Will vs trust decided honestly, the four-document core, and what each route costs
| Document | Does | Cost alone |
|---|
Estate planning is four documents and one audit, not a mystery: a will (who gets what, who executes, who raises minor children), a financial power of attorney, a healthcare directive with medical POA, and a beneficiary-designation audit (retirement accounts and life insurance pass outside the will — and override it). The only real fork is will-vs-trust, which this estimator decides the honest way: by your state's probate pain and your estate's size, not by the trust-mill seminar's steak dinner.
| Will-based plan | Revocable living trust | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $150–1,500 | $2,000–7,000 |
| Probate | Goes through it (public, months, 1–5% of estate) | Skips it for funded assets |
| Incapacity | POA only | Successor trustee manages seamlessly |
| Privacy | Probate is a public record | Private |
| Wins when | Streamlined-probate states, modest estates, simple families | CA/FL/NY-class probate, $200k+, blended families, multi-state property, business owners |
The trust's fatal flaw is operational: it governs only assets retitled into it. The unfunded trust — signed, paid for, never funded — is the industry's quiet epidemic; the closing step is re-deeding the house and re-titling accounts, and any attorney package should include it.
Court fees, executor and attorney fees (statutory percentages in some states — California's fee schedule on a $600k estate runs ~$30k), months-to-years of timeline, and publicity. Streamlined-probate states and small-estate affidavits blunt all of this — which is why the same estate rationally chooses a will in one state and a trust in another. Meanwhile the free probate-avoiders do heavy lifting everywhere: beneficiary designations, TOD/POD registrations on accounts and (in many states) deeds, and joint titling.
For simple situations (married, kids, one state, no business): yes — properly witnessed online-form wills are valid everywhere and beat the no-will default massively. Upgrade to an attorney for blended families, disinheritance, business assets, or anything you'd call 'complicated' out loud.
State intestacy law distributes by formula (spouse and children in set shares — often NOT 100% to the spouse), a judge picks the guardian, and probate runs at full friction. The state has a plan for you; it's just nobody's preferred plan.
Federal: only above ~$15M/person (2026) — irrelevant to 99%+. A dozen-plus states tax lower (Oregon/Massachusetts start at $1-2M) — state residence, not federal law, decides whether tax planning enters your picture at all.
Retirement accounts, life insurance, TOD accounts pay the NAMED person regardless of the will — the ex-spouse-still-named case is litigated constantly and the ex usually wins. Audit designations at every life event; it's the highest-stakes free paperwork in personal finance.
At every trigger: marriage, divorce, births, deaths, moves between states, big asset changes — and a 5-year review regardless. The trust also needs new assets FUNDED into it as you acquire them; the refinance that quietly pulled your house out of the trust is a classic.
Name a digital executor, use your password manager's emergency-access feature, and document crypto keys' LOCATION (never the keys themselves) in the estate papers. Unplanned crypto is unrecoverable by design; unplanned photo libraries just quietly vanish with the subscription.
Yes — every figure computes locally in your browser and is never transmitted.
Four documents, one audit, and the funding step if you chose a trust. Estate planning is a weekend project priced like a car repair, and its absence is a year-long court proceeding priced like a car. The beneficiary audit is free — start there today.