Ownwell
- Best for: Homeowners and other property owners, where fees start at 25% and Ownwell outperformed traditional firms in 10 of 11 published Texas counties; owners of modest homes, where its win-rate edge is widest
- What Sets It Apart: Publishes per-protest county results from appraisal district records, including counties where it trails; fully contingent pricing with no minimum fee
- Cost: No upfront Ownwell fee and no county filing fees; 25% of savings in Texas, New York, Illinois, and Washington; 35% in Georgia, Florida, California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, plus a $20 freeze fee in Georgia; charged again in any year it wins
- Coverage: Appeals in nine states across 45-plus Texas counties and 115-plus elsewhere; exemption filing in most U.S. states and counties
- Texas Results: Per-protest win rates of 63% to 97% by county; net savings per successful protest from under $500 to more than $2,500
- Pros: No upfront cost or fee without savings; 25% Texas rate against a 40% to 50% market standard with minimum fees; unusual data transparency
- Cons: Appeals in nine states only; fee recurs annually by default; results vary widely by county; you could file the appeal yourself
Just the Tip:
If you own a home in Texas or one of the eight other states Ownwell covers, sign up before your county’s appeal deadline. It costs nothing unless your bill drops, the Texas fee is 25% against a typical 40% to 50%, and its edge is widest on homes under $250,000.
Your county assessor puts a value on your home every year, usually without ever walking through it. That number sets your tax bill, and three in four American homeowners have never once challenged it, according to Ownwell’s 2026 homeowner survey. The company also counts $3.31 billion in potential Texas property tax savings left unclaimed between 2023 and 2025.
Ownwell appeals your property tax assessment on a contingency basis—you only pay if it successfully lowers your bill. It combines local property tax consultants with proprietary software that analyzes assessment records and comparable sales. Since launching in 2020, it has grown into a national leader, helping homeowners secure over $400 million in property tax savings.
Its performance is backed by a 4.7 Google rating across 3,000-plus reviews, BBB accreditation, and Series B funding as of February 2026.
Key Features
Appeals are the core product and the reason to sign up. However, exemption filing (including retroactive applications) reaches a wider audience.
Insurance shopping, bill negotiation, mortgage services, and a Texas-only electricity plan round out the portal.
Property Tax Appeals
Ownwell reviews your assessment for errors and missed exemptions, runs a comparative market analysis, and decides whether your appraised value is too high on either market value or unequal appraisal grounds. The company files the paperwork, assembles the evidence, and sends a local consultant to the hearings. When a county rejects the informal appeal, Ownwell will escalate to a formal one.
- Available in: Texas, California, Washington, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, New York, Colorado, and Pennsylvania
- County coverage: 45-plus Texas counties and 115-plus counties elsewhere in the country
- Headline results: 88% of 2025 customers won a reduction on at least one appeal, with average savings of $774
- Setup: Get a savings estimate in under 15 seconds and take three minutes to sign up.
Property Tax Exemptions and Refunds
Exemptions are the quieter half of the product and reach far more homeowners than appeals do. Ownwell files current and retroactive homestead paperwork in most U.S. states and counties, well past the nine where it handles appeals.
Pricing by State
Nothing is due to Ownwell upfront, and nothing at all unless your bill drops. Florida counties charge about $15 to file and some California counties charge as well, but Ownwell covers those fees. Its own rate runs 25% to 35% depending on the state.
- Texas, Illinois, Washington: 25% of savings, no minimum fee
- New York: 25% statewide, and Ownwell covers the $30 SCAR court fee in Nassau County
- Georgia: 35% of first-year savings, plus a $20 fee when Ownwell secures a three-year assessment freeze
- California, Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania: 35% of first-year savings
The no-minimum part matters more than it sounds. Traditional Texas firms typically charge 40% to 50%, and many add a $45 to $50 minimum that applies whether or not the protest wins. Between 2024 and 2025, Austin-area homeowners owed one competitor more than $1.9 million in service fees on protests that produced no savings. That means they paid for a service that didn’t save them anything.
On a Texas bill cut from $6,000 to $5,000, saving you $1,000, Ownwell bills $250. Its wider survey lists rivals from 30% to 50%, some with $149 to $250 upfront fees and Georgia firms at $295 to $595 flat regardless of outcome.
Georgia appeals require careful planning. A successful appeal also triggers Georgia’s 299c provision, which freezes your assessed value for three years. Ownwell charges its 35% fee only on the actual Year 1 savings you realize, ensuring your costs align with your confirmed savings.
What the County Data Actually Shows
Read the 88% figure with its footnote. It counts customers who won a reduction on at least one appeal, so an owner with several properties scores as a success when any single protest lands. That makes it a customer-level number rather than a per-protest win rate, on a different basis than the $774 average.
Ownwell publishes better numbers elsewhere. Two 2025 studies pull per-protest outcomes from county appraisal district records, obtained by public information request, across 11 densely populated Texas counties and four in the Austin area. Dollar figures below are net of the 25% Texas fee, per successful protest.
- Tarrant County (DFW): Ownwell achieved almost 2x the net savings ($1,907 and $2,519) for homes valued $750,000 to $1 million and $1 million to $1.5 million respectively. That’s 93% and 98% higher than other firms.
- Dallas County (Dallas): Ownwell succeeded 64% of the time for homes valued $1 million to $1.5 million, compared to a competitor average of 53%.
- Harris County (Houston): Ownwell achieved a 96% win rate for homes valued between $250,000 and $500,000, 9% higher than the market average, and delivered 36% higher savings.
- Travis County (Austin): In the $250,000 to $500,000 price range, Ownwell clients saved $427 on average, 25% higher than the market average.
One pattern holds across both studies, and it is the most useful thing in the data. Ownwell’s largest advantage sits at the bottom of the market, with the homeowners who can least afford an inflated assessment.
On homes under $250,000, Ownwell won 81% of Travis County protests against the market’s 34%, 83% in Brazoria against 48%, 83% in Galveston against 58%, 76% in Harris against 55%, and 74% in Montgomery against 41%.
Homeowners across the market benefit, but entry-level owners most of all.
Against traditional firms, Ownwell delivered higher net savings across all market value bands in 10 of 11 statewide counties, losing only Rockwall, and trails on win rate in Bexar, 84% against 91%. Bastrop is the most revealing case, where traditional firms posted higher savings per win in every value band.
Ownwell published it anyway and made the stronger argument. For homes from $250,000 to $1 million, its Bastrop win rates ran 69% to 74% against the market’s 42% to 51%, so on expected value a $500,000 to $750,000 owner there lands at $289 against $206 elsewhere.
How the Appeal Process Works
Sign-up runs on your address, contact details, and signatures on Ownwell’s agent authorization form, then an annual property survey. That survey is the one place your effort matters. Photos of a cracked foundation, a repair estimate, or documentation of other problems only you would know about all strengthen your case.
Treat this as an ongoing service, not a one-time transaction. Auto-renewal is on by default, so Ownwell monitors your assessment and re-files every year it sees an opportunity, charging its percentage in any year it wins.
The savings recur on the same schedule as the fee, and Ownwell sends a notice at the start of each tax season before anything is filed. Canceling auto-renewal or an appeal already in motion must be done two months before your county deadline.
Timelines vary more than the three-minute sign-up implies. A Texas protest resolves in weeks to months. A Nassau County grievance runs 18 to 24 months, with the reduction applied retroactively as a refund or credit.
One geographic note. In all states except Georgia and Washington, an appeal carries no risk of raising your value, so filing has no downside. In those two, a taxable value can rise, so Ownwell reviews the data first and tells you when it has decided not to file.
Pros
- No upfront Ownwell fee and no charge without savings. A failed appeal costs you nothing, and there is no minimum or poor-result fee, unlike competitors who bill a minimum, win or lose, to ensure they get paid regardless of effort.
- 25% in Texas undercuts the market. Traditional Texas firms typically charge 40% to 50% or have a minimum fee regardless of outcomes.
- It performs best for entry-level homeowners. On homes under $250,000, Ownwell’s win rates ran roughly 20 to 47 points above the market across five Texas counties, which is where an unfair assessment hurts most.
- It wins most markets outright. Higher net savings in 10 of 11 statewide counties, several by 50% or more.
- It publishes the counties where it loses. Rockwall, Bexar, and Bastrop all show Ownwell behind on at least one metric, and every one appears in its own studies.
- A local consultant attends the hearing. Ownwell staffs experts by county who know the assessor’s office and argue the case for you. You never appear.
- Exemption filing covers most of the country. The appeal footprint stops at nine states, but retroactive exemption help reaches most U.S. states and counties.
Cons
- Appeals run in nine states only. Texas, California, Washington, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, New York, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Everyone else gets exemption filing and the savings add-ons.
- Results swing enormously by county and market value band. Win rates range from 63% to 97%, and net savings per win from under $500 to more than $2,500 depending on county and value band. Check your county’s numbers rather than the national average.
- It is a recurring service, not a one-time fix. Auto-renewal is on by default, and Ownwell charges its percentage in any year it wins. Fair enough given the savings also recur. Canceling a live appeal is only possible until two months before your county deadline.
- Georgia is the priciest market. A 35% rate plus a $20 fee when Ownwell secures the three-year freeze, against 25% and no add-on in Texas.
- You could file the appeal yourself. Every state that permits appeals lets a homeowner file directly and keep the whole reduction, though Ownwell’s Fort Bend and Hays benchmarks include DIY protests among the results it beat.
- Your value can rise in Washington and Georgia. Washington also puts the burden of proof on the owner, unlike Texas. Ownwell screens for this and declines to file when the data looks bad.
Final Word
In Texas, and in most states, this is close to an automatic yes. The Texas rate is 25% against a typical 40% to 50% rate with no minimum fee, no money changes hands unless your bill drops, and appraisal district records show Ownwell delivering more net savings than traditional firms in 10 of 11 counties. The transparency counts too. A company that publishes Bastrop, where it trails on savings per win in every band, has earned some trust on its other numbers.
Set expectations by county rather than by the national average.
Georgia costs the most, at 35% plus the freeze fee; Nassau County grievances can take one to two years. Anyone willing to pull multiple comparable sales and argue throughout a hearing can keep the whole reduction instead of 65% to 75% of it.
For everyone else, and especially for owners of modest homes where Ownwell’s edge is widest, Ownwell is worth 15 seconds and your address before your county’s deadline closes.
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Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.
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