Best online living trust services: prices, couples, and who helps you fund it

A revocable living trust does one main job: it lets the property it owns pass to your family without going through probate, and lets someone you choose manage that property if you become unable to. Online services sell trust packages for a fraction of a lawyer’s flat fee, and they differ more than their prices suggest: in what is included, how couples’ trusts are structured, and how much help you get with the step that actually makes a trust work, moving your assets into it.

This page compares the online trust packages we track. Everything comes from each company’s own pages, read on the date shown in the facts tables. We have not bought these plans yet.

Do you actually need a trust? A quick test

A trust is worth its extra cost and paperwork when at least one of these is true:

1. You own real estate, especially in a state where probate is slow or expensive, or in more than one state.
2. You want your estate kept private. A will becomes a public court record in probate; a trust generally does not.
3. You want someone to step in smoothly if you become unable to manage your affairs. A successor trustee can manage trust property without a court.
4. You want to control when children or young adults receive money, rather than handing it over all at once.

If none of these applies, a will plus a health care directive and a financial power of attorney is usually enough, and much cheaper. If only the first applies and it is one house in one state, compare a transfer-on-death deed before buying a trust.

Trust or transfer-on-death deed?

	Living trust	Transfer-on-death deed
Keeps the house out of probate	Yes, once the deed is moved into the trust	Yes, in states that allow these deeds
Covers other assets	Yes, anything you put in it	No, only that property
Lets someone manage the house if you are incapacitated	Yes, your successor trustee	No
Work needed now	Sign the trust, record a new deed, retitle accounts	Sign and record one deed
Available in every state	Yes	No, only in states that permit them

WillMaker’s Plus plan includes both, which makes it a sensible place to start if you are undecided.

The trust packages side by side

Service	One person	Couple	Renews?
LegalZoom Basic Trust	$399	$499	No
LegalZoom Premium Trust	$549	$649	Attorney plan, after a year
Quicken WillMaker & Trust Plus	$149	Same plan	Optional, after a year
Trust & Will trust plan	$499	$599	Optional membership
GoodTrust	$149	Family members at no extra fee	Updates $39/year after year one
FreeWill	Free, California residents only	California only	No
Ethos	Complimentary with certain Ethos life policies (Perks rider)	With the policy	Insurance premiums

What should a trust package include?

The trust document alone is not enough. A complete package should give you:

• The revocable living trust itself.
• A pour-over will, which sends anything you forgot to put in the trust into it when you die.
• A certification (or certificate) of trust, the short summary banks and title companies ask for instead of the full trust.
• A schedule of assets listing what the trust owns.
• A health care directive and financial power of attorney, because a trust does not cover medical decisions or assets outside it.
• Funding instructions: how to move your house and accounts into the trust.

LegalZoom’s Basic Trust and Trust & Will’s trust plan both list all of these, with Trust & Will adding a trust funding guide and LegalZoom a bill of transfer. WillMaker’s Plus plan includes the living trust, a will (which can be a pour-over will), the health care directive, the financial power of attorney and a transfer-on-death deed; its plan page does not list a certification of trust separately.

Best value: LegalZoom Basic Trust

At $399 for one person or $499 for a couple, LegalZoom’s Basic Trust is the cheapest complete, guided trust package from a big name, and it is the rare LegalZoom product with nothing that renews. It includes 30 days of free revisions and one printed set of documents.

The Premium Trust ($549) adds a year of unlimited 30-minute attorney consultations, a year of revisions and an annual one-hour estate plan review, then renews at $199/year attorney plan after year one unless cancelled. It is worth it if you want to ask a lawyer how to title your house or whether your beneficiary designations fit the trust.

Watch for: the refund window closes 7 days after your estate plan is completed. For couples, LegalZoom’s trust is One joint living trust with two pour-over wills.

Lowest price: Quicken WillMaker & Trust Plus

$149 for a living trust is far below anything else on this list except the free California option. Because one WillMaker purchase lets you make up to five of each document for your immediate family, a couple pays once.

It also gives you a second route to avoiding probate on a house: a transfer-on-death deed, in states that allow them. WillMaker’s legal manual explains when each makes sense.

Watch for: no attorney option and no funding help beyond the manual; Not usable in Louisiana; if you work online, Make and revise for 1 year; documents viewable 90 days after, so download your signed documents.

Most help finishing the job: Trust & Will

Trust & Will costs more, $499 for one person or $599 for a couple, and is the service most built around the trust. It includes a funding guide, a library of help articles on retitling each kind of asset, and published prices for two paid helpers: a mobile notary who brings two witnesses ($170 to $210) and a deed transfer partner ($140 per deed, plus recording fees). Its refund window, 30 days from purchase under its help-centre policy, is the most generous here.

Watch for: All 50 states; no trusts in Louisiana; editing your plan later needs the optional membership at $49/year.

Joint or separate trusts for couples?

This is a real difference between services, not a detail:

• LegalZoom gives a couple one joint trust with two pour-over wills.
• Trust & Will decides by your state: joint trusts in community property states, separate mirror-image trusts in separate property states. It does not offer married people separate trusts in community property states.
• WillMaker lets each family member make documents under one plan.

A joint trust is simpler to manage while you are both alive. Separate trusts keep each spouse’s property distinct, which some couples prefer, especially in second marriages. If the choice matters to you and your state’s default does not match, that is a question for an attorney.

Funding the trust: who helps, and what it costs

Signing the trust creates it. Funding it, by retitling your house and accounts into the trust’s name, is what makes it work. A trust that owns nothing does not avoid probate.

	Deed transfer help	Price
Trust & Will	Partner prepares and records the deed; notarizing it costs extra	$140 per deed, plus recording fees
LegalZoom	Title research, deed preparation and filing with the county recorder	$249, plus state filing fees
WillMaker	Guidance in the legal manual; transfer-on-death deed as an alternative	Included in Plus

Bank and investment accounts are retitled by contacting each institution, usually with the certification of trust; that costs nothing. Retirement accounts and life insurance are usually not retitled into a revocable trust; they pass by beneficiary designation.

What does a trust cost over three years?

For one person, keeping each service’s editing or attorney option running for three years:

	Trust only	With the ongoing option for three years
WillMaker Plus	$149	$228.98 (two revision renewals)
LegalZoom	$399 (Basic)	$947 (Premium Trust, renewed twice)
Trust & Will	$499	$646 (Essentials membership each year)

The ongoing options are not the same thing: WillMaker’s and Trust & Will’s are about editing; LegalZoom’s includes attorney access and revisions.

Where online trusts do not work

• Louisiana: WillMaker does not cover Louisiana at all, and Trust & Will does not offer trusts there. LegalZoom says its trusts have been accepted in all 50 states.
• Outside California, for free: FreeWill’s trust is California-only.
• Ethos: not available in Alaska or Louisiana, and tied to buying certain Ethos life insurance policies.
• State rules: our state guides cover California, where probate is slow, Florida, where a trust must be signed with will formalities, and New York.
• Complex situations: a special-needs beneficiary, a family business, very large estates or a likely family dispute. Trust & Will itself recommends an attorney-drafted plan for these.

Which trust should you buy?

• You want a complete trust with no renewals and some guidance: LegalZoom Basic Trust.
• You are married, comfortable doing it yourself, and want the lowest cost: WillMaker Plus.
• You want help signing and moving your house into the trust, or separate trusts in a separate property state: Trust & Will.
• You live in California and your situation is simple: FreeWill’s free trust.
• You want a lawyer’s input before you sign: LegalZoom Premium Trust.

After you buy

1. Sign the trust before or in the same session as the pour-over will, with a notary, following your state’s instructions.
2. Record a new deed putting your house in the trust’s name, or record a transfer-on-death deed if that is your route.
3. Retitle bank and investment accounts using the certification of trust.
4. Check beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance.
5. Store the signed originals safely and tell your successor trustee where they are.