Sunrun: A no-upfront-cost path to solar and battery storage

Sunrun built its business in 2007 around a simple idea: Some homeowners are more interested in predictable energy prices than owning solar equipment outright. Instead of paying upfront for panels, inverters, batteries, and installation, Sunrun offers a different path—the solar subscription—with predictable monthly payments, maintenance included, and no upfront cost. 

Homeowners can go solar without taking on the financial and maintenance responsibilities that come with system ownership, while still lowering their electric bills—albeit with more modest long-term savings compared to owning a system through a cash purchase, though today subscriptions can be more financially attractive than solar loans that carry high interest rates.

Nearly two decades later, Sunrun is now the largest residential solar and battery storage company in the country, serving more than 1.1 million customers. According to the company, roughly 95% of Sunrun customers still choose what they call a subscription (a solar lease or power purchase agreement (PPA)).

Sunrun hasn’t survived this long by standing still. In recent years, the company has expanded well beyond traditional solar leasing, investing heavily in battery storage, virtual power plants, and newer offerings like the Flex Plan, which changes how solar panel systems are sized and used.

A Sunrun subscription provides homeowners with simplicity by shifting ownership, maintenance, and performance risk onto the company. Of course, that model can come with trade-offs, as with any third-party ownership (TPO) structure. 

Here’s what you need to know before signing a contract.

Sunrun built its reputation on third-party ownership (TPO)—an industry term for solar leases and PPAs in which the company owns the equipment and the homeowner pays for the energy service. The company has been around for a long time; longevity matters in an industry where company closures and bankruptcies are relatively common. 

Another key differentiator for Sunrun is how much of the process it keeps under its umbrella. With a Sunrun plan, the company oversees nearly everything: equipment sourcing, system design, permitting, installation, monitoring, maintenance, repairs, and long-term service.

“From the supply chain to the sales team to design and installation, all of that lives under the Sunrun roof,” Wyatt Semanek, senior director of corporate communications at Sunrun, told EnergySage. “We control every single piece of that experience.”

That level of vertical integration stands out in residential solar, where it’s normal for companies to outsource sales, subcontract installations, or hand off financing to third parties. Sunrun’s model gives it greater control over the customer experience from beginning to end, which matters given that most customers stay under contract for 25 years.

Today, Sunrun offers three primary pathways to go solar:

• Sunrun Subscription Plan: This is the solar lease model Sunrun is best known for, and still the option most customers choose. You pay a fixed monthly rate while Sunrun owns and maintains the system over the length of the 25-year agreement*. If something breaks, production drops, or equipment needs to be replaced, Sunrun handles it, subject to the terms of the customer agreement. It’s a more hands-off way to go solar with no upfront costs and ongoing support built in.

• Sunrun Flex Plan: Sunrun's newest TPO offering is currently available in Texas, Illinois, and California. Unlike the standard subscription, which is generally designed to offset 100% of your current usage, Flex intentionally sizes the system to account for future energy needs, like an EV, heat pumps, a growing family, or a home addition. You pay only for your current baseline usage at the standard rate, subject to a monthly minimum bill. The result is a system designed to grow with you, without the need to install additional solar panels and batteries down the road.

• Solar panels ownership: You can also purchase a solar panel system through Sunrun, but only about 5% of its customers take this route. Since Sunrun’s business is so heavily centered around subscriptions, we’re focusing on its lease and PPA offerings in this review.

* Sunrun offers 15-year agreements in Illinois and Puerto Rico

Sunrun vs. other solar financing options

Its fully integrated model can make your experience simpler

Most solar lease and PPA providers rely on a patchwork of third parties—one company handles sales, another designs the system, another installs it, and someone else manages service calls years later. That setup can create a fragmented customer experience, especially when problems come up.

As we’ve already mentioned, Sunrun manages nearly the entire process in-house, giving it more control over both the customer experience and the systems themselves*. It also means there’s less finger-pointing when issues arise. If a system needs repairs, software updates, or performance adjustments, Sunrun doesn’t need to coordinate across multiple companies to make it happen. For homeowners signing a 25-year agreement, that kind of continuity can matter just as much as the equipment on the roof.

Its production guarantee has teeth

Sunrun guarantees that your system will produce a certain amount of electricity each year**. If production falls below 90% of that estimate, Sunrun compensates you for the difference. That’s a stronger commitment than you’ll find with many solar lease and PPA providers.

A solar subscription can be more financially attractive than a solar loan

A whopping 73% of Sunrun customers also install battery storage with their solar panel systems. A single battery can add roughly $15,000 to a project, and some homeowners install two, pushing the cost of solar and storage well beyond what many households can comfortably pay upfront. While a cash purchase still offers the greatest long-term savings, financing a large solar-plus-storage system can significantly increase costs through interest charges. For homeowners who want backup power but don't want to spend tens of thousands upfront or take on a large loan with a high interest rate, Sunrun's subscription model is often the more financially attractive option.

You can earn money through participation in virtual power plants 

The majority of Sunrun customers use battery storage, and in many cases, these homeowners can tap into utility and state programs that pay them to send stored energy back to the grid during periods of high demand. These are usually referred to as virtual power plants (VPPs) or distributed energy resource (DER) programs. Sunrun manages these programs with grid operators, and in return for participating, customers are compensated. 

“Our customers are overwhelmingly choosing batteries, which are then used to support the power grid, and earn them money back,” Ladd Egan, senior manager of corporate communications, told EnergySage. “Our customers earned $17 million for participating in these programs last year. Sometimes that's a bill credit, or sometimes that's just cash in their pocket sent to them as a gift card.”

*Sunrun uses sales partners and subcontracted installers for a minority of its systems.
**Sunrun does not offer a Performance Guarantee in Florida or Hawaii. Sunrun’s Performance Guarantee is 85% in Puerto Rico.

You're looking for a pre-paid TPO structure with an ownership path

Sunrun’s bread and butter remains what it’s always been: a subscription model with monthly payments over a 25-year term. That structure works well for homeowners who want predictable costs and minimal day-to-day involvement.

However, if you’re specifically looking for a pre-paid TPO structure that transitions into ownership after five or six years at little to no additional cost, Sunrun’s model might not be your best option. The pre-paid lease option—with an assumed buyout later in the contract designed to capture early tax credit benefits while still moving the system toward ownership—is becoming more popular now that the federal solar tax credit is no longer directly available to homeowners, but Sunrun doesn’t currently offer that structure.

Sunrun does offer a pre-paid lease option that comes with a discount against the lease offering, but it still functions as a subscription for the full 25-year term rather than a bridge to ownership. Though, like with Sunrun’s monthly subscription product, there are options to buy out the system at various points over the 25-year term.

Sunrun doesn’t operate in your state

Sunrun is the largest residential solar and storage company in the country, but it’s not available in every state. Before going too far down the research path, it’s worth confirming whether the company serves your area since availability alone can be a deciding factor.

Sunrun’s solar subscription makes the most sense for homeowners who want to install solar and battery storage with no upfront cost and like the idea of one company handling the entire system for the next 25 years.

The production guarantee, system monitoring and maintenance, covered equipment replacements, and access to VPP earnings are meaningful differentiators in the TPO space. These aren’t universal features across TPO providers, and they’re a big part of why Sunrun’s model has scaled the way it has.

The tradeoff—like with any lease or PPA—is that you’re giving up some of the long-term financial gains that come with ownership. And because Sunrun is vertically integrated, you’re also effectively choosing its installation and service ecosystem as part of the deal. For some homeowners, that level of simplicity and ease is exactly the point. For others, it’s something worth comparing more closely against other options.

The easiest way to decide is to compare multiple quotes side by side. You can see Sunrun’s subscription options next to ownership-based systems and other financing structures and figure out which setup best suits your home, your budget, and your lifestyle.