What a mold risk assessment costs
How much does a mold risk assessment cost: a modeled score is free to $79. A test kit runs $10–$50 plus lab fees, and a professional inspection $300–$600.
What each option costs and what it buys
| Option | Typical cost | What it answers | What it cannot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free risk check | $0 | Whether this property's conditions favour growth, and which factors drive it. | Anything about current conditions. It never enters the building. |
| Property Risk Report | $29 | The full twelve-section analysis with the driver list and inspection priorities. | Same limits. It is a better-documented estimate, not a finding. |
| Full AI Report | $79 | Everything above plus parsed seller-disclosure analysis, which is the largest module in the model. | Same limits, and it needs a disclosure document to analyse. |
| DIY test kit | $10–$50, plus $30–$70 per sample in lab fees | What is growing on one spot, if you send it to a laboratory. | Extent, source, or anything about the rest of the building. Settle-plate kits with no lab step answer nothing. |
| Air sampling by a professional | $300–$700 for a small set with an outdoor control | What was airborne at those spots during those minutes. | Where it came from. Without a same-day outdoor control the result has no scale at all. |
| General home inspection | $300–$600 for a typical single-family home | Visible and accessible condition across the whole property. | Mold assessment — most inspectors exclude it in their own scope language. |
| Specialist moisture inspection | $300–$800, more for large or complex buildings | Where water is getting in and how far it has reached, using meters and thermal imaging. | What species it is, without sampling. It usually does not need to. |
| Post-remediation clearance | $400–$900 | Whether completed work met its scope, independently. | Nothing, if the firm that did the removal also performed it. |
The basis for these numbers
General US ranges for planning, not quotes and not local data. Price depends on the size of the building, how much has to be opened up, and what the market charges where you live.
Our own three prices — free, $29 and $79 — are exact, because we charge them. Everything else on this page is a market range gathered for planning, and the honest instruction is to get two written quotes locally before deciding. A page that presented a national range as your price would be doing the thing this table exists to help you avoid.
What actually drives the variance
Building size and access. A three-bedroom house with an accessible basement and a large property with three crawl spaces are different days of work, and the second is priced accordingly.
How much has to be opened up. A non-invasive survey is priced as a survey. Once cavities have to be opened to answer the question, it becomes construction work with a different rate.
Sampling count. Air sampling is priced per cassette plus lab analysis, and a meaningful set is never one sample — an indoor result without a same-day outdoor control is not interpretable, so the minimum honest job is two.
Whether anyone is in a hurry. Emergency response after a burst supply line prices differently from a survey booked three weeks out, everywhere.
The cheapest defensible path
Score the address first, because it is free and it needs no access. If the drivers are all regional — climate, terrain — and nothing about the building or its record is flagged, there is often nothing further to buy.
If the property is in a transaction, get the seller's disclosure. It costs nothing and it carries the heaviest weight of any document available. The $79 tier exists because parsing it is the largest single improvement to a report, and if you have the form you can also read it yourself.
If something is flagged and you cannot see a cause, buy the moisture survey — not sampling. A survey finds where water is. Sampling identifies what is growing somewhere you already found. Buying sampling first is the most common way several hundred dollars produces a laboratory report and no idea where the water is coming from.
Buy clearance testing only after remediation, and never from the firm that did the removal.
Where spending more does not buy more
ERMI and other DNA-based dust panels are marketed at a premium. The method was developed by the US EPA as a research tool and was not validated as a diagnostic for individual buildings — the EPA has said so — and a result is frequently presented as though it were.
Whole-house air sampling packages. More cassettes in more rooms multiplies the cost and does not answer where the water is, which is the question that decides what the repair costs.
Any assessment commissioned by the party who would be paid to do the remediation. That is not a price problem, it is an independence problem, and it makes the cheaper report the more expensive one.
Questions people ask
- How much is a Mold IQ score report?
- The free check is $0, the Property Risk Report is $29 and the Full AI Report with disclosure analysis is $79. There is no subscription and no per-address metering above that.
- What is the cost per property at volume?
- The three prices above are per property. Volume arrangements for agents and portfolio owners are handled separately — see the pricing page for agents and landlords.
- Is a $10 test kit worth it?
- Only with the lab step, which is the part people skip. A dish left open collects whatever falls into it and will grow something in any building on earth. Without a measured volume and a control there is nothing to compare the result against.
- Why is an inspection more than a report?
- Because it is a person's time in your building with instruments. The report is the cheaper instrument for deciding whether that time is worth buying, and for telling them where to start.
- Does insurance cover any of this?
- Assessment costs are generally not covered as a standalone. Where a covered water loss has occurred, investigation and remediation may be within the claim — that is a question for your carrier and the answer varies by policy.