Customer Financing Programs + Presentation
Why this matters
Customer financing transforms in-home sales conversion. A HVAC replacement quote that's "no" at cash becomes "yes" at financed. Tickets close 30 - 60% higher when financing is presented properly. The contractor pays a merchant fee (typically 2 - 8%) - significantly less than the lost-sale loss. Financing is now table stakes for any residential service contractor selling replacement-range tickets - the jobs that run ten times a standard service call or more, where the customer is deciding whether to spend savings rather than whether to write a check. Operators not offering it are losing those deals to the ones who do.
How customer financing works
Customer signs up for a financing program (often instantly on-site). The financing company pays the contractor in full + the customer pays the financing company over time.
Structure:
- Customer applies (paper OR mobile)
- Approval in 1 - 5 minutes (soft pull credit usually; some hard pull)
- Customer signs documents
- Contractor delivers work
- Financing company pays contractor 1 - 5 business days
- Customer pays financing company over 6 - 144 months at agreed rate
Contractor cost: typically 2 - 8% merchant fee deducted from payment. Some programs are merchant-free (subsidized by promotional APR).
Customer cost: depends on program:
- Same-as-cash (deferred interest): 6 - 24 months no interest if paid in full
- Reduced APR (special offer): 6.99 - 12.99% for promotional period
- Standard installment: 12 - 36 months at 8 - 18% APR
- Long-term: 60 - 144 months at 9 - 14% APR
The major financing programs
- Wisetack: HVAC/plumbing/electrical/roofing; instant text/QR approval; 3 - 60 months; 0% promo + standard APR; merchant fee 2.5 - 8%
- GreenSky (ContractorWise): residential service; hard pull; 6 - 144 months; 0% promo + standard
- Sunlight Financial: HVAC + electrical + solar; IRA-credit specialty
- Synchrony Home: HVAC + appliances; installment loans
- Service Finance Company: HVAC + plumbing + remodeling
- Enerbank (Regions Bank): home improvement; larger ticket; long-term
Most offer ONE primary + sometimes a SECOND backup.
How to present financing in-home
During discovery: don't mention financing yet. Customer focused on solving the problem.
During options presentation: present total price AND financing equivalent, in that order, in one breath:
- "The system comes to [total]. Financed over [term], that's about [monthly] a month."
- (Pause; let customer absorb)
- "We can apply for that right now if you'd like; takes 2 - 3 minutes"
The math customers care about:
Customers respond to the monthly payment more than to the total, and the reason is worth understanding rather than just exploiting. The same job quoted as a lump sum lands as a capital decision, measured against savings the customer has a use for. Quoted as a payment against a long term, it lands next to the other monthly bills, where a household already knows what it can absorb. Nothing about the price changed, only the unit it is quoted in - which is exactly why the cash price stays on the page (see below). You are reframing the decision, not disguising it.
At the close:
- If customer hesitates on cash: "Did you want to look at the financing option?"
- Offer to apply on-site (most won't fill out forms later)
- Mobile applications make this 3 - 5 minutes via QR code OR text
Best practices for financing pitches
1. Present financing as additive, not "instead of"
Don't make it sound like you're pushing financing because the customer can't afford it. Frame: "Here's the cost + here's how we can make this work for you."
2. Don't hide the cash price
Customer needs to know both numbers. If you bury the cash price, customer feels manipulated.
3. Use promotional offers when available
"Same-as-cash for 18 months" closes more deals than "12.99% over 5 years."
4. Match financing to ticket size
The term has to fit the ticket, or the offer does more harm than good. A repair-sized ticket belongs on a short same-as-cash promo (6 - 24 months); the customer clears it and never pays interest, and offering a 10-year note on a small repair reads as a shop trying to make a payment out of nothing. A replacement-range ticket belongs on a promotional APR or a 12 - 36 month installment. Only the largest tickets - whole-system, whole-roof, multi-trade - justify the 60 - 144 month products, and those are the jobs where the monthly payment is genuinely the thing that makes the work possible. Match it upward and the customer is over-financed; match it downward and the payment is too big to say yes to.
5. Practice the presentation
Most reps stumble through financing because they only present it occasionally. Confidence comes from repetition. Roleplay with team.
The honest disclosure
Customer should understand:
- Cash price + financed price (with fees)
- APR (annualized)
- Total interest if not paid in promotional window
- Penalty for late payment
- Credit impact (soft vs hard pull)
The contractor + the financing company are partners on disclosure. Skipping disclosure = customer complaint + sometimes legal exposure.
Same-as-cash trap (the most-litigated)
"Same-as-cash for 18 months" works like this:
- If NOT paid in full by month 18: retroactive interest at 24.99% (typical) from day 1
- Customer who pays 17 of 18 payments + then misses pays full retroactive interest
Disclosure responsibility:
- Contractor must explain clearly
- Customer signs disclosure
- Customer's responsibility from there
Customers who don't understand this + get hit with retroactive interest = complaint + sometimes lawsuit. Educate clearly.
The merchant fee math
The fee is 2 - 8% of the ticket, deducted from what the finance company pays you. The mistake is comparing it against REVENUE, where 5% sounds trivial. Compare it against MARGIN, because margin is what a lost sale actually costs you.
Index the ticket at 1.00 and take an install at 30% gross margin (the job-costing card puts the install band at 25 - 40%; every figure below is a share of the ticket, not a percentage of cash received):
| Per ticket | Cash sale | Financed at a 5% fee |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Job cost | 0.70 | 0.70 |
| Merchant fee | 0.00 | 0.05 |
| Margin kept | 0.30 | 0.25 |
The fee eats 0.05 of 0.30, which is one sixth of the job's margin. Read against margin instead of against revenue, a 5% fee is nearly 17%, better than three times the headline number - and 17% is the figure to decide on.
So what does it have to buy? One fifth more closed jobs, because restoring a margin cut by one sixth takes six fifths the volume. Six financed jobs at 0.25 return 1.50; five cash jobs at 0.30 return 1.50. Identical. Breakeven is a 20% lift in close rate, and that assumes the pessimistic case where every single job pays the fee.
Against that, this article's tracking section reports a 30 - 60% close-rate lift where financing is offered properly. The bottom of the observed range clears the pessimistic breakeven with room to spare, and the 20 - 40% average-ticket lift is excluded from the calculation above entirely, which makes it conservative on purpose.
The realistic case is far better still, because only the customers who ACTUALLY finance pay a fee. At the 5 - 15% take-up reported below, the fee lands on a small minority of tickets while the close-rate lift applies to the whole pipeline, which drops breakeven under a 3% lift.
What changes with ticket size is the alternative, not the fee. At a given margin rate the fee is a constant share of margin, so it does not blow up on a bigger ticket - though it does bite slightly harder there, because install margins run below repair margins and the same 5% is a larger slice of a thinner one. What actually flips the decision is what happens when you DON'T offer it. On a small repair the customer pays either way, so the fee buys nothing and you should not reach for it. On a replacement the realistic alternative is often no sale at all, which is zero margin rather than 0.30. That asymmetry, not the fee, is why financing pays for itself on higher tickets and leaks on low ones.
One caveat on "merchant-free" programs: the fee did not disappear, it moved to the customer's APR. Price it as a cost you are asking THEM to carry, and disclose it that way.
Multiple financing program strategy
Primary: 0% promotional (low-fee, customer-attractive) Secondary: Standard installment (higher fee, customer with marginal credit) Tertiary: Backup for declines
Most contractors offer 2 - 3 programs. Each has different approval criteria + different customer-fit.
Tracking financing impact
In CRM:
- Tag every transaction with financing vs cash payment
- Calculate close rate + average ticket per finance status
- ROI on merchant fees paid
Most contractors see:
- 30 - 60% higher close rate when financing offered
- 20 - 40% higher average ticket
- 5 - 15% of customers choose financing (often the best customers - highest-ticket)
Contractor responsibility + risk
- Contractor is responsible for accurate billing (charge what you quoted)
- Customer disputes go to financing company; you may face chargeback
- Customer satisfaction is your job (financing didn't cause unhappiness)
- Some financing programs reverse payment if you don't deliver promised work
Solar + EV charger specifics
Some financing programs are specialized for:
- Solar (Sunlight, Sunnova, GoodLeap)
- EV chargers
- Battery storage
- Heat pumps (IRA tax credit context)
These interact with the customer's federal tax credit, and the two residential credits behave differently in the way that matters here. The clean-energy credit (solar, battery, geothermal) runs at 30% of qualifying cost with no annual ceiling; the efficiency credit that covers heat pumps and envelope work also runs at 30% but is CAPPED annually, per category and overall, so a customer doing several measures in one year can blow through it and get back less than the percentage suggests. Both are non-refundable and depend on the customer's own tax position. Size the financed amount off the job, and route the credit question to the customer's tax preparer - a contractor who quotes a credit the customer turns out not to qualify for has manufactured a dispute out of a closed sale. Confirm the current year's rules; this is the most-amended corner of the tax code you touch.
The single most-impactful financing habit is OFFERING IT AT EVERY CLOSE - not waiting for the customer to ask. Most customers don't realize financing is available; many would prefer it. Make it part of your standard close: present cash price + financed equivalent every time. Your team will close more deals + at higher tickets. Yes, you pay merchant fees, but you keep more margin across the pipeline because the alternative on the jobs it wins you is "no sale at all." This is the easiest single revenue lift in residential service.
References
- Wisetack, GreenSky, Sunlight Financial websites
- Federal CFPB rules on consumer credit disclosure
- State usury laws (vary by state)
- See related: Gross Margin per Job + Job Costing - where the install margin band used in the merchant-fee breakeven comes from
- Manuall internal: In-Home Selling + Close Technique, Pricing Strategy Fundamentals