A five-person solar installer should buy a design and proposal tool first, a CRM second and a project tracker third. OpenSolar's core app is free and Aurora Basic is $135 a user a month on annual billing. AI helps with auto-layout and follow-up drafts, but a person signs off every design and permit.
The order follows what breaks a sale: no proposal, no sale; a lead nobody answers, no sale; a job that stalls in permitting, no payment. Prices below are vendor list prices read on 29 October 2026, per user on annual billing unless stated. Two catches: OpenSolar's free core has paid extras, and Aurora's AI-assisted site models are on its Enterprise plan only. The firm I have in mind is an owner who sells, a designer, an office manager and two installers, so two design seats, three CRM seats and five tracker seats.
Buy in this order, and the signal that says buy the next one
| Order | Tool | Buy when | Signal you waited too long |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Design and proposal | Before you quote a second customer. You cannot sell without a proposal. | Proposals take days, or the owner is drawing roofs at night. |
| 2 | CRM | When enquiries arrive from more than one source, or you start keeping notes in your head. | A lead waits more than a day for a reply, or nobody knows who rang whom. |
| 3 | Project tracker | When several jobs are in flight at once, which for most small firms is about five. That is my rule of thumb, not a vendor figure. | You cannot say what is stuck in thirty seconds, and customers chase you for updates. |
Design comes first because everything else hangs off it: the proposal is what the CRM tracks and what the tracker builds from. The CRM comes before the tracker because a lost lead costs the whole sale, while a stalled job usually costs weeks. If you must pick one purchase this month and you already produce proposals acceptably by hand, make it the CRM.
Design: what Aurora and OpenSolar each charge for
The cost-per-proposal sums for both are in AI solar design software compared by cost per proposal, so here is only what bears on a purchase order.
| Point | Aurora | OpenSolar |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Basic $135 a user a month annual, $159 monthly; Premium $220 annual, $259 monthly; Enterprise custom | Core platform free; the home page says "100% free of charge" |
| Limits | Basic and Premium cards show 1 user and 50 projects a month; annual plans carry a one-year commitment, monthly plans none | No seat or project cap stated for the core app |
| What the higher tier adds | Premium: LIDAR-assisted modelling, bankable shade reports, battery modelling. Enterprise: AI-assisted site models, drone mapping, unlimited users, APIs | Add-ons include API access and accounting connectors; Enterprise services are separate |
| Auto design | Automatic system design is described on Basic | Auto Design is labelled AI-powered and in beta, and an account admin has to switch it on |
| Paid extras | On-demand site models from $9.99, delivered in 3 hours or less; plan sets and engineering stamps with no price printed | API access is a per-project fee with a 30-day trial, taken from a prepaid OpenSolar Wallet when a project is created; accounting connectors are a monthly subscription, some (Xero and QuickBooks among them) only in certain regions. The page calls pricing "geo-specific" and prints no amounts |
| Why it is free | Not applicable | Its Why Free page says partners pay to be on the platform |
A sensible default is to start on OpenSolar's free core and move to Aurora only if a lender, a roof type or a customer segment needs an Aurora-only output. "Bankable" is the word to pin down. Aurora's Premium plan lists bankable shade reports and OpenSolar's Auto Design page claims bankable shading values and independent verification without printing accuracy figures. Ask your finance partner which shade report they accept before you choose, because the lender's answer beats either vendor's claim.
What the free tool still costs you: the beta label on Auto Design means a person checks every layout, an admin has to enable it, and connectors and API access arrive as bills later. None of those is a reason to avoid it. They are reasons to run a trial before you rebuild your proposal template inside it. What AI-drawn layouts can and cannot do is covered in what design software does and does not do.
CRM: what three users get at each price
Three people need to see leads in this firm: the owner, the designer and the office manager. Prices are per user per month on annual billing, multiplied by three.
| CRM and plan | Per user | Three users | What matters for a solar firm |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Free | $0 | $0 | Free for up to 2 users, so a third seat forces a paid plan |
| HubSpot Starter | $20 list | $60 | A promotion for new customers shows $7; quote the list price and re-check at checkout |
| Zoho CRM Free | $0 | $0 | Free for 3 users, with workflow automation but no AI named |
| Zoho CRM Standard | $14 | $42 | Adds sales forecasting and data enrichment; the page's two plan lists disagree on whether AI agents start here or on Professional |
| Zoho CRM Professional | $23 | $69 | Lists AI agents and predictive intelligence |
| Pipedrive Lite | $14 | $42 | Pipeline, AI reports, meeting briefs, call transcripts; no email sync or automations |
| Pipedrive Growth | $39 | $117 | Adds Gmail or Outlook sync and automations |
| monday CRM Standard | $17 | $51 | 10,000 contacts, 250 automations a month, AI credits |
| OpenSolar's project CRM | Included | $0 | Customers, stages, tasks and calendar sync; its page does not describe a lead pipeline or notifications |
Pipeline views are table stakes, so judge the CRM on four tests. Does a new enquiry from your web form or lead vendor appear without retyping? Can it send an automatic first reply within a minute? Can the stage list match yours, from enquiry through surveyed and proposal sent to won or lost? And can you export everything? OpenSolar's Leads page describes a free branded profile page and an AI estimate tool for your site that sync leads into its CRM and create projects, which is worth a trial if you want one tool. HubSpot setup for a small team is covered in HubSpot setup: free CRM first, AI agents last.
A stage list with the action that fires at each step
The CRM earns its fee through rules like these, which you build once. The timings are my suggestions, not vendor defaults.
| Stage | Automatic action | Human action | Time limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| New enquiry | Reply by text and email with a survey-booking link | Phone the lead | Within the working hour |
| Survey booked | Reminder to the customer the day before; checklist to the surveyor | Surveyor confirms access | 24 hours before |
| Surveyed | Task to the designer to produce the proposal | Designer drafts, owner reviews | Two working days |
| Proposal sent | Follow-ups on days 2, 5 and 10, drafted from the proposal fields | Owner phones on day 5 | Day 10 |
| Quiet for 21 days | One close-out message | Mark lost, with a reason | Day 21 |
| Won | Create the project in the tracker | Owner arranges the deposit | Same day |
What does the CRM have to earn? At an illustrative $400 per booked survey, the arithmetic for which is in solar lead cost per booked survey with a fast AI reply, Pipedrive Growth for three users at $117 a month has to produce about 0.3 extra booked surveys a month, roughly one every three to four months, to pay for itself. A free tier has no bar to clear, but it costs you seats (HubSpot allows two) or automation (Pipedrive Lite has none), and those are the features that stop leads going quiet.
Project tracking: the milestones a solar job has to clear
A tracker exists to answer one question fast: what is stuck, with whom, and when do we chase? Here is a stage list for a residential job, with the field that makes each stage chaseable. The approval step is named generically because the authority differs by place.
| Stage | Owner | What stuck looks like | Fields to keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract signed | Owner | Deposit not recorded | Signed date, deposit received |
| Site survey | Designer | Booked, not done after two weeks | Survey date, photo folder link |
| Design signed off | Designer and customer | Customer has not replied | Version, sign-off date |
| Permit or approval submitted | Office | No acknowledgement received | Submission date, reference, next chase date |
| Equipment ordered | Office | Lead time slipping | Order date, expected delivery |
| Install scheduled and done | Owner and crew | Crew double-booked | Dates, serial numbers, photos |
| Inspection and network approval | Office | Waiting on a third party | Booked date, reference, next chase date |
| Switch-on and handover | Crew | Pack not sent | Commissioning date, handover sent |
| Review request | Office | Never asked | Request sent date |
The field that earns the most is the next chase date, because stalled permits do not announce themselves. Where to keep it: OpenSolar's project CRM offers table or kanban views, custom stages and workflows, assignable actions with due dates, and calendar sync, with auto-assignment by role as its one named automation. Trello's Free plan allows 10 boards and 250 command runs; Standard is $5 a user on annual billing ($6 monthly) with unlimited boards, 1,000 runs and AI features. monday's Basic plan is $9 a seat on annual billing, with plans starting from three users. Enerflo's Install Tracker covers milestones from contract to switch-on, but the price is on request. If a stalled approval is your pain, what an installer must verify in a permit application shows the part that cannot be handed to AI, and the survey stage is covered in a site survey checklist with photos sorted by AI.
The usual failure is a board nobody updates. An invented example: six weeks after launch the board shows 14 jobs at "approval submitted", nine of which were approved weeks ago, because the office updates the authority's portal and the supplier's emails but not the card. The tracker now misleads, and the owner stops trusting it. The cure is a rule, not a tool: the card changes in the same sitting as the portal or email, and a 20-minute weekly review reads the board stage by stage. Any card with no next chase date is a problem by definition.
Where AI helps in each tool, and where a person signs
- Design. Auto-layout speeds up drawing, and it is automation more than judgement. A designer still checks roof planes, obstructions, shading, setbacks and the structure. Aurora's AI-assisted site models are listed under Enterprise only, so a Basic or Premium user should not count on them.
- CRM. The useful AI here is dull: call transcripts, meeting briefs and suggested CRM updates (Pipedrive lists them even on Lite) or drafted follow-ups. Lead scoring is not much use at a firm with a few dozen live leads. HubSpot's page is vague about what AI sits on its free tier, so test before you count on it.
- Tracker. Trello's paid plans list AI features, including summaries and capturing to-dos from email, Slack and Teams; monday includes monthly AI credits on paid plans (1,000 on Basic). They save typing. They do not know which authority is slow.
- Around the tools. A chat assistant turns tracker notes into customer updates, and drafts cover letters for proposals. Never let it state dates, outputs or savings that are not in the record.
Here is a prompt for the weekly customer update, with an invented record:
Write a weekly update for a solar customer from the record below. Plain English, under 120 words. Do not promise any date that is not in the record. Do not mention savings or output figures. If a step is waiting on a third party, say who and what we are doing about it.
Record: Customer [first name]; stage: approval submitted on [date], reference [ref]; last chase [date], next chase [date]; install provisionally [date]; equipment ordered, expected [date].A first draft might read: "Your application is with the network operator and we chase it again on [date]. Your install is booked for [date], and approval usually takes about ten working days." Two fixes. The record says the install is provisional, so "booked" has to become "pencilled in, subject to approval". And "usually takes about ten working days" is invented; delete it unless you can point to where the figure came from. The rule is simple: let AI draft from fields and never let it fill a gap.
Three stacks priced from the vendors' own pages
Totals are monthly, on annual billing, before sales tax, for two design seats, three CRM seats and five tracker seats. Monthly billing is dearer on Aurora ($159 a seat against $135).
| Stack | Design | CRM | Tracker | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Free start | OpenSolar core, $0 | Zoho CRM Free, 3 users, $0 | Trello Free, $0 | $0, plus any OpenSolar extras |
| B. Paid design, light CRM | Aurora Basic, 2 seats, $270 | Zoho CRM Free, $0 | Trello Standard, 5 seats, $25 | $295 |
| C. Automation first | OpenSolar core, $0 | Pipedrive Growth, 3 seats, $117 | monday Basic, 5 seats, $45 | $162 |
Stack A costs nothing but time and has the most seams. B buys better design output and keeps the rest cheap. C puts the money into follow-up automation. Notice what the numbers do not show: whether a $270 design line saves $270 of owner time, or wins one more bankable proposal a month. For a five-person firm the useful comparison is between a stack and doing nothing for another quarter, which is why a two-week trial beats a spreadsheet of features.
Three installers, three different first purchases
The same price list gives different answers depending on where a firm leaks. Three invented firms:
- The designer is drawing proposals in the evenings, and most jobs are standard roofs. Buy design first: start on OpenSolar's free core, run Aurora Basic as a paid trial only if a lender or a roof type demands it, and keep the CRM at Zoho Free until leads outgrow three seats.
- The firm sells batteries and works with a lender that wants a particular shade report. Aurora's Premium card lists battery modelling and bankable shade reports, so one Premium seat ($220 annual, $259 monthly) for the person who produces lender-facing designs may be worth more than two Basic seats. Confirm the lender's requirement in writing first.
- The designs are fine but enquiries from the website sit unanswered over weekends. Buy the CRM first: Pipedrive Growth or Zoho Professional for the automation, a one-minute automatic first reply, and keep OpenSolar for design.
A two-week trial: five real jobs through each tool
- Pick five real jobs: a plain roof, a shaded or complex roof, a battery add-on, a customer who went quiet, and a job with an approval snag.
- In the design tool, time each proposal from address to PDF, and have your finance partner look at one shade report.
- In the CRM, enter the five enquiries and time the first automatic reply. Move each through your stages and see whether a quiet customer gets a reminder.
- In the tracker, load the approval-snag job and check you can see from the board, in thirty seconds, who is waiting on whom and the next chase date.
- Export everything from each tool into a spreadsheet and check the columns make sense.
Score each tool on the proposal minutes, the first-reply time, the stuck-job view and the export, and buy the one that wins on the problem you wrote down in the first table. Before importing any real contacts, agree the stage names, merge duplicates (one homeowner under two names will trigger two automatic replies) and decide who owns each lead. The import is where a CRM trial usually goes wrong, not the software.
Sales-call questions for Aurora, OpenSolar and any CRM
- Aurora: does a revised design count again towards the 50 projects a month? What do plan sets and engineering stamps cost, since the pricing page prints no figure? What happens to a monthly plan's price if I add a second seat mid-month?
- OpenSolar: which connectors and API features will my accounting set-up need, and what are the amounts for my region, given the pages print none? What customer data can the partners who fund the platform see, and where is it stored?
- Any CRM: does the automatic first reply, or the follow-up sequence, sit on a higher tier than the one I am pricing? Is there a seat minimum? Can I export every contact, note and file myself?
- Any tracker: can I assign a next chase date to a card and get a reminder? What happens to my boards if I downgrade?
- All of them: what is the notice period for cancelling, and do I keep my data afterwards?
Write the answers down, with the date and the name of the person who gave them. A price promised on a call and not on the page is worth exactly what you can prove.
What the all-in-one platforms do not print
Enerflo describes itself as an operating system for residential solar: CRM and integrations, design tools including Aurora, financing, contracting, an Install Tracker and customer portals. Its site shows no prices and sends you to a discovery call, and its page says the service is open to companies in one named country only, so check yours. SolarNexus describes sales and operations tools with professional services, again with no prices and a demo request instead. Both are pitched at firms that want to scale, so a five-person installer should not take the call until a clear signal appears: two people keying the same job data into different tools, or customers' details falling between systems. Until then three tools with clean exports are easier to leave than one platform with a contract.
Smaller questions before you commit to a stack
Does AI design replace a site survey?
No. Auto-design tools place panels on roof geometry taken from imagery, and the vendors' own pages describe the output as a starting design. Shade from a tree that grew last year, a roof that has been re-covered, a hidden structural problem and the position of the consumer unit are things a person standing there finds. Use the tool to speed up drawing and the survey to confirm what is actually on the roof.
Can I change tools later without losing my customer data?
You can if you check export before you commit. Ask each vendor for a full export of customers, projects, notes and files in a format a spreadsheet opens, and test it with ten real records during the trial. A tool that holds your pipeline but exports only a summary report is a lock-in, whatever its price.
Should I price seats or projects?
Both, because vendors charge differently. Aurora's Basic and Premium cards are per user and list 50 projects a month, OpenSolar bills its API access per project, and the CRMs charge per seat. Count how many people need each tool and how many projects you open in a busy month, then price each stack on both numbers before you compare totals.
Is a spreadsheet enough as a project tracker at the start?
For the first handful of jobs, yes, provided it has a stage column, an owner, a date for the next chase and a link to the job folder. Move to a board when two people edit it at once or a stalled permit goes unnoticed for a week. The trigger is a missed chase, not the number of rows.
Further reads
- EV Charger Installer App or Software: AI and Features Beyond Quotes — A neutral checklist for EV charger installers: survey forms, certificates, handover packs, scheduling, what a general job app can do and where AI helps.
- Heat Pump Installer Software: Surveys, Heat Loss and Quotes, AI Compared — What a heat pump installer's software must do at survey, heat loss and quote stage, which tools cover which job, where AI helps and what vendors charge.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Aurora Solar pricing page, OpenSolar home, Auto Design, Leads, API, Project Management CRM and Why Free pages, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Trello and monday.com pricing pages, and the Enerflo and SolarNexus sites, all read on 29 October 2026.