How much of a solar quote is labor?

Using the BLS national median installer wage of $25.55 an hour, a three-installer crew with one supervisor at $38.42 an hour costs $115.07 an hour in raw wages. At a 2.5x burden multiplier that bills at $287.68 an hour. A 24-hour install is about 8 crew-hours per day over three days, so roughly $6,904 of billed labor. On a quote in the $20,000 range that is about a third. Equipment is usually the larger share.

Why do solar quotes only show one total price?

Because a single number cannot be argued with. Once labor, racking, modules, inverter, electrical materials, permit fees and design are on separate lines, you can compare each against a second bid. Ask for the quote split into equipment, labor hours, and permit and interconnection fees stated at cost. A contractor who refuses all three splits is protecting a margin, not a trade secret.

Is a $3.50 per watt solar quote fair?

This site cannot tell you, because no federal series publishes an installed per-watt price. What you can check is the labor share. Ask how many crew-days the install takes. Three installers plus a supervisor for three eight-hour days is 96 crew-hours, which at the BLS median wages and a 2.5x burden works out to about $6,904. If the quote implies far more labor dollars than that, the extra is overhead or margin, not workmanship.

Why did solar equipment prices go up in 2026?

The BLS Producer Price Index for electrical machinery and equipment sat at 160.394 in July 2026 against 141.641 a year earlier, up 13.2 percent. Steel mill products, which drive racking and mounting hardware, went from 305.538 to 374.203, up 22.5 percent. Those are index points, not dollars, so they show direction and rate, not price. A quote whose equipment lines rose more than about a fifth year over year has gone beyond what the index change explains.

What is a fair labor rate for a solar installer?

The wage is not the rate. BLS reports a median $25.55 an hour paid to solar photovoltaic installers, with a 25th percentile of $22.45 and a 75th of $30.23. The rate billed to you adds payroll taxes, workers compensation, liability insurance, trucks, fuel, tools, office time, warranty reserve and profit. A 2 to 3 times multiplier is the usual working assumption for small residential contractors, putting the billed rate for a median installer between $51.10 and $76.65 an hour.

Reading a Solar Quote: Which Line Items Are Padding

A residential solar install is mostly two things: equipment you can price, and labor you can compute. The labor half, built from the BLS national median installer wage of $25.55 an hour, lands between about $3,452 and $10,356 of billed labor for a one-to-three-day job with a three-installer crew and a supervisor. Anything on the quote above that, minus equipment at cost, is overhead and margin.

Key points

BLS puts the national median wage for solar photovoltaic installers at $25.55 an hour in 2025, with a 25th percentile of $22.45 and a 75th of $30.23 across 31,350 workers.
A crew of three installers plus one supervisor costs $115.07 an hour in raw wages; at a 2.5x burden that bills at $287.68 an hour, or $2,301 a day.
The Producer Price Index for electrical machinery and equipment rose 13.2 percent over the twelve months to July 2026; steel mill products, which drive racking, rose 22.5 percent.
Federal data publishes no installed price per watt, so any per-watt figure you see is somebody’s survey, not a measurement.
The single question that exposes a padded bid is “how many crew-days, and how many people per day?” Every other line follows from that answer.

A red brick building with solar panels on the roof, under a clear blue sky, symbolizing sustainability and renewable energy.

What does BLS actually pay data say about solar installers?

It says what workers earn, and nothing about what you are charged. Here is the whole set, straight from the BLS OEWS series for solar photovoltaic installers, 2025 survey year.

A row of houses displaying solar panels on their rooftops, reflecting sustainable energy practices.

Role	Percentile	Hourly wage
Solar PV installer, US	25th	$22.45
Solar PV installer, US	Median (50th)	$25.55
Solar PV installer, US	Mean	$27.84
Solar PV installer, US	75th	$30.23
First-line construction supervisor, US	Median	$38.42

31,350 people hold that job nationally. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry describes what they do: assemble, install and maintain PV systems on roofs and other structures.

Note the spread. Between the 25th and 75th percentile is $7.78 an hour, or 35 percent above the bottom quartile. That is the honest range of skill and market variation inside a single occupation, before any contractor markup exists.

Why is the wage not the price?

Because the wage is one input into the rate. What lands on your quote is the wage multiplied by a burden and overhead factor that covers payroll taxes, workers compensation, general liability insurance, vehicles, fuel, tools and consumables, office and estimating time, warranty reserve, and profit.

Energy-efficient building topped with solar panels and surrounded by lush trees.

This site does not measure that multiplier. Nobody publishes it. The working assumption used throughout this page is 2.0x to 3.0x the raw wage, with 2.5x as the midpoint. That is an assumption, stated so you can reject it. If you know a contractor’s actual overhead, substitute it and every table below rescales linearly.

Wage percentile	Raw wage	At 2.0x	At 2.5x	At 3.0x
25th	$22.45	$44.90	$56.13	$67.35
Median	$25.55	$51.10	$63.88	$76.65
Mean	$27.84	$55.68	$69.60	$83.52
75th	$30.23	$60.46	$75.58	$90.69
Supervisor	$38.42	$76.84	$96.05	$115.26

A billed rate of $60 to $80 an hour per installer is consistent with the federal wage data. A billed rate of $150 an hour per installer is not, unless the contractor can name what the extra covers.

What does a crew cost per hour and per day?

Start with the crew, not the job. Standard residential assumption used here: three installers at the median wage, plus one supervisor present the whole time. The supervisor is often part-time on site, which is one of the biggest reasons real bids come in under this build-up.

Raw wage per crew hour:

3 installers × $25.55 = $76.65
1 supervisor × $38.42 = $38.42
Total raw wage: $115.07 per crew hour

Billed, at the three multipliers:

Multiplier	Billed per crew hour	Per 8-hour day
2.0x	$230.14	$1,841.12
2.5x	$287.68	$2,301.40
3.0x	$345.21	$2,761.68

Every labor number in the rest of this article is that row times a number of days. No other input.

What is the full labor range across every job size?

This is the table to find your own row in. Job duration in crew-days, three installers plus a supervisor, eight-hour days, priced at all three burden multipliers. Raw wage column is what the workers take home; the rest is what you are billed.

Crew-days	Total crew-hours	Raw wages paid	Billed @ 2.0x	Billed @ 2.5x	Billed @ 3.0x
0.5	4	$460	$921	$1,151	$1,381
1	8	$921	$1,841	$2,301	$2,762
1.5	12	$1,381	$2,762	$3,452	$4,143
2	16	$1,841	$3,682	$4,603	$5,523
2.5	20	$2,301	$4,603	$5,754	$6,904
3	24	$2,762	$5,523	$6,904	$8,285
3.5	28	$3,222	$6,444	$8,055	$9,666
4	32	$3,682	$7,364	$9,206	$11,047
5	40	$4,603	$9,206	$11,507	$13,808
6	48	$5,523	$11,047	$13,809	$16,570
8	64	$7,364	$14,729	$18,412	$22,093
10	80	$9,205	$18,411	$23,014	$27,617

Worked example, the 3-day row: 24 crew-hours × $115.07 raw = $2,761.68 in wages. × 2.5 = $6,904.20 billed. That single number is the anchor. A typical unremarkable residential rooftop install is commonly quoted as two to four days of crew time, so $4,603 to $9,206 at the midpoint multiplier is the labor band the federal wage data supports.

If your quote shows a labor line of $18,000 for a three-day job, the arithmetic says the difference is not paying installers.

How does crew size change the answer?

Two axes, both of which you can ask about directly: how many installers, and how many days. Supervisor included in every cell at $38.42. Burden fixed at 2.5x.

Installers on site	1 day	2 days	3 days	4 days	5 days
2 (+ super)	$1,790	$3,579	$5,369	$7,159	$8,948
3 (+ super)	$2,301	$4,603	$6,904	$9,206	$11,507
4 (+ super)	$2,813	$5,626	$8,439	$11,252	$14,065
5 (+ super)	$3,324	$6,649	$9,973	$13,298	$16,622
6 (+ super)	$3,836	$7,672	$11,508	$15,344	$19,180

Read across, not down. A four-installer crew finishing in two days ($5,626) costs less than a two-installer crew taking four ($7,159), even though the bigger crew bills more per hour. Crew size alone tells you nothing. Crew-hours tell you everything.

Same grid, but at the 75th percentile installer wage of $30.23 instead of the median, supervisor unchanged, still 2.5x:

Installers on site	1 day	2 days	3 days
2 (+ super)	$1,978	$3,955	$5,933
3 (+ super)	$2,580	$5,159	$7,739
4 (+ super)	$3,181	$6,363	$9,544

Hiring a top-quartile crew adds about 12 percent to the labor line at a three-installer crew size. That is the honest cost of experience by the federal numbers. It is far smaller than the gap between two bids you will usually see, which means bid spread is mostly overhead, scope and margin, not wage level.

What did equipment do year over year?

The BLS Producer Price Index tracks what producers charge, in index points where 1982 = 100. These are index levels. They are not dollars and cannot be converted into dollars.

PPI series	July 2025	July 2026	Change
Electrical machinery and equipment (WPU117)	141.641	160.394	+13.2%
Steel mill products (WPU1017)	305.538	374.203	+22.5%

Electrical machinery covers the inverter, combiner, disconnects, conductors and balance-of-system. Steel drives the racking, rails, standoffs and mounting hardware.

Reverse calculation, and this is the one to use on a repeat quote. If a contractor priced your job last summer and is repricing now, how much should equipment have moved?

Equipment mix	Weighted PPI change
100% electrical	+13.2%
75% electrical / 25% steel	+15.5%
50% electrical / 50% steel	+17.9%
25% electrical / 75% steel	+20.2%
100% steel	+22.5%

Most residential rooftop equipment cost is weighted toward electrical, not steel, so the 75/25 row at about 15.5 percent is the reasonable ceiling for a like-for-like reprice. If last year’s equipment line was $12,000, the same equipment this year should land near $13,860. A reprice to $18,000 is a 50 percent jump that the index does not explain, and you are entitled to ask what changed.

That works in reverse too. To justify a 50 percent equipment increase from producer prices alone, you would need PPI moves roughly three times what actually happened. They did not happen.

Which line items should be itemised?

A quote you can check has these lines separated. A quote you cannot check has one number.

Line item	Should be itemised	What to ask
Modules	Yes, count × model × price each	Wattage per module and total array size
Inverter or optimisers	Yes, model and count	Whether it is string or microinverter
Racking and mounting	Yes	Roof type and attachment method
Electrical balance of system	Yes	Conductor runs, disconnects, combiner
Labor	Yes, as crew-days and crew size	“How many people, how many days?”
Permit fees	Yes, at cost, receipt attached	Whether it is pass-through or marked up
Interconnection / utility fees	Yes, at cost	Utility name and fee schedule
Design and engineering	Yes	Whether a stamped structural letter is included
Electrical panel upgrade	Yes, separately	Whether it is required or optional
Roof repair before mounting	Yes, separately	Triggered by inspection or assumed
“Project management”	Suspect	What work it is, in hours
“Soft costs”	Suspect	Which of the above lines it duplicates
“Miscellaneous” or “contingency”	Suspect	What event releases it back to you

The single question that exposes padding: “How many installers will be on site, and for how many days?” Take the answer into the full-range table above. If the labor line in the quote is more than roughly double the table value at 3.0x burden, the excess is being carried in labor because it had nowhere else to sit. Contractors do this when they are hiding either equipment margin or a scope they do not want to name.

Second question: “Are permit and interconnection fees pass-through at cost?” Those are municipal and utility charges. A contractor marking them up is charging you margin on a receipt.

Two things homeowners get wrong

“A higher installer wage explains why one bid is double the other.” It does not. The gap from the 25th to 75th wage percentile is $22.45 to $30.23, which is 35 percent on the wage line only. On a three-day, three-installer job that moves the billed labor from $6,435 to $7,739 at 2.5x burden. A $1,304 swing. If two bids differ by $10,000, wage level accounts for at most a tenth of it. The rest is equipment, scope, overhead or margin.

“Producer price increases justify the quote going up by the same percentage.” They do not, because equipment is only part of the total. Say a job is $12,000 equipment and $6,904 labor, so $18,904. Equipment rising 15.5 percent adds $1,860. Labor is a wage line that did not move with PPI at all. Total goes to $20,764, a 9.8 percent increase, not 15.5 percent. Anyone applying an equipment index to the whole quote is overstating the increase by roughly a third.

What can this calculation not see?

Plenty. This is arithmetic on federal wage data, not an inspection. None of the following are in any table above.

Permit fees. Set by your municipality, range from trivial to several hundred dollars, and not in any federal series.
Interconnection and utility fees. Set by the utility. Some charge nothing, some charge for a meter swap or a study.
Electrical panel upgrades. If your service cannot take the backfeed, you are buying a panel and a service call, a separate job with separate labor.
Roof condition. Mounting on a roof with under five years of life left is a roof job first. Structural reinforcement adds framing labor not covered here.
Roof pitch and height. Steep pitch and three-story work slow a crew and add fall-protection setup. That shows as more crew-hours, which the tables handle only if you use the higher day count.
Access. No driveway, long carry, tile roof requiring careful removal and reset. All are crew-hours.
Disposal. Packaging, old equipment, damaged tile.
Season. Winter daylight shortens usable install hours per day. Same job, more days.
Emergency or expedited scheduling. Contractors price urgency, and no federal series measures that premium.
Tax credits and incentives. Federal residential energy credit rules live at irs.gov and program details at energy.gov. Check the current year’s rules there, not in a sales deck. A credit reduces what you pay after the fact; it does not make a padded quote correct.

Also, this uses national wage figures. BLS publishes solar installer wages nationally in the series above; no metro breakout was supplied here, so this page will not invent city-level numbers. The 25th-to-75th percentile band of $22.45 to $30.23 is the honest stand-in for geographic and skill variation.

How do you read a real quote against these numbers?

Work in this order.

Ask for crew size and crew-days. Write down both.
Find that row in the full-range table. That is your labor benchmark at three burden levels.
Compare it to the quote’s labor line. Under the 2.0x column is aggressive pricing. Between 2.0x and 3.0x is normal. Far above 3.0x needs an explanation you can restate in a sentence.
Subtract labor and equipment-at-cost from the total. What is left is overhead, margin and unnamed scope.
Get a second bid and compare the same three numbers, not the totals. Totals hide where the difference lives.

If a contractor gives you crew-days and stands by them, the number is checkable. If the answer is “it depends on the crew,” you have learned something too.

What to check before signing

Crew size and number of days, in writing, on the contract.
Module count, wattage, model and inverter model, all listed.
Permit and interconnection fees stated as pass-through at cost with receipts to follow.
Whether a panel upgrade is included, excluded, or conditional, and what triggers it.
What happens to your money if the utility rejects interconnection.
Warranty split: workmanship years from the contractor, product years from the manufacturer. These are different and often confused deliberately.
Payment schedule tied to milestones, not to dates.
License and insurance certificates, verified with your state board rather than taken from the quote.
Any line labeled “miscellaneous,” “soft costs,” or “contingency” replaced with a described item or removed.

This page did not inspect your roof, survey contractors, or collect quotes. It does arithmetic on public federal wage data and shows every step so you can redo it with your own numbers.