Rocket Lawyer review for wills and trusts: the free document, the membership, and the trial to watch

Rocket Lawyer is not an estate planning company. It is a general legal membership, used by small businesses for contracts and by landlords for leases, that happens to include a will and a living trust among thousands of documents. That shapes everything about it as a place to make a will: the will page says “free”, the button says “start free trial”, and the real product is a subscription.

None of that makes it a bad choice. The will template turns out to be more detailed than many paid products, and the membership puts a lawyer’s written answer within reach for less than an hour of a local attorney’s time. But it rewards people who will use the membership, and punishes people who forget to cancel it. This review sets out what each route costs, what the will and trust documents actually contain, and the fine print in the help centre and terms. Everything here comes from Rocket Lawyer’s own pages, read on the date in the facts table. We have not bought a membership.

What does a Rocket Lawyer will actually cost?

Rocket Lawyer does not publish a one-off price for a will. Its pricing page sells three memberships, each with a free trial:

Membership	Price	Attorney access
Standard	$149/year or $34.99/month	Written questions: 12 with yearly billing; 1 with monthly billing
Plus	$249/year or $49.99/month	More written questions, plus live attorney calls
Pro	$349/year or $64.99/month	Unlimited written questions and live calls

All three include unlimited documents and e-signatures. For a will, Standard is all you need; Plus and Pro only make sense if you expect a lot of conversations with lawyers.

So the realistic ways to pay for a will are these:

How you use it	What you pay
Make the will during the trial, download it, cancel before it ends	Nothing, though a card is required
Keep Standard for one month	$34.99/month
Keep Standard for a year (paid yearly)	$149/year
Standard yearly, renewed for three years	$447
Standard monthly, forgotten for a year	$419.88
Standard monthly, forgotten for three years	$1,259.64

The bottom two rows are not a scare tactic; they are what auto-renewal does if you sign up for a will and never think about the membership again. Rocket Lawyer’s terms say monthly and yearly plans renew automatically until you cancel (Monthly and yearly plans renew automatically until cancelled (checked Nov 15, 2026)).

For comparison, Quicken WillMaker & Trust’s Plus plan is $149 once, including a living trust and powers of attorney, and a Trust & Will will is $199.

How does the free trial work, and how do you cancel?

The help centre is unusually clear about this, which is to Rocket Lawyer’s credit:

• The trial is 7 days. One trial per customer; card required; billed the day after the trial ends unless you cancel. A temporary one-dollar authorisation checks your card and drops off when you cancel.
• Cancelling is done online: Settings, then Membership, then Manage membership. If you cancel during the trial, the trial ends immediately and you are not charged.
• After cancelling: Documents you made stay available in your account, but you cannot make new ones.
• Downloads: Word, PDF or text with a trial or paid membership; PDF on a free account for documents you paid for.

That last point is the one to plan around. The help page does not say what a cancelled trial account can download, and the terms add that Rocket Lawyer is not responsible for deleting or failing to store documents in your account. So the safe order is: finish the will, download it as PDF and Word, then cancel, ideally the same day. Do not rely on your account as the only copy of anything.

If you choose a yearly plan, you can pay it in four instalments (Yearly plans can be paid upfront or in four monthly installments).

What is in the Rocket Lawyer will?

Rocket Lawyer publishes a full sample of its will document, and it is more thorough than the “free template” label suggests. Depending on your answers, it can include:

• A trust for children’s shares. Rather than handing your children their inheritance outright at 18, the will can leave it to a trustee to manage under a “Trust for Children” article. Many low-cost wills only offer a custodian or a property guardian.
• Co-guardians. You can nominate a couple to act together as guardians of your minor children, with a backup.
• Co-executors and a digital executor, someone named specifically to handle email, photos, online accounts and other digital property.
• Detailed instructions for pets, down to asking a shelter to foster rather than cage animals.
• Independent administration, asking that your executor can settle the estate with as little court supervision as your state allows.
• A self-proving affidavit, the notarised statement that lets a will be admitted to probate without calling the witnesses.

It also covers Louisiana, which uses a different will form from the other states: the Louisiana version is signed on every page in front of a notary and two witnesses. WillMaker cannot be used for Louisiana at all.

The will page also includes a lot of general guidance, and one line of it is wrong in a way that could worry people. It says that “in most states” your signature and the witnesses’ need to be notarised. In most states, a typed will is valid with your signature and two witnesses; the notary is for the optional self-proving affidavit. Rocket Lawyer’s own affidavit text says exactly this: attaching it “has nothing to do with the legality of the Will itself”. Its checklist for the will gets the signing right too: you and two witnesses, all watching each other sign. Our guide to whether online wills are legally valid quotes the state statutes.

One more thing about signing. Unlimited e-signatures are a selling point of the membership, but they are for contracts. Sign your will on paper, in ink, with your witnesses in the room.

What about Rocket Lawyer’s living trust?

The living trust page also advertises a free template, and it is a working revocable trust: you transfer assets in, manage them yourself while you are alive and well, and a successor trustee takes over if you become incapacitated or die. It is signed by you, the trustee and a notary.

Three limits stand out:

1. It is not for large estates. Rocket Lawyer says the template is not appropriate if your estate exceeds the federal estate tax exclusion. That is a high bar most families do not reach, but if you are near it, see an estate planning attorney.
2. The published sample is for one person. The page shows a single-grantor trust, and we could not find a joint trust for couples on Rocket Lawyer’s public pages. Trust & Will and LegalZoom both sell couple trusts.
3. Funding is up to you. Rocket Lawyer lists a funding worksheet, a bill of transfer for personal property and a certification of trust as related documents, which is useful. But there is no deed transfer service; retitling your house into the trust is your job. Trust & Will offers a deed transfer at $140 per deed, plus recording fees and LegalZoom at $249, plus state filing fees.

A related caution: Rocket Lawyer’s will page suggests that assets in a trust are usually taxed more lightly than an estate. A revocable living trust, the kind you make online, generally does not reduce income or estate tax. It avoids probate and helps if you are incapacitated; buy it for those reasons.

Is the attorney access worth it?

This is where Rocket Lawyer is strongest. There are three ways to reach a lawyer, and the help centre explains the difference between them plainly:

Service	What it is	Included in Standard?
Ask an Attorney	A written answer within one business day	12 with yearly billing; 1 with monthly billing
Consult an Attorney Live	20-minute phone or video call; not included in Standard	Plus and Pro
Legal Advice Session	Privileged advice on your situation	Paid extra: $149 for 30 min; $249 for 60 min

Who the attorneys are: Independent attorneys in its network, or Rocket Legal Professional Services, an Arizona ABS law firm. The important distinction is that written questions and live calls give legal information, not advice: they can explain how a guardianship nomination or a pour-over will works, but not tell you what you should do. Advice is the paid session, which needs a separate services agreement with the law firm.

For a will, a year of Standard with its written questions is good value if you have real questions, such as whether a beneficiary who lives abroad causes problems or how to handle a house you own with a sibling. If you have no questions, it is a membership you do not need.

What does the fine print say?

From Rocket Lawyer’s general terms of service:

• Refunds: Within 30 days of purchase, except where state law allows otherwise. The plain-English summary adds that it does not refund services you have already used unless you have a good reason.
• Enforceability guarantee: Rocket Lawyer guarantees its documents are enforceable, with one condition in the terms: Applies only to documents you have not modified. If you use the advanced editor to change wording, the guarantee goes, and the help centre recommends attorney review after manual edits.
• Stored documents: The terms say Rocket Lawyer is not liable for deleting or failing to store your documents. Keep your own copies.
• Disputes: Binding JAMS arbitration, no class actions; small claims court allowed.
• Ownership: the documents you make are yours; Rocket Lawyer claims no ownership.

None of this is unusual for the industry; Trust & Will’s terms also require arbitration. But the storage clause is worth taking literally.

Rocket Lawyer compared with the estate planning specialists

	Rocket Lawyer	Quicken WillMaker & Trust	Trust & Will
How you pay	Membership	Once	Once, membership optional
Will	Template, in membership	$109 (Starter)	$199
Living trust	Template, in membership	$149 (Plus)	$499
Couple pricing	Not published	No surcharge	$599 for a trust
Lawyer	Written questions included	None	Paid add-on
Louisiana	Will covered	Not usable	Wills only

The specialists are built around one job, getting an estate plan done, and guide you through it in one place. Rocket Lawyer gives you the documents and the lawyers, and leaves the plan to you.

Who should use Rocket Lawyer for a will?

Use it if:

• You need several legal documents this year, for example a will, a lease and an LLC, and the membership covers them all.
• You have specific questions and want a lawyer’s written answer before you sign.
• You live in Louisiana and want to do your will yourself.
• You are organised enough to make a will during the trial and cancel on time.

Skip it if:

• You want one will and never want to think about a subscription. WillMaker or Trust & Will are simpler; our Rocket Lawyer alternatives page lists every one-time option, and our cheapest complete will page compares the one-off prices.
• You are a couple wanting a joint trust, or you want help moving your house into a trust.
• Your estate is large or complicated: a blended family, a business, property in several states. Book an estate planning attorney.

If you do use Rocket Lawyer, do it in this order

1. Set a reminder for day six of the trial before you start.
2. Make the will, and the health care directive and power of attorney, which are separate documents in the library.
3. Use your written attorney question if you have one, during the trial or the membership.
4. Download everything in PDF and Word.
5. Cancel under Settings, Membership, Manage membership, unless you will use the membership, and keep the confirmation email.
6. Print and sign the will with two witnesses, and a notary for the self-proving affidavit.
7. Update beneficiary forms on life insurance and retirement accounts, which the will does not control.