You don’t pay until you file for a lot of those services. I filled out the tax info for the past 2 or 3 years to see what refund estimates and what not each software came up with. Then I filed with the one that was cheapest since they pretty much all output the same thing. For me, FreeTaxUsa was the cheapest. I think its free for federal tax filing, but 10 or 15 bucks to file the state taxes.