Implication · what that problem costs you, every year

What this costs
everywhere else.

$460K+Bank trust dept · first year
5–8%Of your gross · four published schedules agree

That isn't an estimate — it's arithmetic off four banks' own published fee schedules, applied to a book this size. The specialists either negotiate a number like it behind a closed door, or bill you by the hour, forever. Hold the number. Everything after is measured against it.

Before we priced anything,
we studied everyone.

Not a sampling — a census. Every software platform, specialist manager, outsourcing shop, bank schedule, middleware vendor, and AI tool that could plausibly touch this work. One question, three parts: can it read nine operators' paper, prove the book to the penny, and write a file a bank trust system accepts — at a price you can see before you sign? Here is the whole field, in their own words.

The field we surveyed · before we priced anything

Everyone who could touch this —
and the one empty corner.

Every software platform, specialist manager, bank, outsourcer, middleware vendor, and DIY path that could plausibly do this work, mapped on the two axes that decide it for an owner: a price you control, and whether it does the whole job on your side of the table. We did this so you don't have to.
The whole job, on your side →
where the market sits
the empty corner
A price you control →
26 alternatives mapped across 8 categories — 4 published bank fee schedules pulled, 5 staffing data sources cross-checked, and the vendors' own sites and quotes. Read the field, not the names: everyone either bills you forever, makes you key it, or never hands you the file. The top-right corner — the whole job, at a price you hold — has exactly one name in it.
Who · in their own words What they charge Reads the paper Proves to the penny Writes the bank's file The business problem
Software of record — the systems people already own
Enverus MineralSoft“the only 360° mineral management solution” — sold to funds, family offices, banks, trusts From ~$500/mosubscription · quote-based above that ~via their services staff, billed as services ✗ ✗ No budget certainty. Quote-based pricing, and the labor still gets paid — theirs as services, or yours as keying. The platform fee is the floor, not the bill.
MineralWaresystem-of-record SaaS — it accepts an import; it doesn't create one Quote only ✗holds what's keyed or imported ✗ ✗ A filing cabinet you feed by hand. The cost of reading and keying never leaves your P&L — the software just stores the result.
Quorum Softwarethe largest operator-side O&G software suite (land, revenue accounting, production, midstream); Houston; Thoma Bravo-owned; absorbed Landdox + LandBoss + Aucerna Enterprise quotes ✗ ✗ ✗ Built for operators, not owners. Enterprise sales cycles, enterprise implementations — and it stores what's keyed or integrated; it doesn't read your operators' paper, prove your book, or write your custodian's file.
W Energy · Merrick · PakEnergyland & revenue systems — enterprise tools for operators and funds Enterprise quotes ✗ ✗ ✗ Built for operators, not owners. Enterprise sales cycles, enterprise implementations, and your problem still isn't the one they solve.
Specialist managers — humans doing it for you
Valor“security, clarity and revenue optimization” — Fort Worth Hourly, like a law firmtheir own model · the meter never stops ~their humans, on the clock ~their books, their format ✗ Unbudgetable by design. Open-ended hourly means cost scales with activity, not value — and the knowledge of your book accrues to their staff, so leaving costs you the institutional memory you paid to build.
Argent Mineral Management“an ally with negotiation leverage” — 3M acres, 30 states Negotiated, never published ~their humans ~their reporting, their cadence ✗ Price discovery after they size you. The negotiation starts once they know your book — leverage opens on their side of the table and stays there at every renewal.
Trinityhourly-only by their own site — explicitly rejects the percentage model Hourly, quote only ~ ~ ✗ Same meter, different letterhead. The hourly model's economics don't change with the logo.
Outsourcing & trust-bank platforms
PetroLedgerO&G back-office BPO Custom quote ~their humans ~ ✗ Labor, not a system. Your continuity rides on their staffing and turnover — you've outsourced the work but kept the key-person risk.
OGTS / VISION-OGthe machinery banks use to charge you 5–8% — built for banks, sold to banks On request onlynot sold at family-office scale ~ ~under their roof · no published certification of controls ~it IS the bank's side The bank's cost center without the bank's scale. Your data under their roof, your controls on their say-so, and no certification published to examine.
Mineral Answersthe middleware a generation of firms ran on Winding downsunsetting — not an option going forward ✗ ✗ ✗ Vendor risk, realized. A generation of firms built on it now needs an exit on a deadline they didn't choose. This is what dependence on someone else's roadmap costs.
Bank trust departments — published schedules
BOK · Cadence · Austin Trust · Vision Bank“let us handle the complexities of mineral ownership” $460,000+ / yr5–8% of gross + per-asset + admin, off their own cards ✓their staff — billed to you, forever ~their books, their proof, their roof ~their own system only — you never hold the file Equity-grade economics for clerical work. 5–8% of gross, forever, growing with your production — and leaving means a data migration they control. The exit cost is the lock-in.
Middleware & integration vendors
SS&C · Kyriba · Bottomlineenterprise integration — Kyriba cannot produce the trust custodian format at all $32K–$375K Y1custom builds · multi-year · SOW risk ✗integration, not reading ✗ ✗ Integration plumbing that assumes the data is already correct. Kyriba and Bottomline are treasury/payments tools — wrong domain, no mineral content model. SS&C could emit a file only via a six-figure, multi-month custom build — and still never reads the paper or proves to the penny.
Do-it-yourself, with help
A generic AI chat windowsmart, cheap, and blank every session $20/mo ~you paste, it guesses, you verify every penny ✗ ✗zero files a bank has ever accepted All the liability, none of the system. Unverifiable output inside a fiduciary workflow — the $20 saves money everywhere except where being wrong costs it.
Freelancer + spreadsheetscapable, human, singular $33K–$58K Y1 ~one person's eyes ~one person's spreadsheet ~yes-with-risk · bus factor of one Key-person risk on a hard deadline. The whole record in one person's head and one spreadsheet — the cheap option until the quarter it isn't.
In-house hireanalyst + supervision + software + overflow $210,000+ / yr ✓by hand, 2,284 lines a year ~as good as their busiest week ~after months of ramp on the spec Fixed cost, single point of failure. $210K of payroll, 3–6 months to the first unsupervised cycle, and the deadline doesn't pause for vacations or resignations.
Centripetal Mineralreads, proves, and writes the file — proven on a real book A published card you holdlocked twelve months · bill before the work ✓9 formats · 17/17 to the penny ✓sealed, permanent record ✓the bank's exact layout · proven at volume Leverage stays with you. Published price you hold, your systems, your data, your proof — and an exit that costs you nothing but the goodbye.
Read the columns, not the names. The software holds; it doesn't read. The managers read; they bill the hours forever and never hand you a bank file. The banks do everything — under their roof, off your gross, with your data and your proof living in their system. The middleware might write a file after a six-figure custom build. Nobody on this list does all three things at a price printed where you can see it. That empty intersection is the implication: today, your only real choices are to overpay a bank, run a meter that never stops, or carry the whole thing on one person.
The receipt · the one bank candid enough to publish its card

What “5–8% of gross”
actually adds up to.

BOK FinancialBank of Oklahoma · Bank of Texas · fiduciary mineral management since 1949
Bank trust model
6%of gross · royalty interests
8%of gross · working interests
$100–200per asset · every year
$2,500base account fee · annual
$100per division order
$200/hranything “extraordinary”
The largest mineral bank in the country, and the only one candid enough to print its card. Respect them for that — then run their card against your book. Trust administration is a separate schedule charged on top, and the oil & gas tax package is another line still.
Their card · your book · year one
6% — of your net alone, before gross-up$462,000
Same 6% on your full gross instead$510,000+
Asset base charges — $100 each, every asset+ the meter
Division orders — $100 each, every change+ the meter
Annual base account fee$2,500
Trust administration, separate schedule, minimum$5,000+
Oil & gas tax schedule, per return$500
Before the meters even start$470,000+
Computed from their published schedule effective January 1, 2026, applied to a reference book of roughly $7.7M net, $8.5M gross a year. Every year. Forever. And the percentage grows with your production.
Source · their own published fee schedule, effective Jan 1, 2026
Check our work. Every dollar figure here traces to a document you can hold: BOK Financial's Schedule of Fees effective Jan 1, 2026 · Cadence Bank's Specialty Trust fee schedule · Austin Trust Company's fee schedule · Vision Bank's statement of fees · COPAS's published $1,225/day audit per diem · published Houston O&G staffing rates · Valor's own 2019 release. Happy to send any source document.
So the implication, honestly: solve this the way the market offers, and you either hand a bank 5–8% of your gross every year, forever, or you put one person and a spreadsheet between you and a deadline that never moves. The next section is the third option.