For commercial solar installers
The Ultimate Power Play
We book qualified site evaluations with the building owners, CFOs, and facility leaders who buy commercial solar, warmed up before the call, so your reps stop chasing stalled deals and start closing.
Building the systems is the doable part, design, engineering, financing, permitting, installation are challenges you can figure out. Growth in commercial solar comes down to one thing: a steady flow of real C&I opportunities. And that means getting in front of the building owners, CFOs, and facility leaders who can actually say yes before your reps burn months on deals that stall. Almost no installer has anyone doing that systematically.
Sources: SEIA / Wood Mackenzie US Solar Market Insight (2026); pv magazine USA; LCP commercial energy analysis (2025-26).
Demand isn't the problem, rising electricity rates sell solar for you, and a single commercial system can cut a building's power bill 20 to 40%. The problem is reach and qualification: C&I deals run six to eighteen months, move through multiple stakeholders, and stall for no clear reason, while customer acquisition stays the most stubborn line in your cost stack. New revenue means being in front of the right decision-maker, with the right building, at the right moment, on purpose.
But who's making that happen? Usually the owner, between site visits, maybe one or two reps already buried in proposals. Referrals and trade shows don't scale to every warehouse, plant, and property owner in your market. Meanwhile the national developers and EPCs have whole business-development teams chasing the same roofs. You win on design, price, and local service, and lose on reach. Reach is the part we fix.
Not "leads." Not a list. A confirmed site evaluation with a decision-maker who controls a commercial building or portfolio in your service area, has the roof or land and the power bill to make solar pencil, and is open to a real conversation about cutting energy costs, booked on your calendar, ready for your rep.
The person who actually signs is one of a few: a building or business owner, a CFO or finance lead who owns the ROI, a facility or operations director, or a sustainability or real-estate portfolio manager at a multi-site company. We find them, reach them, and qualify the meeting to your terms, building type, load and roof profile, project size, financing fit, service radius.
That qualification is the whole point: your reps' months go to projects with the right roof, the right bill, and a decision-maker who can actually move, not tire-kickers and deals that stall at stakeholder three. You spend your time on solar that gets built.
Programs run $5,250/mo (one dedicated Playmaker) to $14,750/mo (three), on six-month terms, data, technology, and management included. Set that against the math that actually matters in your business: a single commercial solar project is worth $100K to over $1M, and the O&M, storage, and portfolio behind it keep paying for years. One won project usually pays for the whole program, many times over.
In-house appointment setter
~$154K
per person, per year, all-in
Salary, benefits, tools, data, management, and a 3 to 6 month ramp before they're productive. A rep who can't fill the pipeline still costs every penny.
Calling shop / per-seat
~$11K
per seat, per month, typical
Bought lists, auto-dialers, activity reports. You pay for dials whether or not a building owner ever books an evaluation.
Alleyoop programs
$5,250–$14,750
per month, six-month terms
One flat fee, the team, the data, the technology. Qualified site evaluations on your calendar, live in under 30 days. See the programs →
One connected system, not a phone bank. Technology finds the buildings and portfolios worth pursuing, marketing warms them before any contact, we catch the ones with rising bills or sustainability mandates, we map everyone who weighs in on the decision, and a real person books the evaluation.
We build the target list, building and business owners, CFOs, facility and operations directors, and multi-site real-estate and sustainability leads in your service radius, prioritized by fit, roof or land profile, and energy spend.
The right marketing warms those exact accounts before any outreach, so your name is already familiar when the first call comes.
Our technology flags companies facing rate hikes, building new facilities, or announcing sustainability goals, often before they start shopping for solar.
A commercial solar decision runs through several people, owner, CFO, facilities, sometimes a board or landlord. We map all of them, not one name on a list, which is exactly where C&I deals stall.
When a decision-maker is genuinely interested, a dedicated Playmaker, a real person, has the conversation and books the site evaluation on your calendar.
Two things make timing unusual in commercial solar. Rising electricity rates mean every business with a roof and a power bill is a candidate year-round, but the 30% commercial tax credit rewards projects that start in time, and a six-to-eighteen-month sales cycle means a deal you don't start today won't close for a year. The window to fill your pipeline is now.
So outbound for solar has to be always-on and ahead of the clock. You can't wait for a building owner to research solar on their own, by the time they call three installers, you're one bid among many in a year-long process. A program is live in under 30 days, with first site evaluations landing in weeks 3 to 4, and it runs continuously so your pipeline is full of real opportunities while the incentives still favor moving.
And it compounds beyond the install. Every commercial account you win opens years of O&M, monitoring, storage retrofits, and the rest of a multi-site portfolio, the recurring, service-based revenue the whole industry is shifting toward. The owners you reach this quarter become the projects you build next quarter and the service contracts you keep for a decade. Year two of a program is stronger than year one for exactly that reason.
Three things make commercial solar close to ideal for a real outbound program: a single account worth thousands of residential deals, structural demand from rising power bills, and an install that opens years of service revenue. Win the project and you're not making one sale, you're landing a six-or-seven-figure system plus the O&M behind it. The only hard part is reaching the right decision-makers before your reps burn months on stalled deals. That's the one thing we do.
A single C&I project runs $100K to over $1M and unlocks volume that would take thousands of residential sign-ups. The B2B acquisition math is far better, which is exactly why a focused outbound program pays back so fast here.
Win the system and the O&M, monitoring, storage add-ons, and the rest of a multi-site portfolio follow, the service-based revenue the whole industry is pivoting toward. Get in the door once and the account pays for a decade.
Rising utility rates sell the value without you saying a word. What's missing is enough qualified conversations with owners who have the right building and the authority to move. That's the one thing we put on your calendar.
Straight answers to what operators ask before they start a program. New to the model? Start with the full guide: what outsourced appointment setting is and what it should cost.
Demand is driven by rising electricity rates, a commercial system can cut a building's power bill 20 to 40%, so the work is winning the right buildings, not creating demand. New projects come from reaching the building owners, CFOs, and facility leaders who can say yes, before they spend a year shopping installers. Outsourced appointment setting does that systematically: finding the buildings and portfolios in your service area, warming the decision-makers, and booking qualified site evaluations with the people who buy.
It is paying a specialized team to find, contact, qualify, and book site evaluations with the building owners and finance leaders who buy commercial solar, so your reps spend their months on real projects instead of cold prospecting and stalled deals. The provider supplies the people, the data, and the technology; you supply the design, the financing, and the closing.
Expect $5,000-$15,000 per month for a serious program. Alleyoop runs $5,250/mo for one dedicated Playmaker to $14,750/mo for three, on six-month terms with data and technology included. Because a single commercial solar project runs $100K to over $1M, and the O&M and portfolio behind it keep paying for years, one won project usually covers the program many times over.
Now, and then continuously. Demand is year-round as electricity rates climb, but the 30% commercial tax credit rewards projects that start in time, and the C&I sales cycle runs six to eighteen months, so a deal you don't start today won't close for a year. A program is live in under 30 days with first site evaluations in weeks 3-4, and running always-on keeps your pipeline full of real opportunities while the incentives still favor moving.
Hiring makes sense if you have the management time, patience for a 3-6 month ramp, and budget to absorb turnover at roughly $154K a year all-in for one outside sales rep. Outsourcing makes sense if you want qualified site evaluations in weeks at about a third of that cost, with the data, tools, and prospecting owned by a specialist while your team designs and closes.
Rarely one person, which is exactly why C&I deals stall. The signer is usually a building or business owner, a CFO or finance lead who owns the ROI, a facility or operations director, or a sustainability or real-estate manager at a multi-site company, and sometimes a board or landlord. Booking the right evaluation means reaching and qualifying the people with budget and authority, and mapping everyone who can stall the deal.
Lead generation usually means a list of names or form-fills you still have to chase and qualify. Appointment setting goes further: a real person finds the right owners and finance leaders, warms them, qualifies them to your project size and the building's roof and load profile, and books a confirmed site evaluation on your calendar. You get a meeting with a decision-maker, not a spreadsheet of cold contacts.
Demand has never been stronger, but commercial solar deals run six to eighteen months and the tax-credit clock is ticking, so the projects that close next year are the conversations you start now. If no one's filling your pipeline, your reps stay stuck on stalled deals while the nationals win the good roofs. The installers growing are booking site evaluations now. Make sure your name is in front of the owners before they shop.
The assist is ours. The win is yours.