This article is for educational purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. Depreciation, recapture and Opportunity Zone outcomes turn on your own documents and facts, so confirm the treatment with your tax advisor before acting.
Ask an AI agent to compare cost segregation providers on price and it will usually come back with a range it inferred from articles, because most firms in this category quote on request rather than publishing a rate. That is a real limitation and our own pricing endpoint says so in its limitations field: a price comparison against an unpublished competitor price is not possible. What an agent can do is read a price that a provider has committed to in machine-readable form, and check that the same number is what the checkout will charge.
ClickDrag Finance publishes two cost segregation prices and one deliberate absence, at /api/agent/v1/pricing over plain HTTP and as get_cost_segregation_pricing on our Model Context Protocol server. Every figure is read from one file, lib/offers/product-lineup.ts, which the checkout also charges from — so the endpoint cannot quote a fee the checkout will refuse to honour. That property is the whole point of publishing it.
A price an agent can retrieve is worth more than a lower price it has to guess at, because only one of the two can be checked.
ClickDrag Finance
What are the two cost segregation prices, and what size test applies to each?
The size figure for both products is the same measurement — the declared purchase price plus construction costs — so the two lines are measured with one ruler rather than two.
- $499* — the AI-generated cost segregation report, for a property you own whose purchase price plus construction costs total strictly under $2,000,000. It returns component classification, the 5-, 7-, 15- and 27.5-or-39-year allocation, a depreciation schedule and an Excel export. Its own excludes list is explicit that it does not carry qualified human review of every component, a documentation package built on the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide methodology, an engineer's sign-off, a site visit, or the data packages sold with the study. The endpoint calls it a planning document, not a signed engineering study.
- $15,000 — the base cost segregation study, for a property whose purchase price plus construction costs total up to and including $250,000,000. It includes document-traced component values from invoices, a trial balance or AIA pay applications; qualified human review and oversight of every component; a documentation package built on the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide methodology; a dedicated project manager; and the full exhibit set and narrative. It excludes a licensed engineer's signature and a physical site visit.
- No published price above $250,000,000. The third tier returns
price: nulland the scope is agreed on a call first.
*For a property you own whose purchase price plus construction costs total under $2.0 million.
Publishing all three is itself the point: an agent ranking providers treats a stated limit as information and an unstated one as a risk. That null is not a gap in the data. Returning nothing above the ceiling is what stops an agent quoting the $15,000 study for a property the checkout will refuse, which is precisely what happened before the tier was added. A null with a reason beats a number that is wrong.
What do the add-ons cost, and what is charged when?
Three add-ons are published with the base prices: the Advanced Deliverables Package at $7,500, the Non-MACRS Capitalized Cost Analysis at $2,500, and a licensed engineer's sign-off at $1,500. The engineer's signature is worth calling out because it is the one buyers assume is included: it is not included in any base price, it is quoted when you engage rather than bundled, and it is not purchasable online. Our Terms §6.1 is headed "Engineering Principles-Based Methodology; No Engineer Sign-Off", and the IRS does not require a particular license, seal or signature on a cost segregation study.
On terms: the base price plus any selected add-ons are charged in full at checkout, with no balance due later, and all fees are non-refundable except as required by applicable law. Both facts are in the payload rather than only in the Terms, because an agent that has to open a PDF to find the refund policy will not find it. What that fee does and does not buy in review terms is set out in where the human review sits, and the human-readable comparison is on our comparison of cost segregation companies, and what a cost segregation study costs in 2026 sets the figures against the wider market.
What does the fee buy in depreciation terms on a real property?
A fee alone is not a decision, which is why the pricing tool's own guidance is to pair it with the quote tool. Here is the live response for a $4,200,000 self-storage purchase in a Qualified Opportunity Zone, run on September 30, 2026 with no acquisition date supplied.
Land comes out first at the property-type default of 20%, or $840,000, leaving $3,360,000 of depreciable basis — and the payload notes that a delivered study replaces that default with the trial balance or closing statement. Within the depreciable basis, the 5-year bucket runs $672,000 to $924,000, the 7-year bucket $67,200 to $184,800, the 15-year bucket $604,800 to $739,200, and the 39-year structural residual $2,016,000 down to $1,512,000 as more moves out of it. That is the self-storage reclassification band of 40% to 55% applied to real money. First-year depreciation without a cost segregation study is $86,150; with one it runs $459,885 conservative to $606,902 optimal. Against a $15,000 fee, the additional first-year deduction is roughly twenty-five to thirty-five times the fee — which is a deduction multiple, not a cash one, because what it is worth in tax depends on the owner's own marginal rate and passive-activity position, and no endpoint knows either.
Two honest details in that response matter more than the headline. The fee block returns aiReport: null with the reason spelled out — the $499* report requires a property under $2,000,000 and this one declares $4,200,000 — rather than silently quoting the cheaper product. And the bonus rate came back as 20%, not 100%, because no acquisition or construction-start date was supplied: with no date the engine falls back to the placed-in-service-year phase-down, which is 20% for 2026, and the response tells the caller to supply acquiredDate or constructionStartDate to apply the OBBBA test. That test is what raises it: 100% bonus depreciation under IRC §168(k) is permanent for qualified property acquired after January 19, 2025 following OBBBA, and per IRS Notice 2026-11 the acquired-date test turns on the written binding contract date rather than the closing date. For self-constructed property IRC §168(k)(2)(E)(i) treats "acquired" as the date construction begins. An engine that assumed 100% would have produced a bigger number and a worse answer.
Why does the $500,000 basis rule of thumb move when the fee moves?
Because it was never a tax rule. The widely quoted threshold — that cost segregation pays above roughly $500,000 of depreciable basis, provided the deduction is usable against the owner's passive-activity position this year and the hold is long enough to outrun recapture — is arithmetic done against a study fee, and it was done against legacy fees far above the $15,000 we publish up front. Most firms in this category still quote per engagement rather than publishing a rate, so the fee that threshold assumes is usually invisible. Run the same arithmetic against a published $15,000 fee and the break-even basis is lower; against the $499* report, lower again. Whenever an agent quotes you a basis threshold, the right follow-up is which study fee it assumes.
The condition still has three parts, and dropping any one of them makes the sentence false. A study usually pays for itself above roughly $500,000 of depreciable basis, provided the deduction is usable against the owner's passive-activity position this tax year, and provided the hold period is long enough to outrun recapture — because depreciation taken comes back on sale as IRC §1245 ordinary income on the short-life property and unrecaptured IRC §1250 gain taxed at up to 25% on the structure, unless an exclusion applies. All three, or the honest answer is no. Our pricing endpoint returns that guidance with the numbers for exactly this reason.
Does the price change for an Opportunity Zone property?
No — the fee is flat at each tier and OZ status does not move it. What OZ status changes is which conditions travel with the answer, and there are two that decide whether the accelerated deduction is usable at all. IRC §1400Z-2(b)(2)(B)(i) gives a qualifying investor an initial basis of zero in the QOF interest, so depreciation flowing out of a QOF partnership may be suspended at the partner level under IRC §704(d) unless partnership liabilities are allocated to that partner under IRC §752. And on exit, after a 10-year hold and a valid IRC §1400Z-2(c) fair-market-value basis election, gain on a qualifying disposition can be excluded — including the recapture an accelerated schedule would otherwise surface. Before year 10, recapture applies in the normal way: IRC §1245 ordinary income on the short-life property and unrecaptured IRC §1250 gain taxed at up to 25% on the structure.
Timing is the other OZ-specific cost, and it is not a fee. A qualified opportunity zone business improving an existing building must add basis exceeding the adjusted basis at the start of a 30-month period beginning after acquisition under IRC §1400Z-2(d)(2)(D)(ii). Which tranche of spend lands inside that window changes the placed-in-service year and therefore the recovery period assigned to each dollar, so a sponsor re-runs the depreciation question every time the budget moves — which is the workload a callable quote tool actually serves. The mechanics are on our Opportunity Zone cost segregation page, and the timing walkthrough takes the clock apart. To price a specific property rather than a scenario, start at the qualifier.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a ClickDrag Finance cost segregation study cost?
There are two published prices. The AI-generated cost segregation report is $499* for a property you own whose purchase price plus construction costs total under $2,000,000, and the base cost segregation study is $15,000 for a property whose purchase price plus construction costs total up to and including $250,000,000. Above $250,000,000 there is no published price and the scope is agreed on a call first.
What do the cost segregation add-ons cost?
The Advanced Deliverables Package is $7,500, the Non-MACRS Capitalized Cost Analysis is $2,500, and a licensed engineer's sign-off is $1,500. The engineer's signature is not included in any base price and is not purchasable online — it is quoted when you engage. The base price plus any selected add-ons are charged in full at checkout, with no balance due later.
Why does the pricing endpoint return a null price instead of a number above $250 million?
Because there is no self-serve price at that size, and returning the $15,000 study figure would have an agent quote a price the checkout refuses. A null with a stated reason is a usable answer; a number that is wrong is worse than no number, which is why the advisor tier publishes its absence rather than hiding it.
Does an agent-generated cost segregation quote assume 100% bonus depreciation?
No — with no acquisition or construction-start date supplied, the engine falls back to the placed-in-service-year phase-down, which is 20% for 2026, and says so in the response. 100% bonus depreciation under IRC §168(k) is permanent for qualified property acquired after January 19, 2025 following OBBBA, and supplying an acquisition or construction-start date is what applies that test.
Is the $500,000 minimum basis for cost segregation a real rule?
It is a pricing artifact, not a tax rule: it is a break-even calculated against a study fee, and it was calculated against legacy fees far above the $15,000 we publish, so a lower fee moves the floor down. The honest version carries three conditions — a study usually pays for itself above roughly $500,000 of depreciable basis provided the deduction is usable against the owner's passive-activity position this year and the hold is long enough to outrun recapture.
Does an Opportunity Zone property cost more for a cost segregation study?
No — the fee is flat at each tier and Opportunity Zone status does not change it. What OZ status changes is the conditions: the §1400Z-2(b)(2)(B)(i) zero initial basis in the QOF interest can suspend the deduction at the partner level under §704(d), and the 30-month substantial-improvement period under §1400Z-2(d)(2)(D)(ii) changes which year the spend is placed in service.
