Every Online Estate Planning Service We Priced, and What Renews After Year One
Buy LegalZoom’s Pro Will and thirty days of attorney consultations come with it. On day thirty-one your card is charged $25, and it is charged $25 every month after that until you cancel. That is not hidden. It is printed in the footnote under the plan you just bought, on their own pricing page, in the sentence that begins “After the 30-day period.”
Their Basic Will, one tier down at $129, carries no subscription at all. What the extra twenty dollars buys on the Pro tier is the healthcare directive and the two powers of attorney, plus that attorney access, and it is the attorney access that becomes the monthly charge. So the trap has a door, and the door is one tier cheaper. Not one of the roundups ranking above this page mentions either half of that.
None of which makes LegalZoom the wrong choice. For a family that wants a lawyer reachable while the paperwork is still fresh, $25 a month is a fair price for it, and their trust tier runs the same arrangement annually instead: a year of attorney access included, then $199 a year. What matters is knowing which tier you are on before the card is charged, not after.
We priced eight online estate planning services and read the renewal terms on all eight. Living Trustify is $349 once and never renews. Trust & Will renews at $49 a year after the first. LegalShield is $35.95 a month from the first day and was always built that way. The sticker price is not what separates them. Year two is.
Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Memorial Merits may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only list services we have priced and checked ourselves, and the renewal terms below are published whether they help the partner or not.
In Short
- What this is: eight online services for wills and trusts, priced by us, in three groups: complete plans, buy-once software, and monthly legal access.
- What it costs to use: nothing. Prices shown are each provider’s list price, with our discount codes applied where one exists.
- Cheapest way in here: $109, one payment, for software that produces 35 or more documents on your own computer.
- Cheapest complete trust package: $349 one time, with no renewal of any kind attached to it.
- The column nobody else publishes: what each one charges you in year two. Three of the eight charge nothing further.
- How the links work: the button in each listing goes direct to the provider. The line under it opens our full review of that service if you want the long version first.
Jump Straight to the Kind of Service You Need
Three groups below, then which documents you actually need, then all eight priced side by side including what renews.
Complete Plans Buy-Once Software Monthly Legal Access Which Documents You Need How They Compare
Not sure whether you need a will or a trust? Use a tool instead of reading. Free, no email, under two minutes.
- Estate Readiness ToolTen questions, then a scored answer on whether a trust earns its cost in your situation
- Probate Cost CalculatorYour state’s real number, which is the honest test of whether the trust is worth the difference
Complete Estate Plans: Documents, Storage and Delivery in One Account
These four sell the same idea from four directions. You buy the documents and a place to keep them, under one login, so the plan and the access to it do not live in separate places. The reason that matters is not convenience. A will nobody can find does nothing at all, and the person looking for it is usually looking in the first week, in a house they do not live in, between phone calls to a funeral home.
Prices here run from $129 for a will with no subscription attached up to $500 for a couple’s trust plan. Two of the four carry a Memorial Merits code. All four keep the documents reachable after you sign them, which is the one thing downloadable software cannot do no matter how good the documents are.
LVED: An Online Estate Plan That Updates When Your Life Does ★
The only plan here that keeps changing after you sign it, and the only exclusive discount on this page.
Code YFY63MX8 takes 33% off any LVED plan. It is the only public discount on LVED anywhere online.
Most estate plans freeze on the day you sign them. A move, a marriage, a grandchild, a new account, and the document stops matching the life it was written for without anyone noticing. LVED sells unlimited updates as part of the plan rather than as a renewal, and pairs the documents with a 25GB vault and an automated escrow release, so the people you named receive what they need on a verified death certificate instead of hunting for it. It is the most complete arrangement on this page, and with our code it costs less than a plain will plus a separate vault would.
- Will Plan $199 one time with code YFY63MX8, down from $297 list
- Trust and Will Plan $333 single or $500 couple, both including the vault
- The 25GB vault alone runs $65 a year if you want storage without the documents
- Unlimited updates included, so a life change does not mean starting the plan over
- Automated escrow delivery releases documents to named people on a verified death certificate
Trust & Will: The Most Guided Path Through the Questions ★
Built for the person who has never done this and does not want to guess at a single answer.
Code EXCLUSIVE10 takes 10% off. Public code, and anyone can use it.
The hardest part of an online estate plan is not the price, it is the twenty minutes where you are asked who inherits what and whether you want a per stirpes distribution. Trust & Will handles that stretch better than anything else here. The questions arrive one at a time in plain language, each with a short explanation of what it is actually asking, and the documents that come out are drafted for all fifty states. Watch the renewal line: the vault and the ongoing updates are free for the first year and $49 a year after that, which is easy to miss at checkout.
- Will Plan $179 individual with code EXCLUSIVE10, $269 for a couple
- Trust Plan $449, which includes the pour-over will and the powers of attorney
- Documents drafted for all fifty states, no state-specific upcharge
- Vault and unlimited updates free for year one, then $49 a year
- The plainest-language questionnaire on this page, and the least likely to leave you stuck
Living Trustify: The One That Never Bills You Again ★
A complete living trust package for $349, one time, with no renewal of any kind.
Every other complete plan on this page has a second number attached to it somewhere. Living Trustify does not. Three hundred forty nine dollars buys the living trust, the pour-over will, the durable power of attorney, the healthcare directive and the HIPAA release, and that is the last time you are charged. For a household that wants the probate-avoidance a trust provides and has no interest in a subscription relationship with a legal website, it is the cleanest arrangement here and the cheapest complete trust package we found anywhere.
- $349 one time. No annual fee, no vault renewal, no attorney plan attached
- Includes living trust, pour-over will, durable POA, healthcare directive and HIPAA release
- Naming who would raise your children is sold on its own for $19
- A special needs provision is built into the standard package rather than sold as an upgrade
- Cheapest complete plan on this page that includes an actual living trust
LegalZoom: Which Tier Carries a Subscription, and Which Does Not
The most recognized name here, and the one where the tier you pick decides whether you get billed again.
LegalZoom has two decades and millions of customers behind it, and for some families that record is worth more than saving forty dollars. It is also the one service on this page where the difference between tiers is not only what you get but whether a recurring charge follows you home. The Basic Will at $129 has no subscription attached to it at all. The Pro and Premium will tiers include thirty days of attorney consultations, and on day thirty-one that access converts to $25 a month until you cancel. Their trust tiers run the same arrangement on an annual cycle at $199 a year. None of it is hidden, all of it is in the footnote, and almost nobody reads the footnote.
- Basic Will $129, the entry tier, with no recurring charge of any kind
- Pro Will $149 individual or $249 couple, adding the directives and both powers of attorney
- Premium Will $299 individual, $399 couple. Basic Trust $399, Premium Trust $549
- Attorney access on Pro and Premium will tiers renews at $25 a month after 30 days
- On trust tiers that same access continues at $199 a year. Cancel online or by phone
Estate Planning Software You Buy Once
The trade here is simple, and it is a real trade rather than a compromise. You pay one time, the documents are yours, and nobody bills you again. What you give up is the living half: there is no account your executor can open, no automatic delivery to the people you named, no vault holding the deed and the policy numbers alongside the will. The documents sit on your computer or in a filing cabinet the way they did in 1995, which works perfectly well as long as somebody knows the drawer.
Quicken WillMaker has been sold by Nolo for more than fifty years and produces 35 or more documents from a single purchase, including the transfer-on-death deeds most competitors treat as an upsell. If a transfer-on-death deed is the piece you actually need, that matters. FastWill covers the step most software will not touch at all, which is getting the finished document notarized without you finding a notary yourself.
Quicken WillMaker & Trust: 35 Documents, Bought Once
Fifty years of Nolo behind it, and the widest document library on this page for a single payment.
Nolo has sold WillMaker for more than fifty years, and what you get for one payment is not a will, it is a library. The will and living trust sit alongside healthcare directives, both powers of attorney, transfer-on-death deeds and more than thirty additional forms covering promissory notes, pet care agreements and the smaller legal moments most households hit eventually. Everything is generated on your own computer, which is the strength and the limitation: nobody can bill you again, and nobody can log in and find it for you either. The All Access tier bundles a year of the Everplans vault, the only storage included with any software on this page.
- Basic $109 one time: will, healthcare directive, financial POA, final arrangements, Nolo legal manual
- Plus $149 adds transfer-on-death deeds and the full additional-forms library
- All Access $219 adds one year of Everplans document storage and premium guides
- $39.99 a year afterward is optional and only keeps revisions and legal updates active
- Not available in Louisiana or in U.S. territories, which run on a different legal system
FastWill: Remote Notarization Handled in the Same Place
The step most online wills leave you to solve yourself, done without you finding a notary.
A signed will usually needs witnesses, and in a growing number of situations it needs a notary, which is the point where a great many online estate plans stall in a drawer. FastWill covers that step in the same session, with remote online notarization available rather than a printed packet and a trip to a bank. It also handles deed transfer, the piece that has to happen for a trust to actually hold the house rather than just describe it. Package pricing is one-time, and the notary and deed services are priced separately so you only pay for the steps your situation calls for.
- Will Package $199 individual, $249 for a couple
- Trust Package $499 individual, $599 for a couple
- Remote online notarization from $75, handled without leaving the process
- Deed transfer $399, the step that puts the house inside the trust
- Package pricing is one-time rather than subscription-based
Legal Document Libraries and Attorney Access by Subscription
Neither of these two is an estate plan, and neither pretends to be. Both earn a place here anyway, because for some households they solve the problem better than a plan would.
Legal Templates is a document library, 450 or more attorney-drafted forms, and it makes sense when the estate paperwork is one of several legal things you need this year rather than the only one. LegalShield is an attorney on retainer billed monthly, the closest thing on this page to having a lawyer’s number in your phone before you need it. Read the trust terms on LegalShield before you sign: a living trust sits on the Premium tier and adds $250 per person on top of the monthly rate, which changes the math considerably for a couple.
Legal Templates: A Form Library When the Estate Is One of Several Jobs
Four hundred fifty attorney-drafted forms, useful well past the estate plan.
This is not an estate plan and it does not claim to be. It is a document library, and it earns its place when the will is one of four or five legal things you need this year: a lease, a bill of sale, an employment agreement, a power of attorney. Buying each of those individually costs more than a year of access here. If the estate plan is the only legal document you will touch, one of the complete plans above is the better spend. If your year looks busier than that, this is the cheapest way through it.
- $9.99 a month on annual billing, which comes to $119.88 for the year
- Month to month alone is $49.95, so the annual term is the only sensible way in
- Seven-day free trial before the first charge
- 450 or more attorney-drafted forms, most covering matters well outside an estate
- Best value when the estate documents are one item on a longer legal list
LegalShield: An Attorney on Retainer, and What the Trust Really Costs
The closest thing here to having a lawyer’s number in your phone before you need it.
Everything else on this page sells you documents. LegalShield sells you access to a person. For $35.95 a month you and your spouse can call a law firm about almost anything, which matters most in the situations documents cannot solve: a dispute with a sibling over an estate, a landlord, a contract you were handed and told to sign today. Read the trust terms carefully before you commit. A living trust is not part of the base plan; it sits on the Premium tier and adds $250 per person, which for a couple changes the first-year math considerably.
- $35.95 a month on annual billing, which comes to $431.46 for the year
- Covers you and your spouse under a single membership
- A living trust requires the Premium tier and adds $250 per person on top
- Covers the court process after a death, the piece most estate services stop short of
- Ongoing monthly cost by design, not a renewal buried in a footnote
Estate Planning Documents: Which Ones You Actually Need
Most people arrive at this decision believing they need a will, and stop there. A will is one of four documents, it is the only one of the four that does nothing while you are alive, and for a great many families it is not even the one that matters most.
The will, and the things it does not reach
A will names who receives what, names a guardian for minor children, and names the executor who carries it out. It takes effect only at death, and it works through probate, the court process that makes the whole thing public and takes months. It also does not touch anything that already has a beneficiary attached: retirement accounts, life insurance payouts, and jointly titled property pass by their own paperwork regardless of what the will says. A will that contradicts a beneficiary form loses. If you take one thing from this section, take that one, and go check your beneficiary forms this week.
Without a will, the state writes one for you using a formula that has never met your family. We covered how that formula actually works in what happens when someone dies without a will, and the short version is that it rarely lands where people assume.
The living trust, and when it earns its cost
A living trust holds your assets while you are alive and passes them to the people you name without probate. That is the entire pitch, and whether it is worth the extra money depends almost entirely on what probate costs where you live. In some states probate on a modest estate is a formality. In others it consumes a meaningful percentage of everything and takes the better part of a year. Our probate cost calculator gives you your state’s number in about a minute, and that number is the honest test of whether a trust plan earns the difference. If probate would cost your family $1,200, a $349 trust plan is arguable. If it would cost them $14,000, it is not a close call.
The two powers of attorney, which do the work while you are still here
A financial power of attorney lets someone pay your mortgage and handle your accounts if you cannot. A medical power of attorney lets someone make treatment decisions on your behalf. These are the documents that get used, and they get used during the hardest and longest stretch, the one before anybody is talking about an estate at all. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes plain-language guides for anyone managing another person’s money, and reading one before you name somebody is a better use of an afternoon than most estate planning advice you will find. If you need the document itself, our medical power of attorney guide walks through what each section is doing.
The healthcare directive, which is free
An advance directive records what treatment you do and do not want if you cannot say so yourself. Every plan on this page includes one, and you do not have to buy any of them to get it. CaringInfo, a program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, publishes free state-specific advance directive forms for every state and territory. Download yours, fill it in, and give a copy to the person you named. That single act does more for your loved ones than any other item on this page, and it costs nothing.
If you are still not sure which of the four you actually need, our estate readiness tool asks ten questions and returns a scored answer, including whether a trust earns its cost in your situation. It takes about two minutes and there is no email gate on it.
How These Online Estate Planning Services Compare
Eight services, side by side, with the column most comparisons leave out. What renews is where the real cost difference lives, and it is the column to read first if you are deciding between two plans that look identically priced today.
| Service | Best for | Lowest real price | What renews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LVED ★ | The plan that keeps working after you sign it | $199one time with code YFY63MX8, marked down from a $297 list price. Trust and Will Plan $333 single, $500 couple. The vault on its own is $65 a year. | Nothing on the plan itself. The vault renews at $65 a year only if you buy it on its own. | Go › |
| Trust & Will ★ | The person who has never done this and does not want to guess | $179with code EXCLUSIVE10, or $269 for a couple. Trust Plan $449. Every document drafted for all fifty states with no state upcharge. | $49 a year after year one, for the vault and ongoing updates. | Go › |
| Living Trustify ★ | A trust with no second number attached anywhere | $349one time, and that is the last charge. Covers the trust, the pour-over will, both powers of attorney and the HIPAA release. Naming who raises your children is $19 on its own. | Nothing. No annual fee and no vault renewal. | Go › |
| LegalZoom | A name your family will recognize, if you pick the tier deliberately | $129Basic Will. Pro Will $149, $249 couple. Premium Will $299, $399 couple. Basic Trust $399, Premium Trust $549. | Nothing on Basic Will. Pro and Premium wills renew at $25/mo after 30 days. Trust tiers, $199/yr. | Go › |
| Quicken WillMaker | The widest document library for a single payment | $109Basic one time. Plus $149, All Access $219 with a year of the Everplans vault. Not sold in Louisiana or U.S. territories. | $39.99 a year, optional, and only if you want revisions and legal updates kept active. | Go › |
| FastWill | Getting it signed and notarized, not only drafted | $199for the Will Package, or $249 as a couple. Trust Package $499, $599 couple. Remote online notarization starts at $75 and deed transfer is $399. | Nothing. Package pricing is one-time. | Go › |
| Legal Templates | A form library when the estate plan is one of several legal jobs | $9.99/moon annual billing, which is $119.88 a year, after a 7-day free trial. Monthly alone is $49.95. 450+ forms. | $119.88 a year, ongoing. This is a subscription by design. | Go › |
| LegalShield | Calling a lawyer about the things documents cannot fix | $35.95/moon annual billing, which is $431.46 a year. Covers you and your spouse. A living trust is Premium only, plus $250 per person. | $431.46 a year, ongoing. This is a subscription by design. | Go › |
Who Should Look Elsewhere
There are situations where every service on this page is the wrong answer, and saying so is the whole point of publishing a comparison instead of a sales page. If any of the following describes you, close this tab and call an estate planning attorney.
If your estate is large enough to face federal or state estate tax, you need planning that software does not attempt. The federal exemption is published by the IRS and sits well into the millions per person, but several states set their own thresholds far lower, and crossing one changes the entire structure of a plan. If you have a child with a disability who receives government benefits, an ordinary inheritance can end those benefits, and the trust that prevents it is drafted by a person, not generated by a form. If your family is already fighting, or a previous marriage has left children on both sides, or somebody has told you they intend to contest, a document produced without a lawyer’s judgment is an invitation rather than a protection. And if you live in Louisiana, most of this page simply does not apply; the state runs on a different legal system and several of these services do not sell there at all.
The American Bar Association keeps a public estate planning resource that is a reasonable place to start looking for someone.
I have watched what happens when the paperwork is not ready. My father, Monte, had triple bypass surgery while I was preparing to go to sea, and three days later he passed from aspiration complications. What follows a death like that is not one decision, it is fifty of them, arriving in the same week, aimed at people who are in no condition to make any of them. Nothing on this page prevents grief. What it can prevent is a family spending the first week of it hunting through a filing cabinet.
That is the only reason we price these services honestly, including the parts that make a partner look worse. We would rather send you to an attorney and earn nothing than sell you a form that fails when your loved ones need it to hold.
Getting Started With an Online Estate Plan
If you have read this far and want a sequence rather than a recommendation, here is the one we would give a friend.
Start by checking your beneficiary forms, because that is free, it takes twenty minutes, and it overrides everything you are about to pay for. Then run the estate readiness tool to find out whether your situation calls for a will or a trust, and run the probate cost calculator for your state so the answer comes with a number attached. Download the free advance directive for your state while you are at it. Only then pick a service, and pick it against the renewal column rather than the sticker price.
Once the documents exist, they have to be findable. That is a separate problem from creating them, and it is the one that fails most often. Our directory of estate planning tools, vaults and organizers covers where the finished plan should live, and our free planning worksheets give you something to hand the person who will have to use it. If the plan also needs to replace an income, the life insurance directory is the next stop. Everything in this leg sits under our main legacy and estate planning directory if you want the full picture first.
Who Priced This List
Every service here was priced by Gabriel Killian, founder of Memorial Merits and a US Navy Certified Instructor, Missile Defense Systems. Its end-of-life planning work has been cited by CBS, ABC and Fox.
Prices come from each provider’s own pricing page, not from another directory, and every one was pulled on 21 August 2026. List prices are shown rather than sale prices, because sales end and this page does not. Renewal terms are quoted from each provider’s own footnotes, including the ones that make a partner look worse. Where a discount belongs to Memorial Merits the listing says so, and where a code is public and anyone can use it the listing says that too.
Prices and renewal terms last verified 21 August 2026. Reviewed every 90 days. One provider is running a sale that ends 31 August 2026; the list price is shown here, so you may pay less than the figure quoted.
Online Estate Planning Questions Families Ask Most
Do I need a will or a trust?
Most households need a will. You need a trust when probate in your state would cost your family more than the trust costs you, when you own property in more than one state, or when you want the transfer kept private. Run your state’s number through our probate cost calculator before you decide, because that figure is the whole argument. If probate would cost $1,200, a $349 trust plan is arguable. If it would cost $14,000, it is not a close call.
Is an online will legal?
Yes, in every state except Louisiana, provided you follow the signing instructions exactly. A will becomes valid through execution rather than through who drafted it, which means signing in front of the number of witnesses your state requires and, in some cases, having it notarized. The document is not the hard part. The signing is, and it is where most online wills fail.
How much does a living trust cost?
Through the services on this page, between $349 and $649 depending on whether you buy for one person or a couple and whether attorney access is included. Living Trustify is $349 one time with no renewal. LegalZoom’s Basic Trust is $399 and its Premium Trust is $549. FastWill’s Trust Package is $499. An attorney-drafted trust typically runs several thousand dollars.
What is the average cost of a will?
Online, between $109 and $299 for one person. Quicken WillMaker’s Basic tier is $109 one time, LegalZoom’s Basic Will is $129, Trust & Will runs $179 with our code, and FastWill’s Will Package is $199. The wide range reflects what comes with the will rather than the quality of the will itself: the cheaper tiers give you the will alone, the higher ones add the powers of attorney and the healthcare directive.
What estate planning documents do I actually need?
Four, and a will is only one of them. A will names who receives what and takes effect at death. A living trust passes assets without probate. A financial power of attorney lets someone handle your money if you cannot. A medical power of attorney and healthcare directive cover treatment decisions. The two powers of attorney are the ones that get used while you are still alive, and they are the ones most people skip.
What happens if someone dies without a will?
The state applies its intestacy formula, which distributes the estate by a fixed order of relatives rather than by anything the person wanted. It rarely lands where families assume. A long-term unmarried partner usually receives nothing, stepchildren usually receive nothing, and the court names the administrator rather than the person you would have chosen.
Which online estate planning service is cheapest?
Quicken WillMaker at $109 for a single payment, if software on your own computer suits you. For a complete plan with a living trust, Living Trustify at $349 one time is the cheapest here and the only one with no renewal attached. For the lowest entry price with no subscription, LegalZoom’s Basic Will is $129.
Do any of these charge me again after I buy?
Five of the eight do, and it is the difference most comparisons leave out. Trust & Will renews at $49 a year after the first. LegalZoom’s Pro and Premium will tiers convert to $25 a month after 30 days, and its trust tiers to $199 a year; its $129 Basic Will does not. Quicken WillMaker’s $39.99 a year is optional. Legal Templates and LegalShield are subscriptions by design. Living Trustify and FastWill charge nothing further.
What does Memorial Merits earn from these listings?
A commission on some of them, paid by the provider, at no additional cost to you. It does not change what we publish. The renewal terms above are quoted from each provider’s own footnotes, including the ones that cost us money to print, because a family that gets surprised by a charge does not come back.
