About RateMySolar

Who built it

RateMySolar was built by a real estate agent and loan officer. We sit on both sides of the transactions where solar contracts show up: listing and selling homes, and financing them.

Why it exists

Two things kept happening.

• Sales fell apart over solar paperwork. Buyers, sellers and sometimes agents misunderstood what the solar contract actually said, and deals were cancelled late in escrow as a result.
• Homeowners didn’t know what they had signed. Some solar contracts cost more each month than the homeowner expected, and some made the home harder to sell.

Most of those problems were sitting in plain sight in the contract. Nobody had a fast, neutral way to read it.

What it does

Upload a solar contract and in a minute or two you get a full report card ($49.99, with the MLS solar fields and a remarks description included) with five letter grades: the contract terms, the price, the production promise, how protected the rate or payment is, and the lifetime value compared with staying on the utility. Every contract is graded by the same fixed rules; How we grade explains what each grade looks at. The full report — the grades, the findings behind each one, the before-closing checklist and transfer timeline, what is left to pay, and buyout and paydown figures — is $49.99. The contract is read with the help of AI, and our own fixed rules then measure most grades against published figures; AI can make mistakes, so every report is an estimate to check against the contract.

Independent

We don't sell solar, and no company can pay to change a grade or have a report removed.