Aurora Solar Review 2026: Pricing, Pros, Cons, Alternatives

The short verdict on Aurora Solar

Aurora Solar earns its money with a residential solar installer or dealer running roughly 3 to 50 licensed designers and closers, doing rooftop retrofit and battery attach work, where design accuracy has to survive a lender's underwriting and the same file has to become a customer-facing proposal in the same sitting. If that's you, it does the job. The sections below are the parts worth checking before you sign. But the fit is narrower than the marketing suggests, and the price isn't the whole cost.

It starts at $159. And pricing was verified on 7 August 2026, so you can check every figure below in a browser tab.

Who should be shortlisting Aurora Solar

It fits a residential solar installer or dealer running roughly 3 to 50 licensed designers and closers, doing rooftop retrofit and battery attach work, where design accuracy has to survive a lender's underwriting and the same file has to become a customer-facing proposal in the same sitting. That's the half most reviews print. Here's the other half, which is the one worth your time.

Don't buy it if you're A commercial and industrial solar developer sizing carports, ground mounts and multi-megawatt rooftops. Aurora's own navigation files this work under a different product. The residential platform's Sales Mode is described as an interface 'for creating dynamic, interactive and customizable sales proposals for residential properties', and the Instant Plan Set Application is 'for residential Projects in the U.S.' And HelioScope, run by the same company, publishes design ceilings of 1.25 MW (DC) on Basic, 5 MW on Pro and 30 MW on Enterprise, plus PVsyst export and single-axis trackers. So buying Aurora for C&I means buying the wrong half of the same vendor. Look at HelioScope instead.

Don't buy it if you're A one-to-three person installer who wants software cost near zero and cannot commit a fixed monthly seat fee. $159 per user per month before any add-on is a real line item at that size, and the 50-project allowance is far more than a small shop opens. And OpenSolar charges installers nothing and says so plainly: 'We pride ourselves as a free of charge platform that will always be free for you to use.' And Pylon meters at $4.00 per project on Standard, so a slow month costs almost nothing. Look at OpenSolar instead.

Don't buy it if you're A solar company that wants one system for design, install scheduling, job costing and the books. Aurora ends at the signed contract and the permit package. There's no accounting, invoicing, purchasing, scheduling or timesheet function anywhere in the published feature list, and no QuickBooks or Xero connector in the partner directory. So the joining work is yours, over an Enterprise-tier API.

Don't buy it if you're A team that shares logins to hold seat count down. Basic and Premium include exactly one user each, the Terms forbid credential sharing outright, and two reviewers report losing in-progress work when the same account is logged in from two machines. So the saving evaporates the first time a design disappears at a kitchen table.

Pricing: what Aurora Solar publishes and what it doesn't

And Aurora Solar publishes its tiers, which puts it ahead of most of this category before you compare a single feature.

Per user on Basic and Premium, then a switch of unit at the top. The pricing page's comparison table gives Basic and Premium 'Users: 1' and 'Project per month: 50/month', while Enterprise reads 'Unlimited users' and is labelled 'Custom / per project'. So the cost driver flips: below Enterprise you buy seats and each seat carries a 50-project monthly allowance, and at Enterprise you stop buying seats and start buying projects. The Terms of Use put the allowance in contract language: fees buy 'use of up to fifty (50) Projects per Authorized User in the Account (the Monthly Project Allowance)'. A Project is defined as an address you open, and the same address opened twice counts twice.

There is a discount for paying annually up front: 15% for paying annually, stated on the pricing page as 'Save 15% on annual plans'. The arithmetic checks out and Aurora shows its working: Basic drops from $159 to $135 per user per month, billed as '$1620 billed annualy', which the page describes as 'save $288 per year'; Premium drops from $259 to $220, billed as '$2640 billed annualy', 'save $468 per year'. Worth knowing before you screenshot it for a board pack: with the annual toggle selected the same page renders the saving with a minus sign, literally 'save $-288 per year' and 'save $-468 per year'. It is a rendering fault in the toggle, not a different offer, but it is live on the page today. And an annual prepay discount tells you an annual commitment exists, which is worth knowing before anyone mentions a term length out loud.

What a Aurora Solar quote leaves out

Payment processing. Aurora does not process homeowner payments. It processes yours. The pricing FAQ states 'Basic and Premium plans can be paid for by credit card' and that 'Enterprise plans can be paid for via invoice or credit card'. The Terms require settlement in one currency only: 'All payments due to Aurora Solar must be made in U.S. dollars', which matters if you are a Canadian installer, and late payment accrues 'at the rate of 1.5% per month'. Homeowner money moves through the lender partners in Sales Mode, not through Aurora.

Implementation and onboarding. There is no published implementation fee, but onboarding is explicitly not included in the sticker. Aurora's own feature table marks 'Personalized launch and training plan', 'Technical consultation', 'Proposal template customization' and 'Premium support' as 'Add-on' rather than as included line items, and lists 'Access to premium services' only under Enterprise. Self-serve training is the free path: 'On-demand training videos and documentation' and 'Aurora Academy' carry no add-on flag.

Minimum term. Aurora answers this two different ways in two live documents, and the difference is material. The pricing FAQ says 'There is no minimum commitment for our monthly Basic and Premium plans', 'There is a one year commitment for our annual Basic and Premium plans', and to contact sales for Enterprise. The Services Agreement that governs Aurora Credits defines Subscription Term as 'one (1) year from the purchase date of your initial Aurora Credit Bundle purchase (Initial Term) and each subsequent renewal term, which is one (1) year from the purchase date of any subsequent Aurora Credits'. Read literally, buying a further credit bundle mid-term starts a fresh one-year clock. Get the Service Order to say which document governs your account.

Getting out. No early termination penalty is published, because the contract does not need one: money already paid does not come back. The Terms say 'The Fees are non-refundable after the money back period as provided by Aurora Solar in the relevant Service Order' and 'all payments are non-refundable'. The credits agreement goes further: 'All Aurora Credit redemptions are non-refundable, and any refunds will be provided only in Aurora Credits', and 'All Fees and payments are non-refundable except as required by Applicable Laws'. Unused project allowance dies with the term too: 'all unused Projects expire without any refund at the end of each Subscription Term'.

Auto-renewal. Yes, on both papers, with a 30-day notice window. The Terms of Use say the agreement 'shall automatically renew for additional periods equal to the expiring term or as otherwise set forth in the Service Order... unless either party notifies the other in writing of its intent not to renew at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the then-current term'. The credits agreement repeats it: renewal is automatic 'unless either party gives the other notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days before the end of the Current Term'. Set against the FAQ line 'Yes, you can cancel your purchase at any time', the honest reading is that you can stop future terms, not the one you are in, and only if you give notice in time.

Modules sold separately. , , , , , , , , , , . But the entry tier is not the price you'll pay. Add the modules your shop needs on day one and compare Aurora Solar on that total.

Third-party services you will also pay for. , , . These are not on Aurora Solar's invoice, and they are still part of what this decision costs you every month.

What a Aurora Solar quote leaves out

The subscription is the part everyone quotes. These are the lines that land afterwards, and the ones we could not find are named as unpublished rather than left blank.

Sold separately. , , , , , , , , , , . Price the configuration you'll really run, because an add-on you need on day one is part of the price.

Third-party services you'll also pay for. , , . None of these are on Aurora Solar's invoice, and all of them are part of what this decision costs every month.

The four workflows you pay for

Feature totals are noise. So a shop in this category lives or dies on four things, and those are the four to grade, and each one below carries the evidence it's graded on.

Accuracy is the product, and the best of it sits one tier up Basic covers 3D roof modelling and trees, roof measurements, performance simulation, custom design rules, an AHJ database Aurora sizes at 'Details and requirements from >25K US jurisdictions', a component database and irradiance analysis. But LIDAR-assisted modelling and bankable shade reports, the two things a lender cares about, start at Premium. AI-assisted site models generated 'in under 15 seconds' are Enterprise. So if you never touch Enterprise, you're paying a human $9.99 and up per on-demand site model instead.

Tablet proposals with lender quoting built in, but the lender has to approve you first Sales Mode carries customisable proposal templates, custom branding, three pricing methods ('Configure PPW, per component, or flat fee pricing'), adders and incentives, a utility rate database where you 'Configure your own rates or use rates from Genability and Aurora', dynamic panel toggling for reps, and web plus PDF proposals with activity tracking. Six lenders are integrated. But the catch sits on Aurora's own financing page: you must already be approved by each lender, and Aurora links a separate application form per provider.

Contract Manager and e-signature are Enterprise, and the two plan-set products carry different risk Customisable sales agreement templates, Contract Manager and e-signature tools all sit in the Enterprise column, so a Premium customer signs contracts somewhere else. And on permitting there are two distinct products. Plan Sets Service is staffed, promises 'AHJ-ready plan sets in 24-48 hours' and markets '95% first-time AHJ approval rates'. But the Instant Plan Set Application is self-serve, and its own terms disclaim approval, rejections, revisions, support and service levels. Engineering stamps are excluded from Plan Set Services unless separately agreed in writing.

Three APIs, all above the line, and no export duty at the end Sync API creates, retrieves and updates projects and design requests and can 'Retrieve design assets, pricing, financings, and agreements'. Design API triggers AutoDesigner, fire pathway placement, irradiance analysis and performance simulation from outside Aurora. And Webhooks fire on Expert Design Service completion, homeowner consumption profile updates and project status changes. But all three are Enterprise, Design API is a paid add-on on top, and on the way out section 10.3 obliges Aurora to hand back nothing.

Which trades get value from Aurora Solar

The Aurora Solar accounting link, and where it stops

QuickBooks connects, on every plan. Any accounting or ERP system, self-built connects both ways, gated to a higher tier. Aurora Sync API (data plumbing layer) connects both ways, gated to a higher tier. Your costs map through cost codes, so test yours against your own chart of accounts before you commit. A code your books don't recognise is how a labour charge quietly lands somewhere useless.

Past those, the road ends. Counted integration directory: 13 partners, and the two vendor pages disagree, QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, Field service and job management (ServiceTitan, Jobber, JobNimbus and similar), Documented data export path for a departing customer do not connect. So if your books run on an ERP rather than the platforms named above, weigh that before anything else.

Beyond accounting it connects to EagleView (Aerial imagery and 3D roof data, included rather than an add-on), Nearmap (Higher-resolution imagery), UtilityAPI (Customer utility data and interval data), Genability (Utility rate database), GoodLeap (Residential solar loans, quoted inside Sales Mode), Mosaic (Home improvement and solar financing), Dividend Finance (Solar and home improvement financing), LightReach (Leases and PPAs (third-party ownership)), EnFin by Qcells (Residential solar financing from Qcells), Sungage Financial (Consumer solar loans), Sunrun (Channel partner, financing), Station A (Commercial and industrial portfolio assessment), K2 Systems (Racking, bill of materials), Unirac (Racking, bill of materials), EcoFasten (Roof mounting, bill of materials). A public API exists: Three surfaces: Sync API (projects, design requests, design details, assets, pricing, financings, agreements), Design API (Fire Pathway Placement, AutoDesigner, Irradiance Analysis, Performance Simulation) and Webhooks. The pricing table places API and integrations in the Enterprise column and flags Design API as an 'Add-on' even there. The developer documentation contradicts the price list, saying Sync API 'is available starting on our Build plan' and Design API 'is available as an add-on to our Build plan or higher' across nine references to a tier that the pricing page does not sell. Docs are versioned (v2018.01, v2022.09, v2024.05), which is a good sign for stability, and the site publishes an llms.txt index at docs.aurorasolar.com/llms.txt.

What happens when Aurora Solar breaks

Aurora Solar lock-in, in plain terms

Nobody reads this section before they buy, and it's the one that costs money afterwards. Four terms decide what leaving looks like.

Minimum term. Aurora answers this two different ways in two live documents, and the difference is material. The pricing FAQ says 'There is no minimum commitment for our monthly Basic and Premium plans', 'There is a one year commitment for our annual Basic and Premium plans', and to contact sales for Enterprise. The Services Agreement that governs Aurora Credits defines Subscription Term as 'one (1) year from the purchase date of your initial Aurora Credit Bundle purchase (Initial Term) and each subsequent renewal term, which is one (1) year from the purchase date of any subsequent Aurora Credits'. Read literally, buying a further credit bundle mid-term starts a fresh one-year clock. Get the Service Order to say which document governs your account.

Auto-renewal. Yes, on both papers, with a 30-day notice window. The Terms of Use say the agreement 'shall automatically renew for additional periods equal to the expiring term or as otherwise set forth in the Service Order... unless either party notifies the other in writing of its intent not to renew at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the then-current term'. The credits agreement repeats it: renewal is automatic 'unless either party gives the other notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days before the end of the Current Term'. Set against the FAQ line 'Yes, you can cancel your purchase at any time', the honest reading is that you can stop future terms, not the one you are in, and only if you give notice in time.

Early termination. No early termination penalty is published, because the contract does not need one: money already paid does not come back. The Terms say 'The Fees are non-refundable after the money back period as provided by Aurora Solar in the relevant Service Order' and 'all payments are non-refundable'. The credits agreement goes further: 'All Aurora Credit redemptions are non-refundable, and any refunds will be provided only in Aurora Credits', and 'All Fees and payments are non-refundable except as required by Applicable Laws'. Unused project allowance dies with the term too: 'all unused Projects expire without any refund at the end of each Subscription Term'.

Payment processing. Aurora does not process homeowner payments. It processes yours. The pricing FAQ states 'Basic and Premium plans can be paid for by credit card' and that 'Enterprise plans can be paid for via invoice or credit card'. The Terms require settlement in one currency only: 'All payments due to Aurora Solar must be made in U.S. dollars', which matters if you are a Canadian installer, and late payment accrues 'at the rate of 1.5% per month'. Homeowner money moves through the lender partners in Sales Mode, not through Aurora.

Aurora Solar, from the people who bought it

How Aurora Solar compares

Here's the shortlist Aurora Solar competes against in real deals. Some of these will tell you the price tonight. That difference tells you how the sales conversation is going to go.

HelioScope. Commercial and industrial PV: rooftop, carport and ground mount on every plan, production 'within 1% of PVsyst', 8760 production reports, P90/P95/P99 values, PVsyst export, single-axis trackers, and design ceilings of 1.25 MW, 5 MW and 30 MW (DC) by tier. But Residential selling. There's no Sales Mode equivalent, no integrated lender network, no Contract Manager, and the project allowance is one fifth of Aurora's at the identical price.

OpenSolar. Cost. OpenSolar states 'We pride ourselves as a free of charge platform that will always be free for you to use', funded by manufacturers, finance companies, distributors and permitting providers, and claims 28,000+ pros on the platform. And it also bundles CRM, project management, permitting and a bill of materials shop that Aurora does not include at any tier. But Independence. The business model is paid for by the same lenders, distributors and manufacturers whose products appear in your proposals, so the neutrality question is structural rather than incidental. And Aurora's design accuracy and lender-facing shade reporting are the recognised benchmark.

Solargraf. Predictable annual budgeting with the project count bought up front rather than metered per seat per month, and permitting, financing and CRM included in the core price on every plan. But Reputation and API cost. Capterra rates Solargraf 3.2 out of 5 across 15 reviews against Aurora's 4.1 across 7, and public API access is an extra 'Get at $4000 annually' on non-Enterprise plans.

Pylon. Seasonal and low-volume shops. So pay-as-you-go means a quiet month costs almost nothing, where Aurora bills $159 per seat whether or not anyone opens a project. But Depth at volume. At Aurora's 50-project allowance, Pylon Standard would run $200 per month for the same project count with the CRM still unbought, and Pylon doesn't publish an equivalent to Aurora's AHJ database, plan sets service or lender network.

SiteCapture. Field operations after the sale: site surveys, photo capture and install documentation, the part of the job Aurora leaves alone. And it lists Aurora Solar as an integration partner on its own Capterra profile. But Everything before the sale. It isn't a design or proposal tool and can't replace Aurora.

Who should not buy Aurora Solar

Don't buy Aurora Solar if you're A commercial and industrial solar developer sizing carports, ground mounts and multi-megawatt rooftops. Aurora's own navigation files this work under a different product. The residential platform's Sales Mode is described as an interface 'for creating dynamic, interactive and customizable sales proposals for residential properties', and the Instant Plan Set Application is 'for residential Projects in the U.S.' And HelioScope, run by the same company, publishes design ceilings of 1.25 MW (DC) on Basic, 5 MW on Pro and 30 MW on Enterprise, plus PVsyst export and single-axis trackers. So buying Aurora for C&I means buying the wrong half of the same vendor. Look at HelioScope instead.

Don't buy Aurora Solar if you're A one-to-three person installer who wants software cost near zero and cannot commit a fixed monthly seat fee. $159 per user per month before any add-on is a real line item at that size, and the 50-project allowance is far more than a small shop opens. And OpenSolar charges installers nothing and says so plainly: 'We pride ourselves as a free of charge platform that will always be free for you to use.' And Pylon meters at $4.00 per project on Standard, so a slow month costs almost nothing. Look at OpenSolar instead.

Don't buy Aurora Solar if you're A solar company that wants one system for design, install scheduling, job costing and the books. Aurora ends at the signed contract and the permit package. There's no accounting, invoicing, purchasing, scheduling or timesheet function anywhere in the published feature list, and no QuickBooks or Xero connector in the partner directory. So the joining work is yours, over an Enterprise-tier API.

Don't buy Aurora Solar if you're A team that shares logins to hold seat count down. Basic and Premium include exactly one user each, the Terms forbid credential sharing outright, and two reviewers report losing in-progress work when the same account is logged in from two machines. So the saving evaporates the first time a design disappears at a kitchen table.

The verdict, by shop size

Solo designer or 1 to 2 seat shop, residential retrofit

Only under conditions, and they are worth being honest about. $159 per seat per month buys allowance you won't use, since 50 projects per seat is far beyond a two-person pipeline. But it's still defensible if the lender relationships in Sales Mode or the bankable shade report are what unblock your deals. And if they're not, OpenSolar at zero or Pylon at $4.00 per project is the honest answer, and you can move to Aurora when volume justifies it. This band runs 1 to 2 on the crew, doing residential work, and that's the profile the recommendation is written for.

3 to 15 seats, residential retrofit plus battery attach

Yes, and this is the shape the product is built for. This is the band the product is priced for. Premium at $220 per user per month annually buys LIDAR-assisted modelling, bankable shade reports and the three battery modes, and 50 projects per seat covers a healthy pipeline. So budget separately for accounting, and plan around Contract Manager and e-signature sitting one tier higher. This band runs 3 to 15 on the crew, doing residential and service work, and that's the profile the recommendation is written for.

16 to 60 seats, multi-branch installer or dealer network

Only under conditions, and they are worth being honest about. Enterprise is where dealer configurations, advanced permissions, SSO, Aurora AI and the APIs live, and it's also where the pricing unit changes from seats to projects with 'volume-based discounts on credit purchases'. And that's a genuinely different commercial model, and the credits agreement attaches one-year terms to credit purchases, no rollover, and a clause letting Aurora top up your credit balance and bill you for it. So it's worth buying, but not worth signing without a lawyer on the Service Order. This band runs 16 to 60 on the crew, doing residential work, and that's the profile the recommendation is written for.

Commercial and industrial solar developer

No. The residential platform is the wrong product from the right company. And Sales Mode is defined in Aurora's own contract as residential-only, the Instant Plan Set Application is US residential only, and every C&I capability a developer needs (PVsyst-grade simulation, trackers, 30 MW ceilings, P90/P95/P99) sits in HelioScope instead. So buy HelioScope, or buy both and know why. This band runs undefined or more on the crew, doing commercial work, and that's the profile the recommendation is written for.

Any size, wanting one platform for design plus accounting, job costing and crew scheduling

No. Aurora has none of it and doesn't pretend otherwise. There's no ledger, no invoicing, no purchasing, no scheduling and no timesheets in the published feature list, and no accounting partner in a 13-entry directory. And the only bridge is an Enterprise-tier API whose own documentation points at a plan tier the price list does not sell. This band runs undefined or more on the crew, doing residential and commercial and service work, and that's the profile the recommendation is written for.

What we read on Aurora Solar, and what we couldn't get to

What this page is, and what it isn't. We read Aurora Solar's own pages and its review corpus. We didn't operate it. What it is instead: Aurora Solar's own 16 pages read line by line on 7 August 2026, plus the review corpus read by complaint type rather than by star rating. And every figure above traces to a page we opened on that date, pricing included.

So: seven quotes on this page, seven from Capterra.

And https://www.g2.com/products/aurora-solar/reviews (403), https://www.trustradius.com/products/aurora-solar/reviews (403), https://www.trustpilot.com/review/aurorasolar.com (403), https://sourceforge.net/software/product/Aurora-Solar/ (403), https://help.aurorasolar.com/hc/en-us (403 to curl and to WebFetch; no help-centre article on export or account closure could be read), https://www.getapp.com/all-software/a/aurora-solar/reviews/ (403 to curl, 404 via WebFetch; no reachable GetApp profile found), https://www.softwareadvice.com/construction/aurora-solar-profile/ (403 to curl, 404 via WebFetch) and https://www.softwareadvice.com/cad/aurora-solar-profile/ (404) refused automated retrieval for Aurora Solar. Where their scores appear in third-party roundups we have left them out rather than pass on a number we could not open.

What that leaves untested: reddit (r/solar, r/solarDIY): blocked to automated access on every prior run in this series, not attempted. And everything above is 16 vendor pages and a review corpus, which is documentary rather than hands-on.