews the production estimate.
How it compares to a delivered model. It does not compare, and that is the point. Sales-first platforms and delivered residential designs are not bankable simulation, and that is a scope fact rather than a fault. When a funder starts asking questions, PVsyst is the reference the market accepts. Buy it alongside whatever else you run, not instead of it.
Honest limitation. It is not a design or proposal tool. No customer-facing output, no NEC-style drawing set, and a learning curve that eats a junior designer’s first fortnight. It solves one problem, precisely.
Price. Around $500 per user per year.
6. Outsourced Design Partners, Including Heaven Designs
Disclosure first. Heaven Designs sells outsourced solar design services. We produce plan sets for installers who choose not to run a bench, so this entry is our own business and you should read it knowing that. We are not hostile to outsourcing. The question is which parts you own and which you buy.
Who it is for. Companies that genuinely do not want to staff a design function, and companies that own a tool but need overflow capacity.
How it compares to a delivered model. It is the same model with a different provider, which is the honest description. What varies between providers is scope. A residential proposal-and-design offering and a stamped permit-pack bench are different services even though both arrive as finished work. If your constraint is permit drawings rather than sales proposals, the switch is a real one.
Honest limitation. Every limitation of the delivered model applies to us too. Cost scales up linearly with volume. Turnaround sits inside your cycle. No capability accumulates in your company. That is why our own solar permit design service is built as a capacity service that installers run alongside their own tools rather than instead of them. The distinction between capacity and capability is the whole argument, and the permit design software versus service comparison sets it out properly.
Price. Quoted per project or per pack, and it varies with scope, jurisdiction, and stamping.
Comparison Table
| Option | Model | Best for | Price | Do you own the capability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SurgePV | Tool you operate | Owning design at a predictable per-seat cost | $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year | Yes |
| Aurora Solar | Tool you operate | High-volume US residential sales | $1,908 to $3,108 per user per year | Yes |
| OpenSolar | Tool you operate, transaction-funded | Leaving on cost alone | Free at the seat | Yes |
| HelioScope | Tool you operate | Work shifting toward commercial | About $1,188 per user per year | Yes |
| PVsyst | Tool you operate | Funder-reviewed yield studies | About $500 per user per year | Yes, for yield only |
| Outsourced partners | Delivered design | Not staffing design at all | Quoted per project | No |
| Solo | Software plus delivered design | Sales-led residential with no design staff | Per design or subscription, quoted | No |
Try the software behind this review
When you cross the volume line, own the design instead of renting it
SurgePV runs 8,760-hour simulation with module-level shading, exports the single-line diagram and DWG from the same model, and ships a white-label proposal. $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year.
Book a free SurgePV demo →No credit card. 20-minute walkthrough on one of your own projects.
How to Run the Decision in One Afternoon
Start with the crossover volume, because it settles most of the argument. Take the fully loaded annual cost of one designer, meaning salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, hardware, software, management hours, and recruiting cost spread over expected tenure. Divide that by your real per-design fee. The result is the annual volume where owning gets cheaper. Below it, buying wins. Above it, owning wins and the gap widens with every extra deal.
Then correct the number twice. Count every design you paid for last year, including revisions and abandoned requests, not just the ones that closed. And use a throughput figure your operations lead will put their name on, because an optimistic throughput assumption halves the crossover.
Finally, price the things the spreadsheet misses. Institutional knowledge of how your AHJs read a plan set. Control over turnaround during an incentive deadline. The management load you take on when you hire. Our designer hiring versus outsourcing ROI breakdown runs the maths with fuller inputs, the hidden cost of an in-house solar designer argues the other side, and solar design software pricing covers the tooling line for an owned bench.
Most growing installers land in the middle. They own a tool so the team can handle live changes and understand their own designs, and they buy capacity for overflow and permit packs. That is a deliberate split, not a compromise.
Conclusion
- Choose the group before the product. Tools you operate and providers who deliver are different purchases, and only one of them leaves capability inside your company.
- The delivered model is genuinely good at what it does. Not staffing designers is a real advantage, and per-design pricing protects you in a slow quarter. Stay if that describes you.
- Run the crossover before you renew. Above your own volume line you are paying a premium for elasticity you no longer need, on every deal you close.
More from our network
Disclosure and accuracy note
Commercial relationship. Heaven Designs and SurgePV are part of the same group. Treat our recommendation of SurgePV as a vendor making its own case, not an independent verdict. We have tried to describe every other product fairly, and to say plainly where a competitor is the better choice.
Pricing. All prices are indicative, compiled from public sources when this page was written. They vary by tier, region, contract term and exchange rate, and change without notice. Several vendors quote rather than publish, and some price in currencies other than the US dollar, so a converted figure moves with the exchange rate. Confirm current pricing with the vendor before you decide anything.
Trademarks and corrections. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and are used here for identification and comparison only. Their use does not imply affiliation with or endorsement by those companies. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
FAQ
What is the best Solo alternative for installers who want to own design? SurgePV, at $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year. It is browser-based, runs 8,760-hour simulation with module-level shading, mismatch, and string topology, produces single-line diagrams and DWG export from the same model, and includes a white-label proposal layer.
Is there a free Solo alternative? OpenSolar is free at the seat and funded through transactions rather than licences. It is the straightforward answer if cost is what started your search. You still pay in your own team’s time, and commercial or funder-reviewed work usually needs a second tool alongside.
How much does Solo cost compared to these alternatives? Solo is priced per design or by subscription rather than purely per seat, and figures are quoted, so confirm current pricing and the revision policy with the vendor. The seat-licensed alternatives publish ranges: PVsyst around $500, HelioScope around $1,188, SurgePV $1,299 to $1,899, and Aurora $1,908 to $3,108 per user per year.
Should I switch away from a delivered-design model at all? Only if one of three things is true. Your volume has passed the crossover point, your work is moving beyond simple residential, or turnaround inside your sales cycle is costing you deals. If none of those apply, staying is the cheaper answer. Our Solo review goes through the model in detail.
Can any of these replace PVsyst for bankable yield? No, and none of them claim to. When a lender or independent engineer reviews your production estimate, PVsyst remains the reference at about $500 per user per year for a standard licence. Companies doing financed work run it alongside whatever sales-side platform or service they use.
Is switching to another outsourced design provider a real change? It depends on scope. Swapping one residential proposal service for another changes the invoice, not the model. Moving from sales-side delivered designs to a permit-pack bench is a real change, because the deliverable is different. Either way you own no more capability than before, which is the trade to make deliberately.
Related: the product-level view is in our Solo review, the hiring maths is in solar designer hiring versus outsourcing ROI, the ownership costs are in the hidden cost of an in-house solar designer, the build-versus-buy choice for permit packs is in solar permit design software vs service, and the category cost picture is in solar design software pricing. For a working quote, get the sample design pack or talk to our team.
