About The Solar Payback

Who runs this site

The Solar Payback is published by a registered Canadian business. We are an independent publisher of consumer calculators, not a solar installer, retailer, broker or financial adviser. We do not sell, install or quote solar systems, and we are not owned by, or paid to favour, any installer, manufacturer or energy retailer. Because we have no product to push, the number our calculator shows is the number our model produces — not the number that helps someone make a sale.

We run The Solar Payback as a faceless organisation by design. There is no celebrity expert byline and no invented persona on this site, because we would rather you trust the working — the formula, the constants, and the dated sources we publish — than a name you cannot verify. Everything we claim is laid out on the Methodology page so you can check it yourself or take it to an installer for a quote. We think that is a more honest form of expertise than a stock photo and a job title.

Why we built it

Most "solar savings" tools online are lead-capture forms in disguise: they ask for your details, hand you an inflated figure, and pass you to an installer who paid for the introduction. Worse, many quote payback numbers that were true two or three years ago, before feed-in tariffs collapsed and the value of solar shifted almost entirely to self-consumption. A 2023 payback figure is usually wrong in 2026.

The Solar Payback exists to give a straight answer to a straight question: how fast does rooftop solar actually pay for itself in my state, at today's prices? The calculator is multi-input on purpose — your state, system size, power price, daytime usage, feed-in rate and an optional battery all change the answer — because a single-number "average" hides the one lever (self-consumption) that matters most. You can change any input and watch the result recompute instantly, with no email gate and no obligation.

How we stay independent and how we are funded

The Solar Payback is free to use. We intend to cover the cost of running the site through clearly labelled display advertising, which is kept well away from the calculator's controls and its result, and is always marked "Advertisement". Where we ever link to a third party that pays us a referral or commission, we will label that link plainly ("paid link") right next to it — never hidden in the footer. Advertising and any referral relationship never change the formula or the data: the model is the same for every visitor.

We do not collect personal information through the calculator — every computation runs in your own browser and nothing about your home is sent to us. See our Privacy Policy for exactly what is and is not collected.

How we keep the data current

Solar economics move. The STC rebate steps down every January, feed-in tariffs keep falling, retail electricity prices change at each regulatory reset, and the federal battery rebate tapers every six months. We re-check the constants behind the calculator on a regular schedule and update the published figures only when a value genuinely changes — we do not bump the "verified" date cosmetically to look fresh. The current dataset was verified 2026-06-27. The exact formula, every constant, its value and its dated source are on the Methodology page.

The Solar Payback provides estimates only — not financial, tax or legal advice. Always confirm figures with a licensed installer and your own retailer before making a decision.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections or a data source we should be using? We welcome them — accuracy reports especially. Reach us at hello@thesolarpayback.com or via the Contact page. We monitor the inbox at least once every business day.