Contract Red Flags to Catch Before You Sign

Red Flag: A Minimum Order You Have to Hit Before You Know Your Conversion Rate

LeadsForSolar structures its pay-per-lead model with a 50% deposit paid upfront and the remaining 50% due on delivery, with a minimum order of 50 leads. That is a real commitment before you have any data on how those leads convert for your business specifically. A minimum order is not automatically a bad term, but committing to 50 units and half the payment before your first lead arrives is a different risk profile than a vendor who lets you test in smaller batches. Ask directly what the minimum is and what happens if your early results run below expectations.

Red Flag: No Public Pricing and No Written Guarantee

Solar Exclusive does not publish a rate card, routing every prospect through a strategy call before revealing a number. That alone is not disqualifying, custom pricing sometimes reflects real scope differences. But paired with marketing language like "guaranteed appointments or you don't pay" and no specifics on what triggers the guarantee, it becomes harder to hold the vendor to anything concrete after you sign. Push for the guarantee terms in writing, separate from the sales call, before you commit.

Red Flag: Aged Leads Sold Without the Age Clearly Disclosed

Aged leads are a legitimate, transparently priced part of this market when the seller discloses age tiers clearly. Aged Lead Store publishes a granular table: $1.20 to $1.50 for leads 30 to 85 days old, $0.35 to $0.40 for 86 to 365 days, and $0.17 to $0.20 for leads as old as 2,000 days. Invention Solar runs a similar model, fresh leads at $3.00 dropping to $0.50 at 91-plus days. The red flag is not aged-lead pricing itself, it is a vendor who does not disclose the age tier at the point of sale, or who blends fresh and aged leads into one undifferentiated price.

Red Flag: A TCPA Liability Clause That Puts All the Risk on You

Momentum Solar's $20 to $30 million TCPA settlement, finally approved in August 2025, shows how expensive telemarketing compliance failures get in this category. More directly relevant to a lead buyer: a solar lead-generation company, separate from any installer, was sued directly in a TCPA class action, evidence that enforcement reaches the vendor layer, not just the brand doing the installing. Read your contract's indemnification language closely. A clause that shifts all TCPA and consent liability onto you, the buyer, for calls the vendor's own systems generated, is worth negotiating or walking away from.

Red Flag: "Exclusive" That Is Not Defined in Writing

Omnivortex and RunsForYou both market appointments as guaranteed exclusive, and vendors that make this claim should be able to define it precisely: does it mean the appointment is sold to you alone, or that the underlying lead was not previously shopped to a competing solar company, or both? Get the specific scope of "exclusive" written into the agreement rather than accepted as a marketing word.

A Five-Minute Contract Read Before You Sign Anything

1. Is there a minimum order or upfront deposit, and what happens if early results run below expectations?
2. What specifically does "guaranteed" or "exclusive" mean, in writing, not on the marketing page?
3. If leads are aged, is the age tier disclosed at the point of sale?
4. Who carries TCPA and consent liability, the vendor or you, for calls their systems generated?
5. Does this vendor have a documented compliance or complaint history worth checking before you sign?

Sources

The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.

• LeadsForSolar, solar pay-per-lead
• Solar Exclusive, homepage
• Aged Lead Store, solar installation leads
• ClassAction.org, Momentum Solar TCPA settlement
• National Law Review, solar lead company TCPA case

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