Solar Roles Research · Sales careers
A solar sales job—or a business you have to fund?
One solar sales listing puts the advertising budget on the representative. Six job descriptions show how differently companies divide the work, resources and financial risk of making a sale.
By Solar Roles Research ·
Six selected cases · Frozen job-description snapshot
The company runs the campaigns. The rep brings the ad budget.
Solar Tech Elec's Virtual Sales Agents listing offers a company email account, CRM access and proposal software. Its teams handle marketing campaigns and creative work. The source of the advertising money appears in a separate sentence about commission pay.
“all new leads are generated through your ad spend budget.”
The description requires a computer and internet access, too. It mentions a marketing-team commission without explaining the payment arrangement. No advertising amount or reimbursement terms are specified, so we cannot calculate the representative's expenses or take-home earnings.
For an applicant, the distinction is concrete: access to company sales software does not mean the company supplies the money to attract customers. This listing makes that budget a question to settle before accepting the offer.
Generating your own leads does not necessarily mean buying them
SolarShoppers asks representatives to find prospects through door-to-door work, referrals, networking and community contacts. SalesDraft Recruiting's listing for a Powur role also requires personal lead generation and explicitly rules out a base salary, draws and guaranteed income. Neither description states a required advertising purchase or lead fee.
ATX Solar describes another arrangement: representatives build their own pipeline, then may gain access to supplemental company leads after meeting sales milestones. The description does not give a threshold. An applicant would need to ask what qualifies, how long access takes and whether those leads carry any charge.
Advertising spend
Money allocated to acquiring prospects. Explicitly identified in the Solar Tech Elec case.
Personal resources
Equipment or transportation a candidate must have. Reimbursement may still be available.
Prospecting time
Finding potential customers. It can involve unpaid effort without requiring a purchase.
Some offers supply leads—and one spells out a pay floor
Exact Solar requires personal transportation but says it supplies leads, does not require door-knocking and provides paid training as necessary. The transportation requirement alone cannot establish whether a representative pays unreimbursed mileage costs.
Brooklyn SolarWorks combines personal prospecting with company leads. Its description calls the W-2 role commission-only, then expressly guarantees an applicable New York City minimum-wage floor when commissions fall short. It also explains that commissions arrive at booking, installation and final utility approval.
Those details change the comparison. A commission label does not fully describe the pay arrangement, just as a requirement to find prospects does not fully describe the cost of doing so.
Six offers, with different answers to “who supplies what?”
The six selected descriptions separate what the worker brings from the support advertised by the company. An unspecified term remains an open question; it is not evidence that the worker must pay.
| Advertiser / role | What the worker brings | What the company offers |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Tech Elec LLCVirtual Sales Agents | An advertising budget, a computer and internet access. The description also mentions a commission for the marketing team, without explaining who pays it or how it is calculated. | Email, CRM and proposal software; company teams manage campaigns and creative work. |
| ATX SolarSolar Sales Representative | Generate a personal pipeline through referrals, networking, door-to-door outreach and other sales methods. The role is advertised as 1099 and commission-only. | Supplemental company leads may become available after consistent production and self-generated sales milestones. |
| SolarShoppersOutside Solar Sales Representative | Generate leads through door-to-door work, referrals, networking and community contacts. Reliable transportation is required; compensation is advertised as commission-only. | An installation team is described. The listing emphasizes the representative's own prospecting. |
| SalesDraft Recruiting (listing names Powur)Remote Solar Sales Professional | Generate leads in a commission-only independent contractor role. The listing explicitly rules out a base salary, draws and guaranteed income. | Powur training and a platform for project operations and virtual outreach are described. |
| Exact SolarSolar Salesperson | A valid driver's license and own transportation are required. | Company leads, no door-knocking requirement and paid training as necessary are advertised for the independent contractor sales role. |
| Brooklyn SolarWorksSolar Sales Representative | Develop personal leads alongside company-provided opportunities. Commissions are paid at booking, installation and final utility approval. | Company leads, training and back-office support. The W-2 listing explicitly guarantees an applicable NYC minimum-wage floor for hours worked when commissions fall short. |
Solar Tech Elec LLCAn advertising budget · Read the source evidence
“all new leads are generated through your ad spend budget.”
This is the clearest cash-expense disclosure among the selected examples. It identifies the representative's advertising budget but gives no dollar amount.
Still unspecified: Required ad budget, reimbursement terms and the marketing commission rate are not specified.
Stored location: Remote · Source: custom-scrape · Retrieved 2026-09-02 (UTC)
Open the source listingATX SolarCompany leads after sales milestones · Read the source evidence
“Successful representatives who demonstrate consistent sales production and reach self-generated sales milestones may receive access to supplemental company-provided leads to support continued growth.”
Company leads are described as conditional support, not something a new representative can assume will be supplied from day one.
Still unspecified: The milestone threshold is not given. Self-generation does not establish a requirement to buy leads or advertising.
Stored location: Travis Heights, Travis County · Source: adzuna · Retrieved 2026-09-02 (UTC)
Open the source listingSolarShoppersYour own prospecting · Read the source evidence
“Prospect and generate your own leads across the Antelope Valley”
“Compensation: Commission only - uncapped.”
This is a prospecting obligation. The wording alone cannot tell us whether the representative will spend money acquiring customers.
Still unspecified: No advertising purchase or lead fee is stated. Reliable transportation does not necessarily mean owning a vehicle.
Stored location: Oro Grande, San Bernardino County · Source: adzuna · Retrieved 2026-08-08 (UTC)
Open the source listingSalesDraft Recruiting (listing names Powur)No base salary or draw · Read the source evidence
“There is no base salary, no draws, and no guarantees”
“You will need to generate your own leads.”
A lack of guaranteed income matters when assessing the offer, but it is not evidence of a mandatory business expense. SalesDraft is the recruiting advertiser; the description names Powur.
Still unspecified: No required advertising expense or purchased-lead fee is stated. Training and platform charges, if any, cannot be established from the description.
Stored location: Fresno, CA · Source: breezy · Retrieved 2026-09-06 (UTC)
Open the source listingExact SolarTransportation, with leads supplied · Read the source evidence
“leads are provided for you; no door-knocking required”
“valid drivers license and own transportation”
“Paid training, as necessary”
An offer can require a personal resource while supplying customer leads. These are separate terms of the arrangement.
Still unspecified: Mileage reimbursement and transportation costs are not specified. Owning transportation does not prove an unreimbursed expense.
Stored location: William Penn Annex East, Philadelphia County · Source: adzuna · Retrieved 2026-08-17 (UTC)
Open the source listingBrooklyn SolarWorksCommission pay with an explicit floor · Read the source evidence
“Generate and develop your own leads while working company-provided opportunities”
“Brooklyn SolarWorks guarantees you'll always earn at least the applicable New York City minimum wage for all hours worked in any week where commissions fall short.”
The same description uses a commission-only label and spells out a pay floor. Treating every commission-only listing as offering zero guaranteed pay would misread this offer.
Still unspecified: No requirement to buy advertising or leads is stated. The description does not establish an individual worker's earnings or expenses.
Stored location: Brooklyn, New York City · Source: adzuna · Retrieved 2026-09-02 (UTC)
Open the source listingAsk for the expense terms before comparing commissions
Solar Tech Elec identifies an ad budget without naming an amount; ATX describes access to company leads without naming the sales threshold. A written answer to either question would make the offer easier to assess.
What must I pay for?
Ask for required ad spend, lead purchases, software charges and any deductions from commissions. Separate mandatory expenses from optional purchases.
What does the company supply from day one?
Confirm equipment, training and lead access. If support depends on performance, request the threshold and any associated charges.
Which expenses are reimbursed?
Get the rules for mileage, phone service, equipment and advertising, including approval requirements and payment timing.
When is income paid?
Ask about guaranteed pay, any draw and its repayment terms, commission milestones, cancellations and chargebacks.
Who controls the advertising account?
If you fund campaigns, establish who owns the account and leads, how spending is authorized and what happens to unused funds when the relationship ends.
How we selected and read the six descriptions
2,162 active, unexpired Solar Roles records were captured at (September 7 in Paris, September 6 UTC). Deleted and paused records were excluded. The snapshot records database availability, not independent confirmation that every employer was still hiring.
A title screen for sales, setter, closer, canvass, energy advisor or solar consultant returned 403 candidate records. This broad screen includes repeated listings and adjacent industries. Targeted searches of the stored descriptions looked for advertising budgets, lead generation, personal equipment or transportation, reimbursement and commission terms.
We selected 6 distinct US-listed solar sales cases to illustrate different arrangements and reviewed their full stored descriptions in context. This is purposive selection, not a complete coding of the 403 records. Neither that screening count nor the six cases is a denominator for estimating how common worker-funded expenses are.
HTML was converted to plain text and whitespace normalized. Evidence excerpts were checked against the frozen descriptions. The CSV retains record IDs, source links, source retrieval dates, description hashes, interpretations and unresolved questions. SalesDraft Recruiting is identified as the advertiser for a description naming Powur. Aggregator locations are retained as stored, without treating them as confirmed work territories.
Only explicit expense wording supports a cash-expense finding. Self-generation of leads, commission-only pay, contractor status and possession of equipment do not establish an out-of-pocket purchase. Missing reimbursement language does not establish that reimbursement is unavailable. The descriptions cannot establish actual spending, earnings, contract terms or employer compliance.
Source retrieval dates range from August 8 to September 6, 2026. Listings may change or disappear after collection. The primary Solar Tech Elec page was also checked for the advertising-budget wording during preparation. This report measures advertised terms; it does not include employer interviews or worker expense records.