Updated August 20, 2026. Quick answer: A legally valid will costs anywhere from $0 to about $1,000. Free: FreeWill (will, financial power of attorney, healthcare directive, all 50 states). DIY platforms: $109–$299 individual. Attorney-drafted: a simple will has a median of $625, with the middle half of firms charging $450–$1,000 (2026 nationwide study of 909 firms); most estate planning clients pay a flat fee, and packages that add powers of attorney and healthcare directives have a median of $1,000, with the middle half of firms charging $750–$1,500 (319 of those 909 firms priced a package). The price differences are about scope and complexity — the legal validity of a properly executed will is the same at every price.
Fast routes: Estate planning cost guide | How much a living trust costs | Will vs trust breakeven calculator | Small-estate limits by state
Price your own plan: your state, your situation
The prices below this box are national, and they are the honest answer to “what does a will cost”. What they cannot tell you is the part that actually decides whether a cheap will is enough: whether your own state would let your estate skip probate, and whether a house changes that answer. This page tells you three times to go and look those up. This does it for you, from our statute-cited state pages, and never invents a state-level price.
Pick a state to see its small-estate threshold, whether that route reaches a home, and which document routes are priced on this page. Without a state, the answer is the national one in the table below: $0 through FreeWill, $109–$299 on a DIY platform, a $625 median for an attorney-drafted simple will and a $1,000 median for a will package.
If a DIY will is the right route for you
Most straightforward estates — one household, no business, no blended-family complications — are served well by a properly executed DIY will. LawDepot builds a state-specific last will and testament through a question-and-answer form, which you then sign and witness under your own state’s rules.
LawDepot itself prices a single document at $7.50–$119, or $107.88 a year for its estate-planning subscription (per our LawDepot review, verified 2026-08-20) — against the $625 median attorney fee shown above. Doing nothing means your state’s intestate succession law decides who inherits, not you.
LawDepot pays us a commission if you buy through this link — it costs you nothing extra. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Affiliate Disclosure.
How much a will costs in 2026: every major route
| Route | Individual | Couple | What’s included |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeWill | $0 | $0 | Last will, durable financial POA, advance healthcare directive; funded by nonprofit partnerships that invite (never require) charitable bequests |
| Quicken WillMaker (Nolo) | $109 Starter / $149 Plus (list, software) | Wills, healthcare directives, final arrangements; Plus adds POAs, living trust, transfer-on-death deed | |
| LegalZoom | $129 / $149 / $299 | $229 / $249 / $399 | Basic will; Pro adds POAs, healthcare directive, HIPAA, attorney consults; Premium adds revisions — upper tiers renew as subscriptions |
| Trust & Will (Will Plan) | $199 | $299 | Will, HIPAA authorization, living will, power of attorney; optional $49/yr membership |
| Rocket Lawyer | Membership $149–$349/yr | Documents through membership rather than per-document pricing | |
| Attorney — simple will | Median $625; middle 50% $450–$1,000 | Custom drafting and execution guidance; flat fees are the norm | |
| Attorney — will package | Median $1,000; middle 50% $750–$1,500 (319 firms); full attorney-prepared plans $2,000–$5,000+ (NCOA) | Will + financial POA + healthcare directive, coordinated as a plan | |
Platform prices were read from each company’s own pricing page on July 23, 2026 (list prices; promotional discounts and subscription renewals noted). Attorney figures: LegalTemplates 2026 study of 909 firms (published by a DIY-documents vendor — disclosed because that interest could bias it upward; NCOA and marketplace data broadly corroborate) and NCOA (Dec 2025). The attorney will-package row was read from the study itself on August 12, 2026: a median of $1,000, middle half $750–$1,500, from the 319 firms that priced a package.
What makes a will cost more
Complexity, not paper. The documented drivers: blended families and non-standard distributions, business ownership, out-of-state or international property, larger or potentially taxable estates, and metro-area pricing. If several of those apply, the marginal cost of proper drafting is small next to the cost of a fight later — and at that complexity level the real question usually becomes will-based versus trust-based planning, which is fee math we compute in the will vs trust breakeven calculator.
Is a $0–$200 will enough? Often, yes — check three things
- Your estate may skip probate anyway. Every state lets small estates bypass formal probate — check your state’s threshold in our small-estate limits table. Below it, an inexpensive valid will plus good beneficiary designations covers most situations.
- Beneficiary designations outrank the will. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and TOD/POD registrations pass outside the will entirely — keeping them current is free and matters more than the will’s price tag.
- Execution formalities decide validity. A will is valid because it is signed and witnessed per your state’s law, not because it was expensive. Whatever route you choose, follow the signing instructions exactly — it is the cheap step people skip.
When to step up from DIY to an attorney
The honest heuristic from the cost data: if your situation is simple, the $0–$200 routes buy the same legal instrument; if any complexity driver above applies, the $450–$1,000 attorney flat fee buys judgment, not just documents. And if your estate would face meaningful probate costs — see your state in the probate cost table — compare the trust route before spending anything: the living trust cost guide shows what that upgrade actually costs.
Documents are one piece of the plan
Wills interact with beneficiary designations, retirement accounts, and taxes — coordination is where professional help earns its fee. See how the advisor matching services compare if you want that help.
The DIY platforms, compared plainly
Three services dominate the DIY end of this market. LawDepot builds documents through a question-and-answer form and is the platform linked below. Trust & Will sells will and trust packages built around a guided flow with attorney-support add-ons. Nolo’s WillMaker is desktop software from a legal publisher that has produced self-help law titles for decades.
All three produce a document you still have to sign and witness correctly under your own state’s rules, and that step decides whether it works. None of them is a law firm, and none replaces an attorney in the situations set out above. We have a commercial relationship with LawDepot only; Trust & Will and Nolo are named because a comparison that left them out would be less useful, not because either paid for the mention.
Methodology
This page was materially reviewed on July 23, 2026. Platform prices are from each company’s public pricing page as of that date; survey figures are attributed inline with publisher interests disclosed. Figures are educational benchmarks, not quotes, and prices change. Nothing here is legal, tax, or personalized financial advice. See our Editorial Policy, Corrections, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer.
What actually changes when a spouse dies
The tax side is stated wrong more often than almost anything else in this area:
- The single brackets are exactly half the joint brackets — five times out of six, and the sixth favours you
- The two-year widow filing status needs a dependent child — without one it does not apply at all
- In nine states both halves get a new basis — in the other forty-one, only one half
- Rolling over the IRA under 59½ closes your penalty-free access permanently
- Portability must be elected on a return you were not otherwise required to file
Related planning cost: the document is the cheap part — funding late-life care is the expensive one. The self-insure vs long-term-care insurance calculator puts both paths in dollars, and can you self-insure long-term care gives the honest test.
Naming your executor? What they will legally be owed differs enormously by state — in New York, co-executors can each take a full commission. The executor fee calculator shows your state’s schedule, and the waive-or-take math matters when the executor is also an heir.
What skipping the will actually costs: in a blended family the default is brutal — the spouse’s share shrinks by statute, stepchildren get nothing, and the house can end up co-owned with them.
A will prices a document; most families writing one are also deciding what ongoing financial advice should cost. Our 2026 advisor fee benchmark measured what 176 SEC-registered firms actually charge, and the advisor fee calculator turns any quote into annual dollars.
Pricing the rest of the paperwork: a power of attorney (median $300 standalone, or bundled free into a $149–$199 will plan), an advance directive (usually free), and the full package. Whether to use a platform at all: the four situations where DIY fails.
Before cost, validity: what your state actually requires for a will to work — witness count, whether a notary is needed at all, and whether a handwritten or electronic will counts, with the statute cited on every cell.
What it costs in your state, and what your state actually requires:
Alabama · Alaska · Arizona · California · Colorado · Connecticut · Delaware · District of Columbia · Florida · Hawaii · Idaho · Illinois · Iowa · Kansas · Kentucky · Louisiana · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Minnesota · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada · New Hampshire · New Jersey · New York · North Carolina · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · Pennsylvania · Rhode Island · South Carolina · Texas · Utah · Vermont · Virginia · Washington · West Virginia · Wisconsin · Wyoming
Coverage, stated honestly: 44 of 51 jurisdictions have a page here. Not yet written: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota and Tennessee. Every state page quotes that state’s own execution rules; the national prices above are the same everywhere.
Also: amending a will and a will and power of attorney together.
The will is one document of five. What it costs is settled above; what it has to do sits alongside a power of attorney, an advance directive, beneficiary designations and, in some states, a transfer-on-death deed. The estate planning front door lays out all five, the probate process they feed, and the four taxes that decide what heirs actually receive — each with the statute cited.
Comparing the products themselves? Online will makers compared quotes only the prices we read from each company’s own page, discloses our one affiliate relationship in the table rather than a footer, and leads with the thing none of them control — your state’s execution rules.
Before you pay for anything: California, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin print a will form in their own statute, and a handwritten or self-typed will is valid anywhere it is executed correctly. The genuinely free routes to a valid will — including the ones we earn nothing from.
The software route, priced. As of August 6, 2026, read from each company’s own pages: FreeWill is $0 and WillMaker starts at $109 for one year; LawDepot, re-read August 20, 2026, is $107.88 a year for estate-planning documents or $155.88 for all of them — a subscription, and our affiliate partner, which is why that review tells single-will buyers to use one of the others. The full comparison is at online will makers compared.
You may not need a new one. Before paying for a will again, check whether the change you have in mind is already handled by statute: when a will genuinely needs updating, and whether a codicil or a new will is the right instrument.
For context on how common this decision is: about 46% of US adults have a will, and among people 65 and over it is 76%. The single national figure is dragged down by younger adults — how many Americans have a will, by age.