Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Using a Credit Card or Paypal to pay for Tesla Solar

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
The answer used to be a definite yes, as Tesla issued Paypal invoices and accepted all forms of payment, with no fees. Some users more recently have reported receiving invoices via Plaid, which apparently will only accept a bank account. However, reports were also that if you called Tesla directly, you could still pay with a CC, again with no fees. So hopefully it is still the case, though it is a bit concerning that the advisors are not consistent in what they are telling you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MorrisonHiker
The answer used to be a definite yes, as Tesla issued Paypal invoices and accepted all forms of payment, with no fees. Some users more recently have reported receiving invoices via Plaid, which apparently will only accept a bank account. However, reports were also that if you called Tesla directly, you could still pay with a CC, again with no fees. So hopefully it is still the case, though it is a bit concerning that the advisors are not consistent in what they are telling you.


Yeah strange isnt it? on the one hand, someone said they got an invoice via plaid, and on the other hand, someone else recently got the same paypal invoice we got earlier in the year.

As mentioned, OP you should call and ask. When paid with a CC there was no fee when I did it, which was January.. which was the beginning of what I hoped would be a great year......
 
This is the email I received a couple weeks ago. I ended up calling Tesla as I wanted to split it on two cards.

upload_2020-8-20_17-9-36.png
 
tl;dr- May and July charges on credit card without additional transaction fees being realized.

Not terribly recent.. install was end of May.. the 50% invoice was received with an error.. called in and spoke with a financial services representative to get the invoice fixed (included Powerwall State sales tax and shouldn't have)..

I said I'd mail the check to them and they said they'd accept credit card if I wanted to use one via Plaid with no transaction fees.

Never heard of Plaid. Did due diligence and got myself comfortable with using Plaid for the transaction.

Called back, did the transaction over the phone with a different representative. Confirmed charges matched corrected invoice (no transaction fees).

Called back again after July 9th PTO and paid the remaining 50% the same way.
 
I used Amazon CC and made 2 payments as the bill exceeded limit. Took a few days to be sure my payment to CC was in before 2nd half was made so there is no rejection.
Called Tesla billing first to do this, no problem.
I made a payment to CC for half before calling Tesla billing so it would not go over CC credit limit and any recent charges.
Tesla made a demand from CC for half. Made another payment to CC for other half the next day or two, called CC all ok, called Tesla and made the 2nd half. Went well over several days of checking making sure limit not exceeded and rejected.
Got 1% back from CC. Better than 0% back.
 
I paid last month via CC on PayPal. No extra fees. If you can get a sufficient credit limit, Discover IT Miles has 1.5% cash back and fully matched in the first year for 3% cash back total and no annual fee... also $100 sign up bonus with referral. If anyone needs a referral feel free to use mine

I think they will also allow you to make multiple payments if you want to split it up between multiple cards.