About SmallSolarCo

Why this exists

Rooftop solar is sold as a transformation with a financing agreement attached. It's not available to renters, and after the changes to how California compensates exported power, it's a harder sell to homeowners than it was.

Plug-in solar is the other end of the same idea: a few hundred watts, a few hundred dollars, no installer, no contract. It doesn't transform anything. It trims a bill by 10 or 20 percent, which for a lot of households is the difference between a bill that stings and one that doesn't.

Nobody was explaining it in English. That's the gap.

What we're trying to be

The site that tells you when it isn't worth it.

That sounds like a slogan, so here's what it means in practice. Our calculator has a verdict that says "Honestly? Probably not," and it fires whenever the estimated saving is under about $100 a year. That happens a lot — north-facing balconies, heavy shade, empty flats. We show it because a site that says yes to everyone is worth nothing to anyone.

Every number on the site ships with its assumptions. Every legal claim carries a date, because legal statuses go stale and undated claims become wrong. Every figure is labelled either measured or estimated, and there are far more estimates than measurements.

How we make money

Affiliate commissions, mostly. If you click through to a seller from one of our kit pages and buy something, we get a small percentage — typically 3 to 8 percent depending on the brand. You pay the same price.

Some things worth saying about that:

• The savings model doesn't know who pays us. It's the same maths for every kit.
• We recommend products that pay us nothing. Bright Saver is a nonprofit selling at cost with no affiliate programme, and it's our recommendation for anyone spending under $400.
• We don't accept review units on terms that involve anyone approving the review first. If a manufacturer sends us something, we say so on the review, and we keep the right to publish a bad one.
• There are no ads on this site, and there isn't a lead-generation form that sells your details to an installer.

Later there may be a paid app for monitoring what your kit produces. If that happens we'll say so plainly rather than sliding it in.

The full disclosure, including every relationship →

Who writes it

One person. The bio, and what he is and isn't qualified to tell you →

What we're not

Not electricians. Not lawyers. Not a solar installer, and not affiliated with any manufacturer, utility, or advocacy group. We took no position on SB 868 while it was moving through the Legislature and we report what it says rather than what we'd like it to say.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it and say what changed. Contact.