So I ended up calling the help center. The experience is different from the online tool I've used for the past 8 years - short answer - yes you have to pay first even if you may not need to file amended state returns. There's no way around it based on what we discovered together on the phone and using screen share. The time it takes to run the software through each state's returns to see if anything needs changing is where the cost comes in. For me it was $100 to attempt to amend federal and 3 states.
