One piece of advice on this site saves families more money than anything else on it, and it costs nothing: ask two funeral homes for their written price list and compare them line by line. Under the FTC Funeral Rule you are entitled to that list, itemized and on paper, and you never have to explain why you want it.
Funeral prices are not standardized. Two homes a few miles apart can charge very different amounts for identical work — the same transfer from the hospital, the same hour in the same room, the same drive to the cemetery — because each sets its own overhead and its own markups. There is no published reference price to check either of them against, so a second written quote is the only real yardstick you have.
Type the same ten lines from each home and this tool returns the total either way, the difference in dollars and as a percentage, which home is lower on every line, and where the widest gap sits — because that gap is where one polite question is worth the most.
home_A_total = sum of the ten figures you typed in the Home A fields
home_B_total = sum of the ten figures you typed in the Home B fields
difference = home_A_total − home_B_total (shown as a positive amount)
percentage = difference ÷ the lower of the two totals × 100
line_gap = the difference between A_line and B_line for each of the ten lines; the biggest single gap is the largest of those ten.
That is the whole of the arithmetic: twenty numbers added into two columns, one subtraction, one division. There is nothing else in it. The percentage is taken against the lower total on purpose, because the question it answers is how much more the more expensive home wants for the same work. A $2,455 gap measured against an $8,360 quote is 29.4 percent; measured against the higher quote it would look smaller, which understates the case if you are deciding whether the second phone call was worth making.
If the lower column adds up to $0 — because you have only filled in one side, or cleared some fields — the tool reports no percentage at all rather than a number. A percentage of nothing has no meaning, and a division by zero would be worse than useless. For the same reason the biggest-gap line only appears once both columns have figures in them, since a single column cannot show you where the leverage is.
The ten lines are the standard General Price List categories, and this is what each one is and what to ask about it.
| Line | Can you decline it? | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Basic services fee | No — the only non-declinable charge | What exactly does it cover, and is anything else on the list already inside it? |
| Transfer of remains | Yes, if you arrange transport another way | How many miles are included, and what is the after-hours rate? |
| Embalming | Yes in most cases | Is it required for what we are actually planning, and by whom? |
| Other preparation | Yes | Are dressing and casketing separate, or part of the basic fee? |
| Facilities and staff for viewing | Yes | How many hours, and what does a second day add? |
| Facilities and staff for ceremony | Yes | Does the price change if we hold the service at our church? |
| Hearse | Yes, if there is no procession | What mileage is included? |
| Service vehicle | Yes | What is it for, and what happens if we decline it? |
| Casket | Yes — and you may buy it elsewhere | What is the model, the gauge and the interior, so we compare like with like? |
| Cash advance items | Partly — some are unavoidable | Are these passed through at cost, or is there a markup or service charge? |
What this is and is not. This is the one calculator on the site with no pricing of ours anywhere in it. There are no national averages, no midpoints, no assumed costs, and deliberately no regional adjustment — every other cost tool here has to apply a cost-of-living adjustment to national averages, but both of these columns are already real quotes from real homes in your own town, so adjusting them could only distort them. Every figure in the result is one you typed. The numbers the fields start with are a worked example so the tool shows something on load; they are not price data, not an average and not a quote, and you should overwrite all twenty of them.
Two limits worth naming. First, garbage in, garbage out: if you enter a package price at one home against itemized lines at another, or leave a line blank for one home that the other charges for, the totals are not comparable and the tool cannot know that. Second, a General Price List does not cover everything you will be billed. Cemetery charges, the plot, opening and closing the grave, a vault, a monument, a third-party crematory fee and sales tax where your state applies it to merchandise can all sit outside it. Add them as cash advance items only if that particular home is billing them, and never assume the two lists draw the boundary in the same place.
The Funeral Rule is a federal regulation enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, and it exists because funeral pricing is so hard to compare. A funeral home must hand you a printed, itemized General Price List to keep, at the start of any in-person discussion of arrangements, goods or prices — before anything is decided and before you are shown a casket. It must also quote prices over the telephone if you ask, though the Rule does not require homes to post prices online.
You may also buy items individually rather than as a package. Only one charge is non-declinable: the basic services fee covering the home's overhead and coordination. A home cannot charge a handling fee for a casket you bought elsewhere, and may not tell you embalming is required by law when it is not.
There is no script to memorize. "I am collecting price lists from a couple of homes. Could I have a copy of your general price list?" is enough. You do not have to say who died, or whether anyone has died, and it is worth not naming a budget, because a budget invites a package built to match it rather than prices you can compare. Write down the arrangement you actually want first and ask each home to price that same one. If nobody has died yet, do this now: two price lists in a folder is one of the kindest things you can leave behind, alongside a completed funeral planning checklist.
Ignore the packages. Each home builds its own bundle and no two hold quite the same things, which is what makes them so hard to compare. Work in the ten standard price-list lines instead — the ten in the tool above.
Some matter more than others. The basic services fee is usually the largest single charge and the one you cannot decline, so a gap there follows you through the whole arrangement no matter what else you trim. The casket is where markups run widest and it is the one large item you can buy from anybody. Cash advance items — certificates, clergy, flowers, the obituary notice, permits — are meant to be passed straight through, so ask whether either home marks them up. The service vehicle is often declinable, and embalming is never required for a direct cremation or an immediate burial.
If you have no price list yet, our funeral cost calculator estimates an itemized bill from broad national ranges and how much does a funeral cost explains what drives the total. Both are estimates; this page is not, because it holds no prices of ours at all.
Look at the percentage before the dollars, because a gap is far easier to judge as a share of the bill than as a number on its own. Then look at where it comes from. If the gap sits in one or two lines you have something specific to raise, or to substitute: a casket bought elsewhere, a viewing at a church hall. If it is spread thinly across all ten, no single conversation will close it — one home is simply more expensive across the board, and the only decision left is which one you use. Our page on how to negotiate funeral costs goes through what is genuinely movable.
Two totals are comparable only if they buy the same things, and the usual place this breaks down is the casket: two homes can both write $2,400 on that line for very different boxes, so ask what the model is and look at both if you can. The other trap is what is folded in. One home may include the transfer, the certificates and the use of its chapel inside its basic services fee while another itemizes each, so the totals may reconcile while the line-by-line comparison does not.
And some things never appear on a price list. Whether the home can hold the service on the day your family can travel. Whether the person who answered the phone at eight in the evening was kind. Whether the building is reachable for a relative who cannot manage stairs. A few hundred dollars is a poor reason to give any of that up.
Once you hold two written totals for the arrangement you want, you no longer need a national average to plan around. Subtract what already exists: savings the family can reach quickly, a plot already owned, any veterans' burial entitlement, and the $255 lump-sum death payment Social Security pays an eligible surviving spouse or dependent child. What is left is the gap a policy would cover, and how much coverage to buy walks that through.
One caution. A price list is today's pricing, not a locked price, and it can move before it is needed. Locking goods and services at one home is what a prepaid funeral contract does, with real trade-offs — final expense insurance against a prepaid funeral plan sets the two side by side. Insurance instead pays cash to a beneficiary, who can spend it at any home.
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Check If You QualifyYes. The FTC Funeral Rule requires a funeral provider to give you a printed, itemized General Price List that you keep, at the start of any in-person discussion of arrangements, goods or prices. It must also give you price information over the telephone if you ask. The Rule does not require homes to publish prices online, so if you cannot find them on a website that is not a violation and a phone call will usually get you the figures.
Ask once more, plainly, and if the answer is still no, treat that as your answer about the home. Refusing to hand over a General Price List during an in-person discussion of arrangements is a Funeral Rule violation, and you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission and to the state board that licenses funeral homes. You are under no obligation to keep talking to a provider who will not tell you what things cost.
No, not on its own. The two homes may not be quoting the same goods, and the casket line in particular can hide a large difference in what you actually receive. One home may also fold into its basic services fee something the other bills separately, which makes the line-by-line comparison misleading even when the totals look clean. Compare like with like, ask what each line includes, and then weigh the price against whether the home can do what your family needs on the day it needs it.
Yes. Under the Funeral Rule a funeral home cannot refuse a casket you bought elsewhere, cannot charge you a handling fee for using it, and cannot require anyone to be present when it is delivered. Since the casket is often the widest single gap between two price lists, this is frequently where the largest saving sits. Confirm the delivery timing with both the seller and the home so nothing is held up.
No. A General Price List is current pricing, not a guarantee, and it can change before it is needed. Locking particular goods and services at one particular funeral home is what a prepaid funeral contract does, which has real trade-offs of its own. Insurance takes the other approach and pays cash to your beneficiary, who can spend it at any home, so the price list you compared today is a planning figure rather than a fixed one.