Sales Price Tiers

Typically, buying more of something means you get it at a cheaper rate. Solar is no different; every project has fixed costs, which include marketing, design and engineering, permits, trip charges, and PV components like string inverters and communication gateways, to name a few. These costs tend to be about the same on small projects as they are on large projects, so a 12kW PV system doesn't wind up costing double the price of 6kW; it's quite a bit less that that. Charging your customers a flat rate of, say, $3/watt, regardless of system size, doesn't make for very good cost management.

The Wiz uses Sales Price Tiers to help you give solar estimates to your website visitors. So if they design a 7.6kW system, it might quote it at, say, $3.10/watt, whereas if they design a hulking, 12kW system, it would use of rate of $2.90/watt. Of course, the rates–and the breakpoints they apply to–are entirely up to you when you do the configuration. You can have as many tiers as you want, and the rates can be whatever you want them to be.

Greater than x

Each tier you set assumes the size you designate–and up. So you'll always want one that's "> 0 kW", even if you charge a simplistic and extortionary $4/W for Jinko 320's, and spend your days hoodwinking little old ladies into "never having an energy bill again!" A sound, middle-market pricing structure for a baseline photovoltaic system might look like this:

Simple math, not like your taxes

It may be apparent that–under this system–a 9.9kW system could actually wind up costing more than a 10kW system. A bracket system like the one used for the United States federal income tax would be more true to life, and wouldn't have the effect of prices bouncing in funny directions as you add and remove panels. A more sophisticated calculator is certainly feasible, but hey, experience taught us that we had to write an entire page just describing the simple tiers, and then go make a video about it, or most folks just wouldn't get it. If you're someone who really feels that an additive bracket system is that much better, we'd love to hear from you.