Unlevered vs ETS
Engineered Tax Services is an established, large-scale firm with an in-house bench of engineers, CPAs, and attorneys — built for complex, high-value assets. Unlevered is the transparent, residential-focused alternative: a published flat price and a full engineered study you can read before you buy. Here's the honest difference.
What ETS is good at
Engineered Tax Services is one of the established names in the industry, with scale and an in-house bench of engineers, CPAs, and attorneys. That depth is built for complex, high-value, and commercial assets where a large firm's breadth matters. If your property is large or complicated and you want a long-standing firm with in-house professionals across disciplines, ETS is built for that.
ETS vs Unlevered, head to head
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.
| Criterion | ETS | Unlevered |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Engineered, with in-house engineers, CPAs, and attorneys | Engineered and deterministic — the property is rebuilt from its own source documents, room by room, before anything is estimated |
| Sign-off & audit posture | Firm-performed | Unlevered prepares and signs the engineering study; your CPA is optional and, when involved, remains the sole return preparer |
| Read a real report first? | None to read first — an online calculator only | Yes — full anonymized studies you can read page by page |
| Turnaround | Not published | Engineered, then human-reviewed before delivery |
| Residential / STR price | Pricing not published; third-party estimates cite roughly $5,000 and up | $5,000 single-unit / $10,000 multifamily, billed to the owner (published) |
| Property fit | Larger, complex, and high-value or commercial assets | Residential rentals and short-term rentals, with the full study readable before you buy |
Figures current as of August 2026; check ETS’s site for the latest.
Where Unlevered differs
The honest case for choosing Unlevered over ETS — not a claim that it wins on every axis. The table above says where ETS is the better fit.
Residential granularity: item-level pricing, verified and matched to the room
ETS's engineering is built for scale across complex and commercial assets. Unlevered's is built for a residential property: it prices the deduction component by component from a governed cost catalog, verifies each component against the property's own documents and photos, and matches every component to its room. That item-level, evidence-checked build is designed to capture defensible short-life 5- and 15-year basis on a rental or short-term rental — engineered per component, not carried down from an enterprise template.
A study your CPA can stand behind — and read up front
Every component classification carries its citation; the study is engineered from the property's own source documents and is fully reproducible — the same inputs produce the same study; and it ships with filing-ready workpapers (the §481(a) catch-up, the depreciation schedule, and the fixed-asset schedule) that reconcile to the tax forms. Built to the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide, your CPA can stand behind every number, with your CPA optional and, when involved, the sole return preparer. That transparency — citations, workpapers, reproducibility, all readable before you buy — is what a published residential price buys, rather than a sales quote for a calculator.
Transparent, published price
ETS doesn't publish its pricing — third-party estimates put it around $5,000 and up, but you learn the real number through a sales conversation. Unlevered publishes a flat $5,000 single-unit / $10,000 multifamily up front, so there is no quote to chase.
Read a real study instead of a calculator
ETS offers an online calculator, not a finished study to inspect. Unlevered publishes complete anonymized studies — basis walk, room-by-room reclassification with citations, depreciation schedule — so you judge the work before you buy.
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
- Is ETS or Unlevered better for a short-term rental?
- For a single short-term rental, Unlevered is the closer fit — it is focused on residential and STR properties, prices the study component by component against the property's own evidence, publishes a flat price, and lets you read a full anonymized STR study before buying. ETS is an established firm built for scale and for complex, high-value or commercial assets, and it doesn't publish residential pricing or a study you can read first. If your STR is part of a large or complex portfolio you may want ETS's breadth; for a straightforward short-term rental, Unlevered is built for exactly that.
- What's a good ETS alternative?
- If you want an engineered study but prefer a published price and a residential or STR focus over an enterprise process, Unlevered is a direct alternative — engineered, deterministic, signed, a flat published price, and full anonymized studies you can read first. For other residential engineered options, Overline and RE Cost Seg are compared on the hub.
- How does Unlevered compare to ETS?
- ETS is an established engineered firm with in-house engineers, CPAs, and attorneys, built for scale and complex or high-value assets; it doesn't publish pricing (third-party estimates cite roughly $5,000 and up) and offers a calculator rather than a readable study. Unlevered is engineered and deterministic, focused on residential and short-term rentals, with a published $5,000 / $10,000 price, prepared and signed by Unlevered with your CPA optional, and full anonymized studies you can read first. ETS wins on scale for complex assets; Unlevered wins on transparency, published price, and residential fit.
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.