What does a solar installer website cost in the UK? £650 a year, and the MCS register shows what it has to carry
The usual assumption is that a trade selling jobs worth thousands needs a website that cost thousands: savings calculators, finance widgets, a sales funnel. It does not. The customer has usually decided on solar before they find you. What they are deciding is whether you are safe to let on the roof for a day or two, and whether you will still be answering the phone in ten years. They start that check on a register, not on your homepage.
On 16 September 2026 I read every solar PV installer on the MCS Find an Installer register: 4,298 UK businesses. 1,998 of them gave the customer no usable website to click.
So the fair price of a solar installer's website is not set by the size of the job. It is set by what it costs to pass that check, measured against what one booked survey is worth to you.
About £650 a year done for you, with no build fee. That is £50 every four weeks, thirteen payments, hosting and edits included. For a UK solar installer the money should buy five things: your MCS certification number, your consumer code, the kit you fit, photos of finished roofs, and a survey request that works on a phone.
1,998 MCS solar installers give customers no website to click
Of 4,298 MCS certified solar PV installers on the MCS register on 16 September 2026, 2,300 listed a usable website address: 53.5%. Scotland was highest at 60.2% and Northern Ireland lowest at 42.6%.
| Nation | Installers | Listing a website | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 347 | 209 | 60.2% |
| England | 3,608 | 1,929 | 53.5% |
| Wales | 296 | 142 | 48.0% |
| Northern Ireland | 47 | 20 | 42.6% |
| All UK | 4,298 | 2,300 | 53.5% |
Nation comes from the postcode of each installer's registered address. "Usable" means the website field held a real web address; a phone number, a company name or a social media page typed into that box did not count.
What the count does not prove
A blank field means the register shows no website, not that the business has none. Some of those 1,998 will have a site they never gave MCS. For the customer looking at the listing the effect is the same. Look up your own entry on the MCS Find an Installer tool before you spend a penny, and if the website box is empty, fixing that costs nothing.
The price, and why a big job does not need a big build
A website at £50 every four weeks is £650 a year, thirteen payments rather than twelve, set against a purchase that UK solar customers measure in thousands of pounds.
The job is big. The website's work is small and specific: prove you are certified, show you have done this on roofs like theirs, and make the survey easy to book. None of that needs a bespoke build with a price to match. What it needs is somebody keeping it current, because in this trade the facts on the page move.
What the money should cover
Up to six pages, hosting, the domain, SSL, backups and unlimited small text and photo edits. No build fee, nothing on day one, and a free mockup of your own business before you pay anything. After twelve months the site and the domain are yours. Work out any other quote on the same annual figure; if a provider will not give you one, that is the answer.
What not to pay extra for
A page builder you log into yourself, a chatbot, or a finance widget you will never configure. The most expensive thing a solar installer's site can do is quote a VAT rate, a battery price or a certification scheme that stopped being true months ago.
What a solar customer checks before booking a survey
A solar customer who clicks through from the MCS register already knows your phone number and email. The website has to add the things the listing cannot: proof, kit, finished work and a clear next step.
| What the register shows | What the customer still wants | Where your site answers it |
|---|---|---|
| Business name and certification number | That the name on the van is the name on the register | MCS number in the header area, same trading name |
| Certification body | Who protects them if it goes wrong | Consumer code named, with a link to its member search |
| Technologies, such as solar PV and battery | Which panels, inverters and batteries you fit | A kit page with brands named |
| Regions covered | Whether you really work in their town | Area list and local finished jobs |
| Phone and email | What happens after they call | A survey page: the visit, the quote, the timeline |
| Nothing | Photos of roofs you have finished | A gallery of real installs, not stock panels |
Name the consumer code you actually belong to
The Renewable Energy Consumer Code and HIES are both consumer codes approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, and RECC is also a TrustMark scheme operator. Put the one you belong to beside your MCS number, linked to where a customer can check it. The same placement rules apply as for any registered trade: near the top, with the number, linked to the register.
MCS is changing under the certificate
MCS is moving installers onto a redeveloped installer scheme in phases through 2026 and into 2027, ending with a signed MCS Installer Agreement. When your certification body moves you over, the wording on your site may need to change with it. That is a text message to whoever runs your site, not a rebuild.
Photograph the roof twice
You already take photos of every array for your own records. Take one more wide shot of the house from the street, with the customer's permission, and send it over. The way to get those right on a phone is in how to photograph your work as a tradesman.
Local solar firms list a website less often than nationwide ones
Installers registered as covering all twelve MCS regions listed a website 61.0% of the time. Installers covering a single region listed one only 44.6% of the time, and they are the ones who depend most on being found in their own area.
A national solar company can lose a few customers at the register and make it up on advertising. A two-van firm in Devon or Fife cannot. When a customer compares a nationwide name with a proper website against a local installer with a blank box and a Gmail address, the local firm starts the comparison behind, whatever the quality of its work. A site that names the towns you cover and shows roofs in them is how the local firm catches up.
There is a second risk in the same place. Customers buying solar are buying something meant to last decades, and they notice when a business looks temporary. A site that vanishes because the person who built it moved on sends exactly the wrong signal, which is the problem covered in what happens if your web designer stops trading.
Which plan a solar installer needs
Most solar installers need the £50 Website plan. Add pages every four weeks only when you cover several towns or sell battery retrofits as their own service.
If you fit EV chargers alongside solar, the grant side of that is different and has its own rules, set out in what an EV charger installer should pay for a website. What the Website plan build looks like for this trade is on the solar installer website design page.
Write the VAT line so it can change
Installing solar panels in UK homes is zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027 and goes back to 5% from 1 April 2027, so any page that says "0% VAT" without a date will be wrong in six months.
HMRC's VAT Notice 708/6 sets the zero rate for installations in residential accommodation from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027. It is a fair thing to tell customers this winter. Put it on one page with the end date, link to it from everywhere else, and the change in April is one edit rather than a hunt through every page that mentions a price.
Bottom line. A solar installer website in the UK should cost about £650 a year, not thousands up front, and that money should buy the proof a customer looks for after the MCS register: your certificate number, your consumer code, your kit, real roofs, and a survey they can book from their phone.