A living trust costs anywhere from under $200 for a do-it-yourself kit to $5,000 or more for an attorney-drafted plan. Most people who hire a lawyer land between $1,500 and $5,000. What you actually pay depends on three things: how you create the trust, how complicated your estate is, and whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable.
Cost by How You Create It
The creation method is the biggest single factor in the price.
DIY Kits and Software
Do-it-yourself trust kits and software run from free to about $200. You get templates and fill-in-the-blank instructions. If your estate is genuinely simple — one or two bank accounts, no real estate complications, straightforward beneficiary wishes — a kit can do the job. The savings come with real risk, though. The most common failure is creating a trust document and never transferring assets into it, which sends your estate through probate anyway. Mismatched trust names on deeds, missing notarization, and no companion powers of attorney are also frequent problems. Fixing those mistakes later almost always costs more than hiring an attorney would have at the start.
Online Legal Services
Online platforms typically charge $200 to $1,000. Most include related documents like a pour-over will and healthcare directive alongside the trust itself. Some offer attorney review or consultations for an extra fee. These services fit moderately complex estates where you want more guidance than a template provides but don’t need a fully custom plan. The limitation is the standardized workflow: unusual asset types or family situations may not fit the questionnaire format.
Attorney-Drafted Trusts
An estate planning attorney is the most expensive option and the one that handles complexity best. Attorney-drafted revocable living trusts generally run $1,500 to $5,000 or more. Married couples creating a joint trust tend to pay toward the higher end because the document has to address what happens when each spouse dies. For estates involving business interests, property in multiple states, or blended family dynamics, the cost can push well beyond $5,000. What you’re paying for is someone who spots problems you wouldn’t think to ask about, like how your beneficiary designations interact with the trust or whether a particular asset transfer would trigger unintended taxes.
Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trust Costs
Most people pricing a “living trust” are thinking about a revocable living trust, which you can change or cancel during your lifetime. That’s the $1,500 to $5,000 range above. Irrevocable trusts are a different animal and cost substantially more because they’re permanent, involve more complex drafting, and often serve specific tax or asset-protection goals.
A standard irrevocable trust typically starts around $3,500 and can reach $10,000 or more depending on its purpose. Specialized versions, including Medicaid asset protection trusts, special needs trusts, and irrevocable life insurance trusts, sit on the higher end because they require careful compliance with federal and state rules. An irrevocable life insurance trust may also carry annual costs of $250 to $1,000 for required beneficiary notification letters. If you’re considering an irrevocable trust, you almost certainly need an attorney; the stakes of getting it wrong are too high for a template.
What Drives the Price Up or Down
Within any creation method, a handful of factors move the number.
- Asset complexity. A trust holding one house and a few bank accounts is straightforward. Rental properties, business ownership interests, or large investment portfolios add drafting work.
- Beneficiaries and distribution rules. Leaving everything equally to two children is simple. Staggered distributions at different ages, provisions for a special needs beneficiary, or conditions on inheritance all add time and legal nuance.
- Geographic location. Attorney rates vary widely. A lawyer in a major metro area may charge double what a comparable attorney charges in a smaller market.
- Bundled documents. Most estate plans pair the trust with a pour-over will, a financial power of attorney, and an advance healthcare directive. Attorneys often bundle these at a package price that beats paying for each separately.
What the Fee Usually Covers
Regardless of how you create the trust, the price typically covers the trust document itself, which spells out who manages the assets, who receives them, and under what conditions. Most packages also include a pour-over will to catch assets you didn’t transfer into the trust during your lifetime and direct them in at your death. A durable power of attorney for finances and an advance healthcare directive are standard inclusions as well, designating someone to handle your money and medical decisions if you become incapacitated.
For attorney-drafted trusts, the fee usually includes consultation time, notarization, and guidance on funding the trust by retitling assets. The actual transfer fees for deeds and account changes are separate. Some attorneys include deed preparation and filing in their fee; others charge for it. Ask before you sign.
Ongoing Costs After Setup
Creating the trust is the first expense, not the last.
Funding the Trust
A trust only controls assets that have been formally transferred into it. For real estate, that means recording a new deed with your county, which typically costs $15 to $100 per property in recording fees, though some counties charge more. Bank and brokerage accounts need to be retitled in the trust’s name, which most financial institutions handle without charge. Stocks held through transfer agents may involve small processing fees. Skip funding and the trust is useless. An unfunded trust is just a stack of paper, and your estate still goes through probate.
Amendments and Restatements
Life changes, and your trust needs to change with it. A simple amendment, like updating a beneficiary or swapping in a new successor trustee, runs about $300 to $500 through an attorney. If your circumstances change dramatically — divorce, major inheritance, or a full restructuring of your plan — you may need a trust restatement, which replaces the original document while keeping the same trust entity. Restatements typically cost $2,000 or more depending on complexity.
Professional Trustee Fees
If you appoint a professional or corporate trustee instead of a family member, expect annual fees of 1% to 1.5% of the trust’s assets. On a $1 million trust, that’s $10,000 to $15,000 per year. Smaller trusts sometimes face minimum annual fees of $3,000 to $5,000 regardless of asset size, which can eat into modest estates quickly. Corporate trustees make sense for large or complex trusts where professional management genuinely adds value. For a straightforward family trust, a trusted individual as trustee avoids this recurring cost entirely.
Administration After Death
A living trust avoids probate but doesn’t eliminate post-death expenses. The successor trustee still has to settle debts, distribute assets, and file final tax returns. Legal and accounting fees for trust administration after the grantor’s death typically run 1% to 3% of the estate’s value. Once the trust becomes irrevocable at the grantor’s death, it must file Form 1041 if it earns gross income of $600 or more in a tax year, or if it has any taxable income at all.1Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1041 and Schedules A, B, G, J, and K-1 Trust tax preparation is more complex than a personal return, and professional fees typically range from $500 to $2,000 per year depending on income and activity.
How Trust Costs Compare to Probate
The price of a living trust makes more sense next to what your family would pay without one. Probate, the court-supervised process for distributing assets under a will, typically costs 3% to 8% of the estate’s value in combined attorney fees, court costs, and executor compensation. On a $500,000 estate, that’s $15,000 to $40,000. The process also takes nine months to well over a year, and in contested or complex cases, several years. Everything filed in probate court becomes public record, including your asset inventory and who inherits what.
A $3,000 living trust that keeps a $500,000 estate out of probate can save the family $12,000 or more in direct costs plus months of delay. Trust administration after death still costs something, typically 1% to 3% of the estate, but the process is faster, private, and doesn’t require court approval for every distribution. For families with real estate in multiple states, the savings multiply because probate would otherwise need to be opened separately in each state where property sits. A single living trust handles property everywhere without multiple proceedings.
Where the math gets less clear is for very small or very simple estates. If your assets are mostly in accounts with beneficiary designations, a will and those designations may be enough. Some states also offer simplified probate procedures for estates below certain value thresholds. For those estates, spending $3,000 on a trust might not deliver enough savings to justify the cost. The crossover point varies by state, but as a rough guide, estates worth $100,000 or more with any real estate tend to come out ahead.