Our relationship with this product: none. We are not an affiliate of it, we earn nothing if you buy it, and there is no ask button anywhere on this page. We do have a commercial relationship with LawDepot, one of the five products in this category, which is why that statement belongs at the top of this page rather than in a footer — you should be able to see the incentive before you read the verdict.
Updated August 6, 2026. Quick answer: genuinely free, and the reason it is free is the most useful fact about it — nonprofits pay so that you do not, and the company publishes that openly. A will that costs nothing and is signed correctly is a better will than a $299 one signed wrong. Two limits matter: the living trust is California-only, and the revision policy is not published.
What FreeWill publishes
Read from FreeWill’s own site, August 6, 2026.
On price: “100% free – no credit card required”, and “Our tools are totally free. We’ll never ask you for your credit card details or make you pay a fee to access your documents.” That is an unusually specific promise — it names the two ways free products usually stop being free.
On documents: last will and testament, revocable living trust, advance healthcare directive, financial power of attorney, and beneficiary designations.
On how it is paid for: “We are supported by nonprofits” and “Over 2,400 nonprofits partner with us to ensure our estate planning tools are free for everyone”. The company states it has “partnered with 2,400+ nonprofits and businesses who support our mission and help ensure everybody can create a will for free, while raising more than $14.2B+ in bequests to charities”.
The honest cons, from FreeWill’s own terms
Understand the business model before you meet it, not while you are inside it. Nonprofits fund the tool, and the company reports that “One in six users include a charity in their will”. Charitable giving is presented as optional and we found no requirement to include one. This is not a scandal — it is an alignment, and FreeWill publishes it in plain sight, which is more than most free tools manage. But you should walk in knowing that the party paying for your will would like a bequest, and decide about that on your own schedule rather than at the moment the question appears.
The revocable living trust is California only. If you are outside California and want a trust, this is not your tool — the will and the directives still are. Californians weighing the trust question should start at is a living trust worth it in California and what a will costs in California.
The update and revision policy is not published. For a document you should revisit after a marriage, a birth, a divorce or a move, that is a real unknown. Free removes the cost of starting over, which softens it — but it is not the same as a stated revision right.
Does it handle your state
FreeWill publishes one hard state limit — the living trust is California only — and no state exclusions for the will itself. The execution rules still decide whether the free document works, and free is exactly the case where people skip them.
No will-making product can make a document valid if your state’s execution rules are not followed, and those rules vary more than people expect: witness counts differ, some states void a gift to a witnessing beneficiary, holographic wills are recognised in some states and not others, and a self-proving affidavit is mandatory in some places and merely convenient elsewhere. We publish those requirements with the statute cited for all 50 states and DC at will requirements by state, alongside POA execution rules and advance directive rules. Read your own row before you buy anything.
Who it is for, and who should buy something else
- Start here if you have a simple estate, one state, no blended family. The legal content is not the constraint for a straightforward will — correct execution is — and there is no version of this where paying first is the better order.
- Start here anyway if you have been putting a will off for years because of the cost. The comparison against the paid products is not $0 against $199, it is $0 against your state’s intestacy statute, which is the plan you currently have.
- Buy something else: you want a trust and you are not in California, or you want a stated revision right in writing.
- Buy something else: blended family, a disabled beneficiary, a business, or property in two states — the case for a lawyer applies regardless of what the alternative costs. Other free and statutory routes are set out at free will forms.
How we reviewed this, and what would change the verdict
Every price and term on this page was read from the product’s own published pages on August 6, 2026 and is quoted with its wording intact. Where the company does not publish something, this page says “not published” rather than filling the gap from a competitor’s review — copied pricing is why this category is untrustworthy.
What would change this verdict: a change to the published price or terms, a state execution rule the product handles incorrectly, or a documented pattern of the product failing to deliver what its own terms promise. What would not: whether we earn anything. See editorial policy, methodology and corrections — if a figure here goes stale, tell us and it gets fixed with the date shown.
All five products side by side: online will makers compared. The whole machine: estate planning.