Who it's for
How to Track Solar Commissions: Milestone Pay, Redlines, and Clawbacks
Solar commission is built to be hard to track by hand: you're paid in milestones spread across months, your number comes from a redline calculation instead of a flat percentage, and a cancellation before install can pull an advance you were paid in March back off your check in June. Whether you're a D2D closer or a setter riding splits, the failure mode is the same — twenty-plus accounts in flight at different stages and no clear picture of which milestone actually paid.
This page walks through the mechanics that make solar pay leak — milestone triggers, redline math, the sale-to-PTO lag, and clawbacks — and a tracking setup that surfaces shortfalls while the deal is still fresh enough to chase.
How solar pay milestones actually work
Most solar comp plans split your commission across two or three milestones instead of paying it all at once. The names vary by org, but the pattern is consistent across most plans.
The percentages and triggers live in your comp plan, and they matter more than the headline number. An M1 trigger of "permit approval" pays weeks later than "signed contract," and that difference compounds across a pipeline. Read the plan, then write the exact trigger and percentage down for every deal you close — from the plan, not from memory.
- M1: a partial payment early in the project — commonly at contract signing plus completed site survey, or at NTP/permit approval
- M2: the remainder at install completion or PTO (permission to operate from the utility)
- Some orgs run three milestones — signing, install, and PTO — with a slice at each
Redline math: your commission is the margin
In most solar orgs you don't earn a percentage of the contract — you earn the spread between the contract price per watt and your redline (the company's base price), multiplied by system size.
Example: say your redline is $2.60/W and you close an 8 kW system at $3.05/W. Your gross commission is $0.45 × 8,000 W = $3,600, split across your milestones.
Then come the complications. Adders — batteries, main panel upgrades, trenching — may be commissionable or pass-through depending on your plan. Financed deals carry dealer fees that some orgs bake into the redline and others deduct separately. Compute your expected number at signing using your plan's actual rules and write it down. If you wait for the check to tell you what you earned, you have no way to know whether the check is right.
The sale-to-PTO lag hides missing payments
Every solar deal is really two or three separate expected checks on separate dates, and the last one can land months after signature depending on permitting, install scheduling, and utility interconnection. That lag creates the classic failure: a missed M2 doesn't look like a missing payment — it looks like a project still in progress. Nobody chases a check they haven't consciously decided is late.
The fix is an expected pay-by date per milestone, not per deal. This is where PayoutVerify fits for solar reps: log each milestone as its own deal — M1 and M2 separately — and the app computes an expected payout and pay-by date for each from your comp profile, then nudges you at 7 and 21 days once a payment goes past due. A quiet M2 surfaces as "overdue" instead of dissolving into the pipeline.
Cancellations and clawbacks of advanced milestone pay
When a homeowner cancels before install — financing falls through, the roof fails inspection, or they get cold feet during the permitting wait — the company typically recovers whatever milestone pay it already advanced, usually as a deduction on a later check. The deduction often shows up weeks after the cancellation, labeled with a job ID instead of a customer name, which is exactly how errors slip through.
Verify three things on every clawback line: the amount equals what was actually advanced on that deal (not the full commission you never received), it's tied to the correct deal, and it isn't deducted twice across two pay periods. What's recoverable is governed by your rep agreement, so read the clawback language before you sign it. And if you're W-2 rather than 1099 — some inside sales teams are — state wage-payment laws exist that may apply to paycheck deductions; an employment attorney can tell you what applies in your state.
Setter and closer splits: check your cut per payment
If you're a setter, your cut rides the same redline math and the same milestone schedule as the closer's — when their M2 is late, yours is too. Splits also commonly differ between self-generated deals and company leads, which is where percentage errors creep in. Record your split at the time the appointment is set, and verify it against each individual milestone payment rather than eyeballing the deal total, because a wrong split on one milestone disappears inside a roughly-right sum.
A tracking setup that survives 20 deals in flight
At signing, record: customer or job ID, system size in watts, contract PPW, redline, adders and whether they're commissionable, your split, and each milestone's percentage, trigger, expected dollar amount, and expected pay date. Then reconcile every line on every commission statement against that list, and log cancellations the day you hear about them so the pending clawback is already expected.
A spreadsheet handles this at low volume. It starts breaking when the pipeline gets deep and cancellations start rewriting history. PayoutVerify's solar rate pack pre-fills editable defaults for solar comp, reads your commission statements from PDF, photo, or CSV, matches lines to deals with a plain-English reason recorded for each match, flags short payments with the exact dollar difference, and ties clawbacks back to the original deal. No integrations required — it works from the statements you already receive, and the free plan covers up to 15 active deals with CSV export included.
Questions
What are M1 and M2 in solar sales pay?
M1 and M2 are the common names for solar commission milestones. M1 is a partial payment triggered early in the project — typically at contract signing, completed site survey, or permit/NTP approval — and M2 is the remainder, paid at install completion or PTO (permission to operate). The exact triggers and percentage split are defined in your comp plan, and some companies use three milestones instead of two.
What is a redline in solar commissions?
A redline is the company's base price per watt; your commission is the margin between the contract price and the redline, multiplied by system size. For example, closing an 8 kW system at $3.05/W against a $2.60 redline yields $0.45 × 8,000 W = $3,600 in gross commission. Adders and dealer fees are handled differently from one comp plan to the next, so confirm your plan's rules before assuming a number.
Can a solar company claw back my commission if the customer cancels?
Generally yes — if a homeowner cancels before install, most comp plans let the company recover milestone pay it already advanced, usually by deducting it from a future check. What's recoverable is governed by your rep agreement or comp plan, so read the clawback language carefully. If you're a W-2 employee rather than a 1099 contractor, state wage-payment laws may also apply to paycheck deductions, so consult an employment attorney about your state.
How long does it take to get fully paid on a solar deal?
The final milestone is usually tied to install completion or PTO, and permitting, install scheduling, and utility interconnection timelines vary widely by jurisdiction and installer — so full payment commonly lands weeks to months after the contract is signed. Because of that lag, the reliable approach is tracking an expected pay-by date for each milestone, not just for each deal. A late milestone only gets chased if something tells you it's late.
What's the best way to track solar commissions across a big pipeline?
Record every deal at signing — system size, contract PPW, redline, adders, your split, and each milestone's expected amount and pay date — then reconcile every commission statement line against that list. A spreadsheet works at low volume; a purpose-built tracker like PayoutVerify computes expected payouts and pay-by dates from your comp profile, reads your statements, and flags short pays, overdue payments, and clawbacks. Either way, the habit that matters is writing down the expected number before the check arrives.
Stop verifying by memory
PayoutVerify logs what you sold, reads the statements you already receive, and flags every payment that comes up short, missing, or clawed back. Free tier forever — no card, and CSV export is never paywalled.