Spot coverage reconstructed from the analysis of the VIRGO/SPM solar time series for the spots-and-faculae model (blue) and the spots-only model (dashed orange) compared to the directly observed coverage (grey). The spots-and-faculae model coverage has been rescaled with a factor 2 and the spot-only model by a factor 4 for a better comparison of the temporal evolution between models and observations. An offset of 0.02% has been subtracted from the spot-model reconstructed coverage.