Palmetto vs Sunrun in 2026: The Honest Numbers

Full transcript

I. Two business models

The comparison describes two different theories of home solar. Palmetto runs a marketplace in about thirty states, selling and monitoring through its platform while local crews build. Sunrun operates the largest residential fleet in the country, across more than twenty states, and earns on leases. The page's own line: neither model is better, one prices a system and the other a service.

II. Published terms

Here are the terms each company publishes. Palmetto's Energy Plan subscription lists a ninety percent performance guarantee and twenty-five years of free maintenance. Sunrun publishes a ten-year workmanship warranty and five years on roof penetrations for an owned system, and twenty-five years of maintenance on a subscription, which it says is not offered in Florida. The full side-by-side table is in the free comparison.

III. The lease escalator

On a lease, read the escalator. The comparison puts lease escalators at zero to three and a half percent a year, compounding over a contract that can run twenty to twenty-five years, and says to ask for the full payment schedule and a cents-per-kilowatt-hour comparison against your utility. An owned system has no escalator.

IV. Owning instead

An owned system leans on stacked warranties instead: twenty-five years on panels, ten to twenty-five on inverters, and workmanship of five to ten years with Palmetto, depending on the local installer, or ten years with Sunrun.

V. The 2026 credit shift

The twenty twenty-six credit change moved both. Across thirty-two southern metros in the payback study, a cash purchase now pays back in a median twelve point two years. With thirty percent off, it would be eight point five, roughly where a lease or PPA with the commercial credit lands.

VI. Before signing

Either way, the page says every production promise belongs in the contract. The full comparison is free at Dreamy Leads Research. What state are you in, and what yearly escalator, as a percentage, does your solar lease or PPA carry? Tell us in the comments.