The correct representation of the solvent is a crucial issue for the computation of molecular properties in solution, especially UV–vis spectra.This Letter shows that for mainly ionic complexes involving intra-ligand electronic transitions, the use of a hybrid model (microsolvation and PCM) leads to a good reproduction of the experimental electronic spectra. The use of smaller molecules (water instead of methanol) in the first coordination sphere did not change the optical absorption computation, saving by this way computation time. A tentative explanation based on the nature of the solvent–metal cation bonds is then presented.