The honest answer is: it depends on four numbers, and in 2026 one of them changed for the worse. Here's the math without the sales gloss.
The four numbers that decide it
1. Your electricity rate. Solar savings are just electricity you no longer buy. At 30¢/kWh (California, New England) the same panels save nearly twice as much as at 13¢/kWh (much of the South and Midwest).
2. Installed cost. Residential installs run roughly $2.50–$3.00 per watt before incentives, so a typical 8 kW system costs $20,000–$24,000. Quotes meaningfully above that range deserve scrutiny — see what to watch for in solar loans, where inflated pricing usually hides.
3. Incentives. This is what changed. The 30% federal Residential Clean Energy Credit ended for homeowner purchases after December 31, 2025. A purchase that netted $16,800 in 2025 costs the full $24,000 in 2026. State and utility incentives still exist and vary enormously — check DSIRE for yours.
4. Your export compensation. Full retail net metering makes the grid a free battery. States that have cut export rates (California's NEM 3.0 pays roughly 75% less for exports than retail) push payback out by years unless you add storage or shift usage.
What payback looks like now
Take a $130/month bill at 17¢/kWh with a $22,000, 8 kW system and no federal credit: first-year savings around $1,550 give a payback near 12–13 years against a 25-year warranty life. The same system in a 30¢/kWh state pays back in roughly 7 years. Run your own numbers in the Solar Savings Calculator and the Payback Calculator — the defaults are national averages and every one of them is editable.
When it's genuinely not worth it
Solar is a poor fit if your roof needs replacement within a decade (removing and re-installing panels costs thousands), if shading cuts production heavily, if you may move within ~5 years and your market doesn't price solar into resale, or if your rates are low and your state pays little for exports. We keep an unsentimental list in When Solar Doesn't Make Financial Sense. If most of those don't apply — high rates, decent sun, long stay — the math still works in 2026, just more slowly than it did with the credit.