What a Funeral Actually Costs, Line by Line

The four groups a bill is made of

Almost every funeral bill sorts into four buckets. Once you can see the buckets, the whole thing stops being a fog.

• The basic services fee. The funeral home's non-declinable charge — planning, permits, staff availability, coordinating with the cemetery or crematory. Every funeral home charges it and it appears on every arrangement.
• Care and transport. Moving the body from the place of death, refrigeration or embalming, use of facilities and staff for a viewing or service, the hearse. These are individually declinable, which matters, because several are commonly presented as though they aren't.
• Merchandise. The casket, the urn, the outer burial container the cemetery requires. This is where the price range is widest and where the largest single decision usually sits.
• Cash advances. Things the funeral home pays for on your behalf and passes through to your bill — flowers, the obituary notice, clergy or celebrant honoraria, musicians, death certificate copies, sometimes the cemetery's own charges. Entirely legitimate, and the part of the bill nobody sees coming.

And then, separately, the cemetery

The plot, the opening and closing of the grave, the marker or headstone, and any perpetual care fee are usually a different vendor with a different bill.

If you're comparing funeral homes and forgetting the cemetery, you're comparing about half the money.

Your rights under the Funeral Rule, in plain language

The Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule has governed this since 1984. Here's what it actually gives you.

• You get a General Price List to keep. When you visit a funeral home in person to discuss arrangements, they must give you a printed, itemized price list, and it's yours to take with you.
• They must quote prices over the phone. If you call and ask, they have to tell you — and you don't have to give your name, your address, or any personal information first.
• You can buy items separately. You have the right to purchase individual goods and services rather than accept a package containing things you don't want.
• You can buy a casket elsewhere. The funeral home has to use it and can't charge you a handling fee for it.
• Embalming is rarely required by law. A funeral home can't charge for it without permission except where state law requires it in specific circumstances. If you're told it's required, ask which rule requires it.

One thing the Rule does not require

It does not require funeral homes to post prices online. Some do it voluntarily, and it's a good sign when they do, but a home that doesn't post prices isn't breaking any rule.

That matters because a lot of writing on this subject implies otherwise. You will have to call. Everything above comes from the FTC's own consumer guidance, which is worth reading directly before you make any calls.

The phone call

Here's the whole method, and it takes about an hour. Pick three funeral homes near where the service would be, call each one, and say some version of: "I'm doing some planning ahead. Could you send me your general price list, and your casket and outer burial container price lists?"

You don't have to explain further and you don't have to give your name. Most will email them. Then put the three lists side by side and compare four numbers: the basic services fee, the transport and care charges you'd actually use, the merchandise range, and whatever they list as typical cash advances. Call the cemetery separately and ask the same question about the plot, the opening and closing fee, and what kind of marker they permit.

The spread between funeral homes in the same town is routinely large for functionally identical services. That isn't because anyone is dishonest. It's because almost nobody comparison shops, so prices drift apart with nothing pulling them back together.

Cremation and burial

Cremation is generally the less expensive path, but the gap depends almost entirely on what you do around it. A direct cremation — no viewing, no ceremony at the funeral home, the family holds a memorial on their own terms later — is the least expensive option most homes offer, and it has to be listed on the price list. Cremation with a full viewing and service beforehand costs close to a traditional funeral, because you're buying nearly all of the same services plus the cremation.

Burial carries the cemetery costs on top of the funeral home costs, and those are easy to underestimate. The plot is one line. The opening and closing fee is another, often larger than people expect. Many cemeteries require an outer burial container, which is a merchandise charge. The marker is usually separate again.

Neither choice is the frugal one by default. What drives the number is how much ceremony happens in a building owned by a vendor.

What may already be paid for

Before assuming a family has to fund the whole thing, check what exists — the same inventory that getting your affairs in order produces will usually surface most of it.

• A prepaid or preneed plan. Find out what it actually covers and whether it's portable to another funeral home. Read what it guarantees at today's prices versus what it merely sets money aside toward.
• Life insurance, including small policies people forget and any coverage through an employer or union.
• Veterans benefits. A veteran with a qualifying discharge is generally eligible for burial in a national cemetery at no cost for the plot, the opening and closing, and a government headstone. One of the most commonly missed benefits in the entire process.
• Social Security's lump-sum death payment, a small fixed amount to a surviving spouse or child.
• Fraternal organizations and unions, some of which have death benefits nobody remembers.

Why this belongs on an ordinary Tuesday

Everything above is easy on a quiet afternoon and nearly impossible in the seventy-two hours after someone dies.

That's the actual reason to do it early — not to save money, though you probably will. It's that the version of you making these decisions in grief will accept the first reasonable-sounding number, because arguing about a casket while planning your father's funeral isn't something most people can do. An hour of phone calls now removes that entirely.

Common questions