The Next Checklist

Funeral Cost Worksheet

Introduction

Funeral arrangements are one of the few large purchases people make while grieving, on a deadline, sitting across from a salesperson. That is a hard place to do arithmetic.

This worksheet does not estimate what a funeral costs. It cannot, and neither can anything else that claims to — no neutral authority publishes typical US funeral prices, and the figures you see quoted online trace back to the funeral industry itself. What this does instead is more useful: you enter the prices from your funeral home's own price list, and it adds them up, keeps a running total as you change your mind, and shows you which lines federal law says you can decline.

Federal law is genuinely on your side here, more than most families realize. The FTC's Funeral Rule gives you real, enforceable rights — and the whole point of this page is to make them concrete rather than abstract.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Start here

First, get the price list — you are entitled to it

  • In person, they must hand you a General Price List to keep. That duty starts at the beginning of any discussion of prices, the type of arrangement, or specific goods — not at the end, and not only if you ask. It applies wherever the discussion happens, not just at the funeral home.
  • On the phone, they must answer your price questions. They cannot make you come in first, and cannot demand your name and address before telling you.
  • Before they show you caskets, you are entitled to a casket price list.
  • You may buy only the items you want. They cannot condition one item on buying another, except where the law requires it.
  • At the end, you get an itemized written statement listing everything you chose, each price, and the total.

If a funeral home will not give you prices, that is not just poor service — it is very likely a violation of federal law. The FTC has run undercover phone sweeps on exactly this.

The worksheet

Choose the kind of arrangement first — items that do not apply will grey out, so you can see at a glance what you should not be paying for. Then fill in the prices from their list. Leave anything blank that you do not have a number for yet.

Uncommon, but allowed — some providers fold the fee into casket prices instead of listing it separately. If their list works that way, tick this so the fee is not counted twice.

Enter prices from the funeral home's own General Price List. Greyed rows do not apply to the arrangement you chose.
Item Category Their price Skip it?
Running total $0.00
Of that, $0.00 is in lines you are allowed to decline. 0 items priced

Download gives you a plain text file saved to your own device — useful for comparing a second funeral home, or forwarding to family who are helping decide. Nothing is uploaded to us, and no email address is required.

Privacy

Nothing you type here leaves your browser

Every figure you enter stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is sent to us, and nothing is saved — closing or refreshing the page erases it all. Download or print if you want to keep it. There is no account and no email step.

To be precise rather than reassuring: the site as a whole uses Google Analytics to count page views, which sets cookies, as explained in our privacy notice. It records that this page was visited. It cannot see any price you enter.

The rights worth knowing before you sit down

These come from the FTC's Funeral Rule (16 CFR Part 453). They are federal, and they apply nationwide.

  • Embalming is not required by law, except in narrow circumstances. A funeral home cannot charge you for embalming without your express permission — and "express" means it. Agreeing to arrangements generally is not consent, and asking them to "prepare" someone for a viewing is not consent either. If you choose direct cremation or immediate burial, you cannot be charged for embalming you did not approve.
  • No casket is required for direct cremation. Anywhere in the US, for any reason. It is illegal to tell you otherwise, and the funeral home must make an alternative container available — an unfinished wood box or similar.
  • You can buy a casket or urn somewhere else. The funeral home cannot refuse to use it, cannot charge you a fee for using it, and cannot require you to be present when it is delivered.
  • You do not have to buy a package. Packages can genuinely be cheaper — but you have the right to buy line by line, and to refuse items you do not want.
  • Cash advance items can carry a markup — that is legal. What is not legal is claiming they are being passed through at cost when they are not, or hiding that a markup exists.

What this worksheet will not tell you

Being straight with you about the edges:

  • It will not predict your cost. Every number here is one you typed from a real price list. We publish no averages or benchmarks because no neutral source produces them — the widely-quoted national medians come from the funeral industry's own trade association, which we will not launder into a "typical price."
  • It will not tell you what a weekend costs. Surcharges for weekends, holidays, or after hours are real and do appear on some price lists — but nobody trustworthy publishes what they typically run. There is a line for it; ask your provider and fill in their number. We would rather leave it blank than invent it.
  • "Non-declinable" is not quite "the only thing you must pay." The basic services fee is the only fee for services and overhead the Rule permits a funeral home to make non-declinable — but the law can require other items, and a cemetery or crematory can require things of its own. They must explain any such requirement to you in writing.
  • Embalming rules vary by state, which is the main place this page cannot be specific. Some states require embalming or refrigeration past a time threshold, and refrigeration is usually an acceptable alternative. Separately, a funeral home may have its own policy requiring embalming for a public viewing — a policy is not a law, and it is fair to ask which one you are being told about.
  • "No casket required" is not "no container required." A crematory may set its own standards for containers it will accept.
  • The cemetery is usually a different business. Its costs are not on the funeral home's price list. Get that list separately.
  • The Rule binds funeral providers — not third-party casket sellers, and not cemeteries without an on-site funeral home. If a casket dealer treats you badly, the Funeral Rule is not your remedy.

Travel and lodging for family coming in

Getting people there is often the second-biggest cost after the funeral itself, and it is where the most outdated advice circulates. Here is what we could actually verify, checked on July 16, 2026 — airline policies change, so treat every specific below as "true when we checked."

Bereavement fares are not extinct — but they are not what people think

  • Alaska Airlines does publish one. 10% off the lowest available fare when travel begins within 7 days of purchase, for the death of an immediate family member. It must be booked by phone or at the ticket counter, requires a rewards-program membership, and cannot be combined with other promotional discounts. It also covers Hawaiian, which no longer runs a separate program of its own.
  • Check the ordinary web fare before you call. Because the discount is 10% off the lowest available fare, is phone-only, and cannot stack with promotions, a public sale fare on the website frequently comes out cheaper. This is the part the advice articles leave out.
  • Delta still has a bereavement page, but it is a waived-service-fee benefit for members with documentation, not a discount on the fare — the fare difference still applies.
  • Other airlines: ask, do not assume. We did not verify the other major carriers against their own policy pages, so we are not going to tell you what they do. Call and ask. Anyone confidently listing every airline's bereavement policy is probably copying a years-old article.

The one real federal lever: the 24-hour rule

There is no federal bereavement entitlement in air travel — any break you get is the airline's choice, not your right. The rules requiring automatic refunds apply when the airline cancels or significantly changes your flight. They do nothing for a passenger who needs to change their own ticket, and anyone presenting them as a bereavement remedy is misleading you.

What is genuinely yours: if you book at least 7 days before departure, you can cancel within 24 hours of purchase for a full refund to your original payment method. When you are booking fast on bad information — a date that may still move, a service not yet scheduled — that 24-hour window is real protection. The trap: it does not apply to bookings made through online travel agencies. Book directly with the airline if you might need it.

One more thing worth knowing while grieving and trying to save money: the cheapest ticket buys the least flexibility. Basic economy fares are typically the ones that cannot be changed or refunded at all after the 24-hour window, with no bereavement exception. When funeral dates are not settled, the cheapest fare can be the expensive choice.

Hotels for out-of-town mourners

Being straight about weak evidence: we found bereavement rates advertised by an individual hotel management company, not as the corporate policy of any major chain. So the honest version is that this is property-level discretion, not a program you can demand.

  • It costs nothing to call the hotel directly — not the booking site — explain the situation, and ask whether they offer a bereavement or funeral rate.
  • If several people are coming, ask about a room block. Where these are advertised, they generally start around ten rooms, and you talk to a sales manager rather than the front desk.
  • Ask the funeral home which hotels families usually use. They deal with the same hotels constantly, and that relationship is often worth more than any published rate.
  • Get any promised rate in writing before you send people to book it.

Last Reviewed

Last reviewed: July 16, 2026

This worksheet contains no cost estimates, so it does not go stale on price. The Funeral Rule requirements described here were verified against the regulation itself. The FTC has an open proceeding on whether to require online price disclosure; as of this review no such requirement is final, so a funeral home is not currently obliged to post prices on its website.

The airline and hotel details in "Travel and lodging" are the most perishable thing on this page — carrier policies can change without notice, and they were verified on July 16, 2026. Confirm anything important directly with the airline before relying on it.

Sources And Further Help

  • 16 CFR Part 453: the Funeral Rule itself — price lists, the itemized statement, embalming, cremation containers, and cash advance items.
  • FTC Consumer Advice: the Funeral Rule explained in plain language.
  • FTC Consumer Advice: shopping for funeral services by phone or online.
  • FTC: Complying with the Funeral Rule — the compliance guide written for funeral homes, which is the clearest statement of what they must do.
  • FTC: report a funeral home that refuses to provide prices.
  • Alaska Airlines: bereavement fare policy and its conditions.
  • Delta: bereavement policy (waived service fees, not a fare discount).
  • 14 CFR 259.5: the 24-hour refund rule — the one passenger-initiated federal refund right.