Five Stone publish their fee plainly, which is more than most of the industry manages: 40% of your actual tax savings, charged again each year it works. Here is what that costs on their own worked example, and every other route you have — including free, and a $39 one-time kit.
Check your home FREE →Read off Five Stone’s own site on 24 August 2026. Terms change — check theirs before signing anything.
Credit where it is due. Five Stone put the number on the page: “40% success fee — only if you save”, and “FiveStone’s fee is 40% of actual tax savings only”, with no upfront fee and no savings, no fee. Plenty of firms in this market do not publish a rate at all. They also note the risk-free terms apply to new residential properties only.
One thing a Houston homeowner should know: Five Stone are based in Austin, not Houston.
Five Stone’s page shows this example itself:
Which means their fee on that example is $900. That checks out — 40% of $2,250 is exactly $900, and $2,250 minus $900 is the $1,350 they quote. The number we want to add is the one their example stops short of: a contingency is charged again on each year’s saving.
| Route | Year 1 | 5 years | What you own afterwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five Stone at 40%, on their own $2,250 example | $900 | $4,500 | Nothing — the work is theirs |
| $39 evidence kit | $39 | $39, or buy it again | The comparables, the forms and the filing record |
| Do it yourself, no kit | $0 | $0 | Whatever you assembled |
Their example, their percentage, extended across five years. Savings vary every year and no route guarantees any reduction.
Ownwell’s published 2026 cost breakdown states that Five Stone charge “40% of tax savings or a $149 flat fee, whichever is greater”, and lists a $149 minimum fee.
Five Stone’s own site, read the same day, says something different. It says “40% of actual tax savings only” and “no savings, no fee”, and mentions no minimum anywhere.
We are not going to tell you which is right — one is a competitor describing them, the other is them describing themselves, and either could be out of date. Ask Five Stone directly whether there is a minimum fee, and get the answer in writing. It is the single question that decides what a failed protest costs you.
A pure contingency has a floor: if nothing is saved, nothing is owed. A minimum fee removes that floor. Ownwell’s own analysis of 2025/2026 Texas data reports that Houston-area homeowners paid over $1,000,000 in fees to minimum-fee firms for protests that produced no reduction.
Under §41.43 your assessed value cannot be raised just because you protested. So the worst outcome of protesting should be that nothing changes — unless a fee structure turns “nothing changed” into a bill.
The fair criticism of any flat fee is that you pay it whether or not the protest works. Ours has an answer:
Our guarantee: no reduction, next year free. We guarantee the evidence, not the verdict — HCAD decides values. If you protest and HCAD doesn’t bring your market value down by at least $2,000, next season’s kit is free. Nothing to claim and no proof needed: in late August we check HCAD’s certified value ourselves and email you the free code.
“Nothing to claim” is the part that matters. A guarantee you have to apply for is a guarantee designed not to be used.
Five Stone advertise a 98% success rate and double the industry average savings. Those are their claims and we have not verified them; we have no way to.
We publish no success rate at all, and we never will. Not modesty — we do not attend your hearing and we do not decide your value. HCAD does. Anyone quoting you a win rate is describing their own past, not your house. What we can be judged on is whether the evidence in the kit is real, and whether the guarantee pays out without an argument.
Under §41.43(b) an unequal-appraisal protest is decided in your favour unless the appraisal district disproves it, and §41.43(b)(3) lets you argue it with the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties, appropriately adjusted.
§41.461 entitles you to HCAD’s evidence before your hearing. §41.67(d) means anything they fail to give you 14 days beforehand cannot be used against you. The downside of trying is your time.
A protest argues the value is too high. An exemption takes a fixed amount off first. Homestead alone removes $140,000 from your school-district value under §11.13(b), plus Harris County’s 20% local option under §11.13(n).
HCAD’s public roll shows 1,157,293 single-family homes in Harris County, and 328,310 with no homestead exemption on record — about 28%. That is not proof those owners are overpaying: rentals, second homes and recent purchases legitimately have none. But if it is the home you live in, filing is free, you file it yourself, and Texas lets you back-file two years with the difference refunded.
We complete exemption forms at no charge. You sign and send them. You only ever pay for a protest kit.
A Houston homeowner and software that organises HCAD’s public appraisal roll. Not agents, not attorneys, and we do not file anything for anyone. You sign your own forms and file them yourself — by mail, in person, or through HCAD’s iFile. No outcome is guaranteed; HCAD decides.
Their own site says 40% of actual tax savings, no upfront fee, no savings no fee, on new residential properties. See section 2 on the minimum-fee discrepancy.
They are based in Austin and serve Texas broadly.
Filing yourself costs nothing. Our kit is $39, once. On their own $2,250 example a 40% fee is $900 in year one.
May 15, or 30 days after your appraisal notice was delivered — whichever is later (§41.44(a)).
Start with the free check. About a minute, plain questions, no account, nothing you type is kept. If you are not over-assessed, it tells you that too.
See also: every route compared side by side · Ownwell · O’Connor · Texas Protax · Home Tax Shield · Resolute.
Sources: Five Stone Tax Advisers and Ownwell’s 2026 cost breakdown, both read 24 August 2026 · Harris County figures derived from HCAD’s public appraisal roll · statute text from the Texas Tax Code.