The honest answer is structural, not a price list: what drives the fee, what the fee buys, and why the cheapest study is routinely the most expensive document in the loan file.
Feasibility study fees are not a price list; they scale with the analytical work the financing demands. Four structural drivers account for nearly all of the variation. First, the lending program: SBA SOP 50 10 8 and USDA RD Instruction 5001 each prescribe specific factors the study must address — the USDA framework alone enumerates 37 factors across five feasibility dimensions — and program-compliant treatment takes more analyst time than a conventional-lending scope. Second, the asset class: a single-tenant retail building and a sugar refinery restoration are not the same assignment; processing facilities, multi-component projects, and special-purpose properties require deeper technical and market work. Third, the capital structure: layered stacks combining senior debt, guaranteed debt, grants, and multi-entity equity demand reconciliation work that a single-loan project does not. Fourth, data availability: a project with complete plans, budgets, and third-party reports moves faster than one where the analyst must build the record.
Across the more than 4,000 engagements Wert-Berater has completed since 1998 — $40.2 billion in evaluated project value — the study fee has typically represented a small fraction of one percent of total project cost, while the document determines whether the remaining ninety-nine-plus percent gets funded. A study rejected by an underwriter for inadequate scope costs far more than the difference between a compliant study and a template: the lost loan-cycle time alone, commonly measured in months, exceeds any fee differential. Lenders see this asymmetry clearly. In the firm’s experience the borrower most often engages directly — banks, lenders, and CDCs apply differing rules on who must initiate, and lender confirmation is obtained before work begins in every case — which keeps the engagement inside the reliance framework rather than shopped on price.
A Wert-Berater study is a lender-grade analytical package, not a narrative memo: a full report addressing every program-required factor, a linked financial model with a ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress testing from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, Monte Carlo simulation, discounted cash flow analysis, and ratio tables benchmarked against RMA and industry data — each with the supporting narrative an underwriter needs to rely on the figure without reconstructing it.
Fees scale with the lending program, asset class, capital-structure complexity, and data readiness, and are quoted per engagement. Across 4,000+ Wert-Berater engagements since 1998, the study fee has typically represented a small fraction of one percent of total project cost.
Wert-Berater completes standard studies in 10 to 15 business days from receipt of complete project data. Complex or international assignments may require 20 to 25 business days.
Underwriters reject studies that do not address the program-required factors. A rejected study costs months of loan-cycle time, which exceeds any fee saved. Independent, program-compliant analysis is what the requirement exists to obtain.
Independent feasibility studies since 1998 — 4,000+ engagements, $40.2 billion in evaluated project value, all 50 states. Fiduciary duty to the lender and agency.