Cost segregation has traditionally been sold and priced around larger commercial properties, and most of the industry is still priced as though that is all it does. That is the problem facing anyone who owns a single rental house, a duplex, or a short-term rental worth less than a million dollars. A study quoted at $6,000 on a $400,000 property has to work extremely hard before it earns its own fee back.
It is a real problem, because the tax benefit at that property size is genuine. A residential rental depreciates by default over 27.5 years as one undifferentiated asset — frame, roof, carpet, appliances, driveway, landscaping, all on the same schedule. In reality the carpet does not last 27.5 years and neither does the asphalt. Cost segregation identifies the components that belong on 5, 7 and 15-year schedules and moves the deductions forward.
The economics only work if the study is priced for the property. Over the past two years a distinct set of providers has grown up around exactly that constraint. Here is how they compare.
How these are ranked
Five criteria, all of which you can check yourself before you buy anything:
- Published price. Can you find out what a study costs without booking a sales call?
- Turnaround. Days or weeks?
- What the report actually contains. Component-level detail, or a summary number?
- Form 3115 support. Included, extra, or not offered at all?
- Break-even at this size. Does the fee leave the study worth doing on a $300K–$900K basis?
1. Cost Seg Smart — best overall for homes under $1 million
Cost Seg Smart publishes its complete residential price matrix rather than quoting after a consultation, and at this property size that single fact decides most of the analysis.
Residential studies run $495 to $1,995 for most properties — that range covers everything from under $300,000 in basis up to $3 million — and the full flat-rate pricing table is on the website. Every band, every property type, no à la carte adders, and the band your property falls into is the price you pay. Most residential studies are delivered the same day.
What arrives is a 40+ page engineering-based report with component-level depreciation schedules, detailed asset classifications, and CPA-ready workpapers your accountant can implement directly. It includes a two-column table mapping the thirteen principal elements described in the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide, in the guide’s own headings, against the report section that addresses each one. That table is a standing part of every study rather than something assembled on request, which is the point — if a provider has to build the mapping for you after the fact, it did not exist while your study was being written.
Studies are built from county parcel geometry, assessor records, building permit filings, aerial imagery and owner-supplied photographs, priced at regionally indexed construction unit costs, then reconciled to the property’s actual depreciable basis. More than 100 automated quality checks run against every study before it is released.
Form 3115 support is included at no additional cost, which matters more than it sounds if you have owned the property for a few years without doing a study. Form 3115 allows a change in accounting method that catches up the depreciation you missed, in the current year, without amending prior returns.
Why it ranks first here: at this property size the fee is the variable that decides whether the study is worth commissioning at all. Against traditional quotes running to five figures, a four-figure flat rate moves the break-even far enough down that the question shifts from “can this study out-earn its own cost” to “is my basis short-lived enough to matter” — which is the question you actually wanted answered.
Where it is not the right answer: a complex industrial building with unusual process equipment still warrants an engineer on site, and Cost Seg Smart says so rather than selling around it. The trade you are making is no walkthrough of your specific property, not no engineering.
2. Madison SPECS
A long-established engineering-based provider with a substantial residential and investor practice, and the review depth that comes from carrying engineering staff. The methodology is strong and the delivered volume is large.
Pricing is quoted rather than published, and the process is consultative rather than self-serve — worth confirming current turnaround directly when you request a quote. If you want a named engineer and a considered process, and you are not optimising for cost or speed, this is a credible choice at the upper end of the sub-$1M range.
3. CSSI
High-volume national provider with broad geographic coverage and a well-developed CPA referral channel. Its real strength is consistency across many properties, which matters considerably more if you own eight rentals than if you own one.
Pricing is by quote. Most owners meet CSSI through their accountant rather than by searching for it, which tells you something about how the firm is built.
4. Cost Seg EZ
Explicitly positioned at the lower-cost end of the market with a tiered pricing menu, which puts it in roughly the right economic bracket for this segment. Worth requesting a specific quote and a sample report before committing, and worth asking the thirteen-elements question in criterion 3 above.
5. SMF Cost Segregation Advisors
A newer entrant built around precisely this investor profile — short-term rentals, single-family rentals and small multifamily. A narrow focus is a genuine advantage in a market where most providers are generalists reaching down from commercial work.
Ask about turnaround and about what the report contains. Focus is worth having, but the deliverable is still the thing you are buying.
Three questions that separate these firms faster than any comparison table
“Show me where your report addresses the thirteen ATG elements.” Not a claim of being “ATG-aligned” — that phrase is unfalsifiable and everyone uses it. An actual mapping, element by element, to report sections.
“Where did you get my building’s dimensions?” Any remote study has to establish the physical facts of a property nobody visited. Good answers name sources: parcel geometry, assessor records, permits, imagery, owner photographs. A bad answer is “our proprietary database.” This matters because site improvements — paving, kerbing, landscaping, exterior lighting — are often the largest 15-year category in a residential study, and they are invisible to any method that starts from building square footage alone.
“Is Form 3115 included?” And listen carefully to the eligibility explanation. Eligibility turns on the depreciation method used across your filed returns — not on a purchase-year cutoff. Any provider telling you that properties “acquired in 2023 or earlier” qualify is describing a rule that does not exist, and that is a reliable signal about the rest of their work.
Two things to get straight before you buy
2025 bonus depreciation is not a single rate. Current IRS guidance ties the permanent 100% allowance to qualified property acquired after January 19, 2025, subject to further requirements; property acquired on or before that date generally falls under the earlier phase-down rate of 40% for 2025. A surprising number of published articles state “100% for all of 2025.” Both the acquisition date and the placed-in-service date matter, and on an early-2025 purchase the difference is large enough to change the decision — check both with your CPA.
Acceleration reverses on sale. Cost segregation moves deductions forward; it does not create new ones. When you sell, the accelerated 5- and 7-year portion is recaptured at ordinary income rates, and only the real-property portion is capped at 25%. Whether that trade is worth making depends on your holding period and your tax position, which is a conversation for your CPA rather than for a comparison article.
Where to start
If you own a rental under $1 million and have never had a study done, the cheapest way to find out whether one is worth it is to look up the published price for your property band and read a completed report before you commit to anything. Both are available without a phone call, which at this end of the market is not the norm — and probably should be.