Cost segregation companies
Cost Segregation Companies Compared: How to Choose
There are good ways and expensive ways to spend $500 to $10,000 on a cost segregation study. This is an honest guide to the residential and short-term-rental providers — what each does well, how they differ on method and sign-off, and the one thing almost none of them let you do before you buy: read a real report.
What actually matters when you choose
Price is the easiest thing to compare and the least useful on its own. These five criteria are what separate a study you can defend from a number you can’t.
- 01
Method
Is the study engineered from your property's own documents, generated by DIY software you drive yourself, or estimated from an online questionnaire? Engineering is the method the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide is written around.
- 02
Who signs — and who carries the audit posture
A professional-signed study means someone stands behind the component classifications if the return is examined. A DIY tool leaves that posture with you. Neither is wrong — but you should know which one you're buying.
- 03
Can you read a real report first?
Most providers show a calculator or a visual teaser and ask you to buy on trust. The single fastest way to judge a study is to read a finished one, page by page, before you pay.
- 04
Turnaround
DIY software and questionnaire tools return a number in minutes; engineered studies take longer because a person rebuilds the property. Faster is not automatically better — it usually means less engineering.
- 05
Price transparency and property fit
Some firms publish a price; several don't. And a provider built for large commercial buildings is a different fit than one built for a single short-term rental. Match the tool to your property, not to the lowest sticker.
Three kinds of provider
Almost every cost-seg company falls into one of three groups. Each has a real strength — and a real trade-off.
KBKG (Cost Seg Pro, Residential Cost Segregator)
Cheapest and fastest — a schedule in minutes, from a trusted 30-year brand.
Trade-off No engineer or CPA signs it, so the audit posture is yours to carry.
Overline, RE Cost Seg, ETS, CSSI, Madison SPECS
Real engineering and, at several firms, a professional who stands behind the numbers — decades of studies and scale behind them.
Trade-off You buy on trust: the report is a calculator or a teaser until after you've paid, and most don't publish a price.
Unlevered
Engineered, deterministic, signed — and you can read a full anonymized study before you decide, with your CPA optional.
Trade-off The newest of the group; residential and short-term rentals are the focus, not large commercial portfolios.
The comparison
Every price shown is a figure the provider publishes; where a firm doesn’t publish pricing, it says so. Marketing and performance claims are left off deliberately — this compares what you can verify.
| Provider | Residential / STR price | Method | Sign-off & audit posture | Read a real report first? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RE Cost Seg | Rapid Report from $950; Fully Engineered from $2,320 | Rapid = online questionnaire, no site visit; Engineered = virtual inspection by video call | Engineer-performed; works with your CPA; includes a fixed-asset schedule | No ungated public sample (interactive delivery is gated) |
| Overline | From $1,000 (simple single-family) | Fully engineered with site analysis — satellite imagery and construction data | Signed by a named cost-seg engineer (ASCSP member) | No downloadable sample (visual preview only) |
| KBKG | Cost Seg Pro from $495/report; Residential Cost Segregator ~$450 | DIY / self-guided software — results in minutes | No professional sign-off — you drive it | No public sample |
| Engineered Tax Services (ETS) | Pricing not published (third-party estimates cite $5K+) | Engineered, with in-house engineers, CPAs, and attorneys | Firm-performed | None (online calculator only) |
| CSSI† | Pricing not published (free preliminary analysis model) | Engineering-based, commercial-leaning | Firm-performed | None |
| Madison SPECS | Pricing not published (feasibility-analysis gate) | Engineered plus a remote “Smart Tour”; commercial-leaning | Firm-performed — in-house engineers and CPAs | None |
| Unlevered | $5,000 single-unit / $10,000 multifamily, owner-billed (published) | Engineered and deterministic — the property is rebuilt from source documents, room by room, before anything is estimated | Unlevered prepares and signs the engineering study; your CPA is optional and, when involved, remains the sole return preparer | Yes — full anonymized studies you can read page by page |
† CSSI details are drawn from its own site and third-party sources and were not independently re-verified. Figures current as of August 2026; check each provider’s site for the latest.
Where Unlevered fits — and why
Five things the market leaves open. This is the honest case, not a claim that Unlevered beats every provider on every axis — it doesn’t, and the table above says so.
Nobody lets you read a real report first
RE Cost Seg and Overline show a visual preview; the larger firms show a calculator. None publishes an ungated study you can read end to end. Unlevered publishes complete anonymized studies — the basis walk, the room-by-room reclassification, the citations, the depreciation schedule — so you judge the work before you buy it.
The market splits cheap-but-unsigned against engineered-but-opaque
On one side, DIY software is inexpensive and instant but leaves you to defend your own file. On the other, engineered firms do real work but keep the price and the report behind a form. The middle — engineered, signed, and transparent about both price and method — is where Unlevered sits.
The component detail is buried in the PDF
A real study's room-by-room, component-by-component breakdown is the substance of the deduction, and it usually lives 30–100 pages deep where no prospect sees it before purchase. Unlevered surfaces that detail — building, floor, room, component — in every study it shows.
“CPA optional” is unoccupied
DIY hands you all the risk with no sign-off; engineered firms fold you into their process. Unlevered signs the engineering study and lets you loop your CPA in or not — you're neither forced into someone's workflow nor left holding a DIY file alone.
If it's examined, the workpaper is there
Most providers hand over a study and a schedule; when an examiner asks how a number was reached, the trace is internal or buried. If a Unlevered study is ever examined, we provide your CPA the complete, cited calculation trace — every classification backed by its authority and every dollar tied to its source document — so it can be defended line by line.
Unlevered’s founder made the case for the deterministic method in Accounting Today: the core calculation must be reproducible from the same inputs, with AI kept to peripheral verification rather than the number itself.
The case study
The difference shows up in a second look.
A client brought us a $3,000 top-down study they no longer trusted. Reverse-engineering it, we found $120,425 it had buried in the 39-year line — a movable gym and sauna that belong in the 5-year class. Across the studies we price component by component, we find roughly 5–15% more in identified deductions than a top-down study. That is what hyper-granular pricing, verification against the property’s own documents, and component-to-room matching buy you — and why an engineered study is worth more than a template estimate.
Read the full case studySee a full engineered sample study
The best way to compare providers is to read one finished study, page by page. These are real, anonymized Unlevered studies — the basis walk, the room-by-room reclassification with citations, and the full depreciation schedule. They’re free to read; tell us where to send them.
The studies are free to read. We’ll only use your email to follow up about a cost segregation study — no spam.
Common questions
- How do I choose a cost segregation company?
- Compare on five things: the method (engineered from your property's documents, DIY software you drive, or an online questionnaire), who signs the study and therefore carries the audit posture, whether you can read a finished report before you buy, the turnaround, and whether the price is published up front. Verifiable residential prices in 2026 start around $450–$1,000 for DIY or questionnaire tools (KBKG, RE Cost Seg's Rapid Report) and $1,000–$2,320 and up for fully engineered studies (Overline, RE Cost Seg Engineered); several established firms — ETS, CSSI, Madison SPECS — don't publish a price. Match the method to your property and your audit-risk tolerance, not to the lowest sticker.
- How much does a cost segregation study cost?
- For residential and short-term rentals, published prices in 2026 range from roughly $450–$495 for DIY software (KBKG's Residential Cost Segregator, and Cost Seg Pro from $495 per report) to $950 for a questionnaire-based Rapid Report (RE Cost Seg) and $1,000 to $2,320-plus for a fully engineered study (Overline from $1,000; RE Cost Seg Fully Engineered from $2,320). Larger engineering firms such as ETS, CSSI, and Madison SPECS don't publish residential pricing; third-party estimates put ETS around $5,000 and up. Unlevered publishes a flat $5,000 for a single unit and $10,000 for multifamily, billed to the owner. As a rule, cheaper means less engineering and no professional sign-off.
- What's the difference between DIY and engineered cost segregation?
- DIY tools — like KBKG's self-guided software — let you answer questions and generate a depreciation schedule yourself in minutes, with no engineer or CPA signing the result, so you carry the audit posture. An engineered study has a professional rebuild the property's components from source documents and stand behind the classifications; Overline's studies are signed by a named cost-seg engineer, and firms like ETS, CSSI, and Madison SPECS perform the work in-house. Engineered costs more and takes longer, but it is the method built to the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide.
- Is a DIY cost segregation study risky?
- It shifts the risk onto you. With DIY software there's no engineer or CPA signing the study, so if the return is examined you are defending your own component classifications and basis allocation. That can be fine for a simple, well-documented property and an owner who knows the rules — DIY is faster and far cheaper. The trade-off is that no one else is accountable for the numbers. An engineered, signed study exists precisely so a professional stands behind the work; Unlevered prepares and signs the engineering study and keeps your CPA optional rather than leaving you to defend a DIY file alone.
Compare on the work, not the pitch.
Read a real Unlevered study end to end, or see what your property qualifies for. CPAs and advisors can apply for access.
See what your property qualifies for and read a full sample study.
Refer a client and get filing-ready schedules with audit-ready documentation.