FAQ
Questions, answers.
How accurate is the aerial-photo scoring?+
Gemini 2.5 Flash analyzes ~640x640 satellite imagery at 19-zoom (≈150m square) and returns 0-100 sub-scores for roof, lot, and structural-from-above. We A/B-tested against Anthropic Claude vision; agreement is 85%+ for residential properties. We surface the scores in the brief but the appeals officer makes the final call.
What if my county isn't supported yet?+
We're live in Dallas (DCAD), Collin (CCAD), and Tarrant (TAD). Denton + Harris coming Q3-Q4. If you're elsewhere in Texas, drop an address anyway — we'll auto-mock the brief so you can see the format, and email you when your county turns on.
Why $500 cap on the success fee?+
Uncapped percentage-of-savings pricing means an enterprise property owner can pay tens of thousands on a single appeal. We think that's gross. $500 cap means power users with $5M+ homes get the same flat ceiling as a $400k starter.
How does refunding work?+
DIY $49: refundable up to 24h before you submit to the county. After that, no — the work's delivered. Success-fee: there's no refund concept because there's no upfront charge. If the county denies your appeal, you owe nothing.
Will my data get resold?+
No. We don't sell, share, or rent your contact info or property data. No contractor will call you because of us. Full sub-processor list on /privacy.
What if Claude or Gemini is down?+
We fail over: Gemini 2.5 Flash → GPT-4o-mini → Claude Sonnet 4.6 → deterministic mock. The demo never breaks. If all three AI providers are down, the brief still generates — it just won't cite the aerial-photo evidence as eloquently.
How do you make money on the $49 tier?+
It barely covers our LLM + storage cost per appeal. The DIY tier is a loss-leader to feed the success-fee tier (where the actual margin is). Pieter Mode — we're fine with thin margins if it builds a moat.
Is this legal advice?+
No. Patten Labs is not a law firm and the brief isn't legal advice. Property tax consultants in Texas are licensed by TDLR; we file under that authorization for the success-fee tier. See /disclosure for the statutory framing.
Can I file multiple appeals?+
Yes. Each property is a separate appeal. If you have 10+ properties, email feild@pattenlabs.com for the $25/property/yr enterprise rate that includes year-over-year monitoring.
What's the stack?+
Next.js 16 App Router on Vercel · Supabase (auth + Postgres + storage) · Stripe (billing) · Resend (email) · Anthropic Claude / OpenAI GPT-4o-mini / Google Gemini 2.5 Flash (AI failover) · ESRI World Imagery (aerial) · Dallas Open Data Socrata API (permits) · pnpm + turbo monorepo · TypeScript strict · Tailwind v4. All shipped in 24 hours, autonomously.