Solar is a crowded trade. Homeowners worried about energy bills want panels and a battery, small businesses want to protect cold rooms and tills from outages, farms look at solar water pumping, and companies want to cut operating costs. Every one of these buyers starts by searching online: a trustworthy installer, a quote, a reliable supplier of panels, inverters or batteries. And every one of them quickly finds a list of names.
For an installer or an equipment supplier, the question is no longer whether to be visible but how hard to push. Traffic Engine has three standard plans and two exclusive ones. Here is how to choose, using only the prices published on the offer page, shown here in euros.
What every plan shares
Whichever plan you pick, the path is the same. It begins with a Visibility Audit at €690, delivered within 48 business hours, which reviews your presence on Google and in AI assistants, places you against your sector and recommends an action plan. It is fully deducted from the one-off €1,500 setup if you start within 30 days. Every plan then runs on a 12-month commitment, with a measured review at 3 months, a dated report every week and results tracked in your own Search Console.
The guarantee does not change either: what your plan includes goes live on schedule, or the following month is free. What separates the plans is the intensity of your presence and the positioning of your seat.
Three kinds of solar business, three plans
The local residential installer: Presence
You mostly fit homes and small shops in your own area, with one or two installation crews. Your ceiling is the number of jobs you can complete each month. Presence, at €1,100 a month, is the entry seat: a steady baseline of visibility so that homeowners searching for an installer nearby can find you. Over the first year, setup included, the investment is €14,700.
The maths is quick. Work out the margin on a typical residential system, then count how many extra installations a year it takes to cover the plan. For most installers it is a small number.
The growing installer: Momentum
You run several crews, want to move beyond your immediate area, and are targeting businesses, schools, clinics or farms, perhaps with a second region in mind. Momentum, at €1,900 a month, is the growth seat and the plan most businesses choose. It gives you enough presence to hold your own against the many installers and resellers competing for the same searches. The first year comes to €24,300, setup included.
Here the value of a client changes scale. A single commercial rooftop or pumping project can carry enough margin to cover a large share of the year on its own.
The distributor or multi-region operator: Flood
You sell panels, inverters and batteries to installers and end users, or you operate in several cities or countries. You hold stock, have a sales team and can handle a high volume of enquiries. Flood, at €3,500 a month, is the intensive seat, designed for businesses that want to become the reference in their market. The first year comes to €43,500, setup included.
Flood only makes sense if you can absorb the demand it is meant to create. For an installer who cannot take on more jobs than today, it would mean paying for customers you then keep waiting, and probably lose.
To set your budget before choosing, our guide on what monthly visibility budget makes sense for a solar installer walks through the reasoning.
The exclusive plans: while the sector is still open
With Traffic Engine, each sector is limited to 3 standard seats per area, each with its own positioning: for example, one focused on homeowners, one on commercial clients and one on equipment sales. But as long as no standard seat has been signed in your area, you can lock the entire sector.
Momentum Exclusive, at €3,900 a month, and Flood Exclusive, at €5,900 a month, guarantee that no other solar installer or supplier in your area will be served by Kolonell during your commitment. Over the first year, that comes to €48,300 for Momentum Exclusive and €72,300 for Flood Exclusive, setup included. The option disappears as soon as the first standard seat is signed. Our guide on why a serious provider limits clients per sector and area explains why the rule exists.
The most common mistake
Many owners pick a plan by looking only at the monthly fee, as if it were a cost to keep as low as possible. It works better the other way round: start from what a client is worth and how many new jobs your crews can actually take on, then work back to the plan. A plan that is too light for a crowded market costs little but brings little. A plan that is too heavy for your capacity leaves customers waiting, and in solar, a customer kept waiting for a site visit usually signs with whoever turns up first.
Three questions to settle it
- Size: how many extra jobs or orders can you genuinely absorb each month?
- Ambition: are you aiming at your town, several cities, or the leading position in your country?
- Competition: how many visible installers and resellers already appear when someone searches for your trade in your area, and is your sector still empty there?
To put numbers on each plan, use our guide on how many new clients it takes to break even, then the payback calculator on the page. If you are still unsure, the audit settles it before you commit to anything. See the offer and check which solar seats are still open.