We're not profitable. How do we get money back?

Startups with under $5M in revenue and less than five years of sales can apply up to $500,000 of the credit per year against payroll taxes. Your quarterly payroll tax bill drops. That's cash back, profit or not. This is also the step most startups fumble. The return gets filed and nobody tells the payroll provider. Claimship pushes the elected amount into Rippling or Gusto and tracks each quarter until you collect all of it.

Is this actually legitimate?

Yes. It's Section 41 of the Internal Revenue Code. It has existed since 1981 and became permanent in 2015. It's one of the most widely claimed business credits in the country. Startups skip it because the documentation used to require an expensive study. That's the part we automate.

Do we have to leave our accountant?

No. Claimship produces the study and the Form 6765 numbers. Your CPA reviews them and files with your return as usual. Most accountants like this. The study is the part they least enjoy preparing.

What engineering work actually qualifies?

Work that passes the IRS four-part test. In plain terms: building or improving product where the outcome was uncertain and your team had to experiment. Most feature development, architecture work, and performance engineering qualifies. Routine maintenance, dependency bumps, and config changes don't. Our classifier excludes them, and that's what makes the study defensible.

Is this all AI, or does a person check the work?

Both. Software reads your commits, pull requests, and tickets, then drafts the study. A person on our team reviews every study before it goes to your CPA. Nothing gets filed on model output alone.

What happens if we're audited?

Every qualified dollar in a Claimship study links to primary evidence: the commits, pull requests, tickets, and threads where the work happened. That's much stronger support than the interview-based studies most firms produce.

How long does setup take?

About 15 minutes to connect your tools with read-only access. Your first draft study is ready within days. After that it updates itself as your team ships.

Your startup has an R&D tax credit

Worth up to $500,000 a year, even if you're not profitable. Claimship builds the audit‑ready study from your GitHub, Linear, and Slack.

Estimate your savings

Read-only access · Setup takes about 15 minutes

Claimship · FY 2026 study

June · 1,284 work items

Four-part test

Rewrite ranking model for cold-start users
#482 · ml-core
ReviewingQualified
Shard event store to cut p99 write latency
ENG-1038
ReviewingQualified
Why the CRDT merge drops offline edits
#eng-sync
ReviewingQualified
Bump eslint to 9.12
#491 · web
ReviewingExcluded

Generate study

Writing project narratives…

FY 2026 study

612 qualified items · Form 6765 · CPA-ready

Narrative: Ranking model for cold-start users

$61,240

Reading commits

ml-core · 38 of 214

Connects read-only to the tools your team already uses

GitHubLinearJiraSlackNotionGmailGitLabAsanaRipplingGusto

The shift

Everypullrequestyourteammergesisevidence.Moststartupsneverclaimthecreditbecausethepaperworktakesweeks.Claimshipturnstheworkyoualreadyshippedintoanaudit-readystudy.YourCPAfilesit.

$500K

a year against payroll tax, profitable or not

15 min

to connect your tools with read-only access

Section 41 has been in the tax code since 1981 and became permanent in 2015. The hard part was always the documentation. That's the part we automate.

IRC §41 · Form 6765

Estimate your savings

This is the only software that pays for itself in cash

If you pay US engineers to build new product, you almost certainly qualify. Startups under $5M in revenue can take the credit against payroll taxes. That means real cash back, even with no profit.

US-based technical employees4

Average salary$150,000

Time spent on new product development70%

Cloud and compute spend per year$60,000

Pay contractors too, or want the payroll offset check? Open the full calculator

Estimated federal credit / year

~$38,000

From payroll: $420,000
From cloud and compute: $60,000
Total qualified expenses: $480,000
Claimship flat fee: $2,500
Return on the fee: ~15×

Rough estimate using the simplified credit method. Your exact number depends on prior year spend. We calculate that during setup.

15 minutes to connect.
A study in days.

Pull requests and commits

Claimship reads merged PRs and commit history. Nothing is written back.

ContentsRead-only

Pull requestsRead-only

MetadataRead-only

Connect read-only

Install the GitHub app with read access to code and pull requests. It takes about two minutes.

#482 Ranking model rewriteQualified

#487 Event store shardingQualified

#491 Bump eslint to 9.12Excluded

Every PR classified

Each merged pull request is checked against the IRS four-part test.

Ranking model · 41 PRs$18,240

Event store · 27 PRs$11,900

Linked to the study

Every qualified dollar links back to the pull request that earned it.

Projects14 synced

Cycles26 synced

Issues1,038 synced

Connect your workspace

Authorize Linear or Jira with read access. Projects and cycles sync on their own.

Cold-start ranking · 112 issuesQualified

Offline sync · 86 issuesQualified

Billing page copy · 9 issuesExcluded

Projects mapped

Claimship groups issues into the business components the IRS asks about.

Uncertainty: accuracy on new usersDrafted

Experiment: 4 ranking approachesDrafted

Narratives drafted

Ticket history becomes the project narrative your CPA needs.

#eng-syncIncluded

#ml-coreIncluded

#randomSkipped

Pick the channels

Choose which channels Claimship reads. Direct messages stay private.

Why CRDT merge drops offline editsEvidence

Benchmark: Postgres vs ClickHouseEvidence

Experiments found

Threads about failed approaches and tradeoffs get tagged as evidence.

Offline sync6 threads

Event store4 threads

Attached to projects

Each thread attaches to the project it supports in the study.

Engineering · 9 peopleSynced

Product · 2 peopleSynced

Wages pulled in

Claimship reads W-2 wages for each technical employee. No spreadsheets.

Staff engineer82%

Backend engineer76%

Product designer35%

Time allocated

Each person's qualified time comes from their actual work, not a survey.

Q3 payroll tax offset$15,310

Remaining credit$45,930

Credit pushed to payroll

The elected amount goes into Gusto or Rippling. Claimship tracks it every quarter.

Classification

Every pull request checked against the four-part test

Claimship reads your commits, PRs, tickets, and threads. It sorts real experimentation from routine work. You confirm the edge cases in a short weekly review.

Estimate your savings

#482 Ranking model rewriteQualified

ENG-1038 Shard event storeQualified

#eng-sync CRDT merge threadEvidence

#491 Bump eslint to 9.12Excluded

#493 Retry flaky upload testNeeds review

Classifying 1,284 items

Why it holds up

Routine maintenance, dependency bumps, and config changes are excluded. That's what makes the study defensible.

The study

An audit-ready study and Form 6765 numbers

Project narratives, payroll allocations, and the numbers for Form 6765. A person on our team reviews every study before it goes to your CPA.

Estimate your savings

Research credit study · FY 2026

Qualified research expenses

Qualified wages$690,000

Contract research at 65%$48,100

Cloud computing$27,400

Total QREs$765,500

Estimated credit$61,240

Evidence

Every qualified dollar links to the commit, PR, or ticket that earned it.

Collection

The credit lands in payroll, every quarter

Startups with under $5M in revenue can apply up to $500,000 a year against payroll taxes. Claimship pushes the elected amount into Rippling or Gusto and tracks it until you collect all of it.

Estimate your savings

Payroll tax offset

$30,620 of $61,240 collected

Q1 2027Applied

Q2 2027Applied

Q3 2027$15,310

Q4 2027$15,310

Where it fits

This is the step most startups fumble. The return gets filed and nobody tells the payroll provider.

#482 Ranking model rewriteQualified

ENG-1038 Shard event storeQualified

#eng-sync CRDT merge threadEvidence

#491 Bump eslint to 9.12Excluded

#493 Retry flaky upload testNeeds review

Classifying 1,284 items

Beyond payroll

We find qualified expenses automatically

Salaries are the biggest line in most claims, but not the only one. Connect a read-only bank or card feed and Claimship finds the qualified expenses hiding in your transaction history.

Cloud and compute. AWS, GCP, GPU rentals, and API usage tied to development work.
Contract research. US contractors who build product count at 65 cents on the dollar.
Supplies. Hardware and materials your team uses up while building.

These add up fast if you're training models or paying for serious compute.

Transactions · Q2 2026238 scanned

Amazon Web Services

Jun 28 · Mercury ···· 4821

$18,420Cloud computing

Lambda GPU Cloud

Jun 21 · Mercury ···· 4821

$6,900Compute

Apex Engineering LLC

Jun 15 · Invoice · US contractor

$20,000Contractor · 65%

Figma

Jun 12 · Mercury ···· 4821

$780Excluded

WeWork

Jun 1 · Mercury ···· 4821

$2,400Excluded

Added to qualified expenses$38,320

Why Claimship

Built for how startups actually ship

GitHubRead-only

LinearRead-only

SlackRead-only

Read-only by design

Claimship never writes to your repos, tickets, or channels. You can revoke access any time.

Ranking model$18,240

41 pull requests212 commits

63 Linear issues9 threads

Evidence, not questionnaires

Most firms build studies from interviews and surveys. Claimship builds them from commits, PRs, tickets, and threads.

#493 Retry flaky upload testNeeds review

ENG-1101 Cache warmup jobNeeds review

#489 Vector index rebuildQualified

A short weekly review

Claimship flags the edge cases. You confirm them in one quick pass. No timesheets.

Apex Engineering LLC$74,000

Counted at 65%$48,100

Contractor costs count

Qualified US contractor costs count at 65%. Claimship pulls them from your bank or card feed.

Amazon Web Services$18,420

Lambda GPU Cloud$6,900

Cloud compute included

Servers and GPUs used for development qualify. Claimship tags them from your transactions.

NarrativesApproved

Payroll allocationsApproved

Form 6765 numbersApproved

A person checks every study

Software drafts the study. A person on our team reviews it before it reaches your CPA.

Your accountant stays

We prepare the study and Form 6765 package. Your CPA files it with your return.

Tracked every quarter

Claimship follows the credit through payroll until the full amount lands.

Updates as you ship

After setup the study keeps itself current. No year-end scramble.

Pricing

A flat fee. You keep the entire credit.

No percentage of your refund. No per seat pricing. No surprise study fees in April.

Seed

$6,000

per year · up to 15 technical employees

All integrations, unlimited work items
Full audit-ready study + Form 6765 package
Weekly classification review
Credit pushed to Rippling or Gusto, tracked quarterly

Growth

$15,000

per year · up to 50 technical employees

Everything in Seed
State credit eligibility flagging
Multi-entity support
Direct line to our team during filing season

Scale

$30,000+

per year · 50+ technical employees

Everything in Growth
Custom entity and project structure
Flat fee quoted before you start

Most customers claim $20,000 to $250,000 in their first year. See full pricing details.

What qualifies

The work your team already does probably counts

Rewriting a ranking model because the first approach failed on new users.

Machine learning

Sharding a database when nobody knew if the latency target was reachable.

Infrastructure

Building offline sync and testing three merge strategies before one held up.

Product engineering

Porting a hot path to Rust to hit a performance goal.

Performance

Designing a new API architecture and benchmarking the options.

Architecture

Iterating on device firmware through repeated test cycles.

Hardware

Not this: dependency bumps, routine bug fixes, and config changes.

Excluded

Your startup has an R&D tax credit

This is the only software that pays for itself in cash

15 minutes to connect.
A study in days.

Connect read-only

Every PR classified

Linked to the study

Connect your workspace

Projects mapped

Narratives drafted

Pick the channels

Experiments found

Attached to projects

Wages pulled in

Time allocated

Credit pushed to payroll

Every pull request checked against the four-part test

An audit-ready study and Form 6765 numbers

The credit lands in payroll, every quarter

We find qualified expenses automatically

Built for how startups actually ship

Read-only by design

Evidence, not questionnaires

A short weekly review

Contractor costs count

Cloud compute included

A person checks every study

Your accountant stays

Tracked every quarter

Updates as you ship

A flat fee. You keep the entire credit.

Seed

Growth

Scale

The work your team already does probably counts

The questions every founder asks

Find out what your startup is owed

Your startup has an R&D tax credit

This is the only software that pays for itself in cash

15 minutes to connect.A study in days.

Connect read-only

Every PR classified

Linked to the study

Every pull request checked against the four-part test

An audit-ready study and Form 6765 numbers

The credit lands in payroll, every quarter

We find qualified expenses automatically

Built for how startups actually ship

Read-only by design

Evidence, not questionnaires

A short weekly review

Contractor costs count

Cloud compute included

A person checks every study

Your accountant stays

Tracked every quarter

Updates as you ship

A flat fee. You keep the entire credit.

Seed

Growth

Scale

The work your team already does probably counts

The questions every founder asks

We're not profitable. How do we get money back?

Is this actually legitimate?

Do we have to leave our accountant?

What engineering work actually qualifies?

Is this all AI, or does a person check the work?

What happens if we're audited?

How long does setup take?

Find out what your startup is owed

15 minutes to connect.
A study in days.