Estate settlement apps are software platforms that help executors and families work through the probate and administrative tasks that follow a death: filing court forms, inventorying assets, closing accounts, paying creditors, and distributing what’s left. They range from $39 self-service checklists to concierge services that charge a percentage of the estate and do most of the work for you. Which one fits depends on how complex the estate is, how much you want to handle yourself, and how much of the cost you’re willing to bill back to the estate.
What These Apps Actually Do
Settling an estate is slow work. The process routinely stretches past 18 months and consumes hundreds of hours of administrative tasks, from tracking down bank accounts and insurance policies to filing state-specific probate forms and notifying creditors within statutory deadlines. Rules vary not just by state but often by county: California’s simplified probate threshold is $184,500, Texas sets its personal-property cutoff at $75,000, and New Jersey has no uniform statewide electronic filing system, so some county surrogate courts accept digital submissions while others require in-person appointments.1APTT Law. 5 Ways State Laws Affect Your Probate Process2Day Pitney LLP. Probate New Jersey
Estate settlement apps try to make that manageable. Most generate a personalized checklist built around your state or county, track deadlines, help you log assets and liabilities, produce court-ready accounting reports, and store the documents you’ll need to show the court or the IRS. The more expensive tiers add human specialists who can actually execute some of those tasks on your behalf: closing accounts, negotiating with creditors, cancelling subscriptions, filing agency notifications. A few try to find assets you don’t know about by searching bank, insurance, and unclaimed property databases. None of them file documents directly with probate courts, and none of them give legal advice.
The Three Models and What They Cost
The market splits roughly into self-service software, hybrid platforms that pair software with human help, and full-service options where a team does most of the operational work. Two outliers charge the family nothing because someone else is paying.
Self-Service Software
SwiftProbate charges a one-time $39 fee and generates a personalized checklist from a library of more than 3,200 county-level probate guides. It includes a 24/7 AI chat assistant called “Grace,” deadline tracking, document management, and estate accounting with court-ready exports. It won’t close accounts, notify agencies, or file taxes for you.3SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Atticus4SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Elayne
EstateExec, around since 2014, charges $99 per estate. It builds task lists organized by timeline, calculates asset values and executor compensation, tracks cash flow, and produces PDF reports. You enter the asset information manually; the software doesn’t go looking for anything on its own.5Retirement Living. EstateExec Review6EstateExec. EstateExec
Hybrid Platforms
Atticus pairs a personalized step-by-step app with an in-house team of tax, legal, financial, and fiduciary professionals. Plans start at $175, with a standard plan at $499, typically reimbursable by the estate. The company offers access to more than 5,250 probate forms but provides only limited estate accounting, focused mainly on asset inventory.3SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Atticus7Legal Practice Intelligence. Atticus Valued at $90 Million After Major Funding Round
Elayne offers a free tier with checklists and templates, a $250 “discovery report” that includes a 30-minute expert review, and full settlement at a custom flat fee billed to the estate. At the paid tier, Elayne’s team actively executes tasks: closing accounts, filing agency notifications, freezing credit, and sweeping for assets across more than 50 financial categories.4SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Elayne8Elayne. Alix vs Elayne Estate Settlement Comparison
EverSettled starts at $1,499 billed to the estate. It combines a personalized smart checklist and an AI assistant called “Sage” with a dedicated “Estate Care Specialist” who can negotiate debts, cancel subscriptions, and handle administrative tasks. It also runs asset discovery across bank accounts, insurance policies, and subscriptions.9EverSettled. EverSettled10SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs EverSettled
Full-Service
Alix charges as little as 1% of the estate value, with a $9,000 minimum, and covers the whole process: probate administration, tax filings, debt negotiation, asset transfers, real estate management, and final distributions. The executor keeps decision-making authority; Alix’s team does the operational work and you track progress through its app. The company says it has handled estates ranging from $20,000 to $20 million and is backed by Charles Schwab and Edward Jones.11Alix. How We Help12SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Alix
ClearEstate offers full-service settlement in all Canadian provinces and six U.S. states: Arizona, California, Nevada, New York, Tennessee, and Texas. Its U.S. probate plan starts at $6,995, a combined probate-and-taxes plan starts at $10,348, and complex or intestate cases carry a $650 surcharge.13SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs ClearEstate
Free to the Family
Two platforms don’t charge the family directly. Sunset earns its revenue from partner banks, based on interest generated while estate funds sit in FDIC-insured accounts (insured up to $3 million). Its standout feature is automated asset discovery: searches across more than 2,500 financial institutions, unclaimed property databases in all 50 states, and life insurance records. It also generates county-specific probate documents for more than 3,000 counties and uses a limited power of attorney to automate some account closures. The company claims 98% of estates using its software do not require a probate lawyer.14Sunset. Automated Estate Settlement15Sunset. Is It Really Free16Sunset. Sunset
Empathy sells to employers, life insurance carriers (including Prudential, MetLife, and New York Life), and banks, which pass the service on as a benefit. TD Bank, the first Canadian bank to offer it, provides Empathy to eligible estate clients at no additional cost.17TD Stories. Empathy App Empathy says more than 50 million people are covered through its institutional partnerships.18Empathy. Empathy The platform builds personalized care plans and gives on-demand access to human care managers, but it leans more toward emotional support and administrative guidance than deep asset discovery or legal execution. Worth checking whether your employer or your relative’s life insurer already offers it before paying for something else.
What These Apps Won’t Do
Read the “all-in-one” marketing with some caution. A few real gaps show up across the category.
Asset discovery. Most platforms, including Atticus, EstateExec, EverSettled, and Empathy, assume you already know what assets exist and ask you to enter them. Only Sunset and Alix claim to initiate automated searches for unknown accounts, insurance policies, and unclaimed property.19Sunset. Best Estate Asset Discovery Tools20Alix. Best Platforms for Asset Discovery and Estate Inventory If you suspect accounts you can’t locate, that narrows the field quickly.
Court filing. No consumer-facing estate settlement platform currently integrates electronically with probate courts. They generate the paperwork; you (or an attorney) take it to the courthouse. Many probate courts still require in-person or hard-copy filings.21Greene County Ohio. Probate Court
Legal advice. Every one of these platforms, from the $39 SwiftProbate to the $9,000-minimum Alix, explicitly states it is not a law firm.3SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Atticus12SwiftProbate. SwiftProbate vs Alix That matters when something unusual comes up: a contested will, an unclear beneficiary designation, a tax question with real money at stake, a dispute among heirs. The apps are designed for the routine 80% of estate work. For anything contested or legally ambiguous, you’ll still want an attorney.
Why the “Not a Law Firm” Disclaimer Matters
The reason every platform repeats that line is unauthorized practice of law, which a National Center for State Courts white paper describes as a “legal gray zone.” Most states define the practice of law broadly enough to cover any provision of legal advice, including helping users complete legal documents. Regulators try to distinguish general “legal information” from applying the law to a person’s specific facts, and that’s exactly the line these platforms sit on every time they generate a personalized probate filing or tell an executor what to do in their county.22National Center for State Courts. AI UPL White Paper
For you as a user, the practical effect is straightforward. The app can tell you what the general rule is and generate forms designed for your jurisdiction, but it won’t tell you what to do about your specific situation. When you hit a judgment call, that’s your decision or your lawyer’s, not the software’s.
Choosing One
A rough way to narrow the field:
- Simple estate, hands-on executor: SwiftProbate ($39) or EstateExec ($99) give you structured guidance and accounting without delegating any work.
- Moderate complexity, some professional help needed: Atticus ($175 to $499) or Elayne (free tier up to a custom flat fee) pair software with specialists who can take on specific tasks.
- Complex estate, or you want to delegate most of the work: EverSettled ($1,499+), Alix (1% of estate, $9,000 minimum), or ClearEstate ($6,995+ in the states it covers) run full-service settlement.
- Asset discovery is a priority: Sunset is the most automated option for finding unknown accounts and is free to the family. Alix also includes asset discovery as part of its full-service model.
- Check your benefits first: Empathy may already be available at no cost through an employer or life insurance carrier, though it focuses on guidance and support more than on executing legal or financial tasks.
Most of these platforms can be paid for with estate funds rather than out of the executor’s own pocket. None of them replace an attorney for contested estates, complicated tax situations, or disputes among beneficiaries, and all of them say so. For a straightforward estate, though, the right app can turn an 18-month administrative slog into something closer to a managed project.