How Much Does a Will Cost in Colorado?

Updated August 4, 2026. Quick answer for Colorado: nobody publishes a reliable, state-specific median for what a will costs here, and the figures you will see quoted — including ours — are national. Anyone showing you a precise Colorado number is estimating. What is genuinely Colorado-specific, and what actually decides whether your will works, is how it has to be executed. The detail worth knowing before you sign anything: Colorado is one of only two states where a notary may stand in for the witnesses rather than sit alongside them.

The honest position on Colorado pricing

We publish a national attorney median for a simple will of $625 (middle 50% $450–$1,000) and a DIY platform range of $129–$599. Attorney figures are the national medians from the LegalTemplates 2026 survey of 909 firms, verified July 23, 2026. They are national, not state-specific. Geographic multipliers are widely republished, but the primary source for them blocks automated verification, so we will not apply one to Colorado and present the result as a Colorado figure. When a defensible state-level dataset exists, this page will carry it and say where it came from.

What Colorado law actually requires

This is the part that is genuinely state-specific, and the part that decides whether the document works at all. Every line below is read from the statute, with the citation attached:

• Witnesses: 2. C.R.S. § 15-11-502(1)(c)(I)
• If a beneficiary witnesses it: the witness is competent and the gift is unaffected — unusual, and worth knowing. C.R.S. § 15-11-505(2)
• Notary required for the will to be valid: no. A notary is not what makes a will valid here — the witnesses are. C.R.S. § 15-11-502(1)(c)
• Self-proving affidavit: not provided for. Your executor may have to locate the witnesses at probate. C.R.S. § 15-11-504(1)-(2)
• Handwritten (holographic) wills: not recognised. C.R.S. § 15-11-502(2)-(3)
• Electronic wills: not recognised. Added 2021 by SB 21-266; applies to decedents dying on or after July 2, 2021. C.R.S. §§ 15-11-1301 to 15-11-1311 (Colorado Uniform Electronic Wills Act)

The full 44-jurisdiction comparison is on what each state requires for a will to be valid. Whether a beneficiary may witness is covered nationally on can a beneficiary witness a will, and the notary question on does a will need to be notarised.

Does Colorado give you a free form?

No. Only four states we can verify publish a complete statutory will form in their own code: California, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Colorado your realistic routes are a DIY platform, a flat-fee attorney will, or an hourly engagement if the estate is complicated. New Mexico is often listed as a fifth statutory-form state; we could not reach its official code to confirm it, so we leave it out rather than repeat it.

What skipping it costs in Colorado

Colorado sets probate compensation using “reasonable” compensation with no percentage schedule. The two numbers that decide what an estate actually pays are the fee basis and the small-estate threshold.

Fee basis: UPC state: reasonable compensation (C.R.S. §15-12-719); no percentage schedule.

Small-estate threshold: $88,000 for a 2026 year of death; $86,000 for 2025; $82,000 for 2024; $80,000 for 2023; $74,000 for 2022; $70,000 for 2021 and 2020 — C.R.S. § 15-12-1201 (figure read from Judicial Department form JDF 999, R: April 28, 2026).

A will does not avoid probate — it directs it. What it prevents is the estate being distributed by Colorado’s intestacy statute instead of by you, and it lets you name the executor rather than leaving the court to appoint one. The arithmetic on the other side is on what probate costs in Colorado.

What a will costs nationally — every route priced, and the four situations where DIY fails.

Statutory text read at the state’s own legislature or official code site. Pricing figures are national and dated above. General information, not legal advice.