Compare
Solar Design Lab vsGreenLancer
If you're using GreenLancer, you're outsourcing plansets so you don't have to produce them in-house. Reasonable starting point. The friction shows up once you scale or hit a tough jurisdiction. Pricing arrives quote by quote with no published rate card to check it against, the person drawing your set is someone the platform stands between you and, and every correction is another trip through the queue. The alternative isn't better outsourcing. It's a tool your own team runs.
What GreenLancer does well
- Access to licensed engineers without hiring in-house
- Straightforward path to stamped plansets for standard residential jobs
- A workable way to get started with solar volume
Where it starts to break
As volume goes up, the workflow becomes the bottleneck.
Today's loop
Outsourcewaitrevisewaitfile
- No published rate card. Reseller and directory listings report $250 to $600 for a residential set, with plans-plus-stamps quotes reported past $1,500. You learn your price at quote time
- The person drawing your set isn't someone you deal with directly. Questions route through the vendor's support team, not through the project file
- Revisions round-trip through the vendor: corrections go out and you wait for the file to come back, instead of opening the project and fixing it
- Hard jurisdictions are where the round trip hurts most: high-velocity hurricane zone (HVHZ) Florida, site-specific structural, uplift calcs. Each question costs another cycle when the designer is outside your walls
The real limitation
Outsourcing doesn't remove the bottleneck. It moves it outside your walls.
The numbers, side by side
The same permit set, priced two different ways.
| Metric | GreenLancer | Solar Design Lab |
|---|---|---|
| What a residential set costs | No published rate card. Reseller and directory listings report $250 to $600 per set. | Published pricing: first planset free, then $49 a set, down to $29 in bundles. Your team runs the tool. |
| Stamped package | Quotes for plans plus stamps reported past $1,500. | A planset credit plus a PE stamp you request in-app on the finished set. Stamp turnaround depends on the engineer, as anywhere. |
| Turnaround | Their published figure: 1 to 2 business days for permit design. | The set generates in minutes. Nothing sits in a queue. |
| Revisions | Corrections go back out to the vendor and return as a new file. | Free once the credit is spent. Edit the project, re-export. |
| Who does the work | Their services page calls them "qualified fulfillment partners." | Your own team, in the tool, with the engineering calculated as you draw. |
| Who you talk to about the design | The platform's support team, not the person drawing your set. | Nobody sits between. You are the designer on your job. |
Reported prices are third-party reseller and directory listings as of August 2026; GreenLancer publishes no rate card. Turnaround figures and the "fulfillment partners" description are from GreenLancer's own published pages as of August 2026.
A different approach
Your team does the design. The platform does the engineering, no manual CAD.
- Your team does the design. The platform does the engineering: wire sizing, overcurrent protection, ground paths, voltage drop all calculated live from the drawing
- AHJ rules checked per county as you design. The engine flags problems before the AHJ does
- Complete packet from one engine: single-line diagram, electrical, structural, roof layout, bill of materials, AHJ-specific labels
- Revisions reuse the project. No resending updated PDFs
- From $29 per planset, first one free. No planset subscription, no minimums, revisions free
- Need it stamped? Request a PE stamp inside the app
The workflow shift
Five steps become three, and none of them is waiting.
GreenLancer
Outsourcewaitrevisewaitfile
Solar Design Lab
Designcheckfile
You don't need better outsourcing. You need a tool your own team runs in minutes.
Some shops keep an outsourcing relationship for overflow and run their everyday residential through SDL. That's fine. The everyday jobs are where the waiting costs you most.
Quick application · no credit card.
Freelance designer rather than an installer? The designer page is for you