We’re glad you asked.

As maybe you’ve already seen by typing this into an internet search engine, there is a wide range when it comes to the pricing of estate planning services and it can sometimes be hard to sift through and make sense of these costs. So we’re going to try and clarify this a little bit.

Think of pricing of estate planning as a spectrum. With DIY on one end and full service law firm on the other.

Do It Yourself

Generally, even DIY has some costs associated, but they are likely minimal, with a larger cost of your time and also the uncertainty of not knowing what you don’t know.

Do It Yourself Software Providers

The next step up from here are DIY software providers  like Legal Zoom, Rocket Lawyer, etc. Generally, these require the consumer to purchase the product up front (a form), and then have an interface for you to fill out information once you’ve purchased the product. They also require that you execute the documents on your own.

As far as we can tell, these services don’t evaluate whether or not the form they are selling you is the right form and it appears that you have to pay extra in order to ask questions or ensure that you have filled out information correctly. Ultimately, these business models rely heavily on the sale of the form itself. And while that is certainly cheaper, it is also lacking in know-how that you would likely want and benefit from when doing your estate planning.

It also looks like there is often a great deal of upselling throughout the process and that what you think you are going to pay at the start may not end up being what you pay at the end. Some of the packages automatically include “attorney advice”, but many of these also annually auto renew unless you go in and change that. All in, it looks like you are generally spending between $250 and $400 on these documents and you’ll still be on your own for executing them. While executing documents isn’t rocket science, it also isn’t convenient and can often be a big hassle to accomplish with busy lives and schedules.

It looks like you can also do some of the documents ala carte or unbundle the services so that they don’t include the lawyer time, but then this also results in higher cost to pay individually for documents. These services know that the real money lies in subscription based “services” hence wanting to get you signed up for the annual subscription for attorney time, even (maybe especially) if you don’t use it.

Law Firm

On the other side of the spectrum, you’ve got law firms, where, essentially you are paying for an attorney’s time. That’s the bottom line, and with most attorneys charging between $250-$350 per hour, this gets pricey really quick. Most will based estate planning generally tends to be around $1000 to $1500 and most trust based planning is somewhere between $2000 to $4500. There is also the added pressure of feeling like you are “being sold” something. Attorneys are generally going to push more extensive planning that is extremely thorough, I know this because I’ve worked in this industry for 8 years. And the thing about this is that the attorneys are going to do good work, but they are also going to plan like this is your for absolute sure exit plan, and while it’s nice to have all the customization, bells, and whistles, if this is more of a “what if” plan rather than a “not if, but when” plan, it might not be worth it to you to spend that amount.

Additionally, since you are paying for an attorney’s time, while plan to plan most attorneys are telling each client 70-80% the same information, there is no way to leverage this to reduce costs, because at the end of the day,  you are paying for an attorney’s time.

Unbundled Law Firm Services

Some attorneys will do stand alone services, for example only a will or only a power of attorney document, but these are still going to costs a few hundred dollars a piece, and the bundling of the documents is also important, because you really do need each of those documents to have a full estate plan.

Really Good Wills

Straight off, Really Good Wills is not right for everyone, if you want to read more about some situations for which it might not be the right fit, go here. That said, the goal of Really Good Wills is to get you law firm quality estate planning at a more affordable price point. It is not your cheapest option, but at $500-0$650, we believe that it is providing the best value on the market.

The whole concept of Really Good Wills, is that as a practicing estate planning attorney, I saw the inherent inefficiencies in the work I did. I saw that I explained the same concepts day after day to each of my clients and that by and large most people wanted roughly the same things in their plans. There was maybe a 15-20% variation. But I was charging clients for all the time I spent with them.

With Really Good Wills, we’ve leveraged software to eliminate the time I was spending on replicated work client to client. This means less attorney time and less cost to the client while still providing them the same education and quality of work. Additionally, we’ve built into the software the flexibility that majority of our clients want in their documents i.e. that 15-20% variation.

Additionally, all documents are reviewed by an attorney, every plan has an appointment with an attorney to ask outstanding questions, and we execute your documents completely, so that at the end you have a fully executed, legal estate plan.

Even writing this out gives me the chills. Really Good Wills is not right in 100% of the cases, but that’s why we evaluate that at the start and don’t take your money unless we are the right product for your situation. We are confident that Really Good Wills provides a much more quality estate planning solution than anything else on the market, at a far more affordable price point.  We hope this will mean that more people can get their estate planning documents in place and have the peace of mind that there is a reliable plan for them and their loved ones upon their incapacity and/or death.