The best DIY will kit for most people is FreeWill if your estate is simple and you want to spend nothing, Trust & Will or LegalZoom if you want a polished guided experience for around $99 to $199, and Nolo’s WillMaker if you want the most document options bundled together. All four produce state-specific wills for a fraction of the $250 to $1,000 an attorney charges, but none of them practice law, and none of them can save a will that isn’t signed and witnessed correctly. The right choice depends on how complicated your estate is and how much you want the software to hold your hand.
How the Four Main Platforms Compare
Each service takes a different angle on the same job.
FreeWill is completely free, no credit card required. It’s funded through partnerships with more than 2,300 nonprofits, and roughly one in six users add a charitable gift to their will. The questionnaire produces a printable document and flags situations it can’t handle, pushing you toward a lawyer when the estate gets complicated. Good for simple estates, useless for anything unusual.
LegalZoom starts around $99 for an individual will and $199 for a couple. It’s the most recognized name in the category, offers state-specific documents, lets you revise later, and sells optional attorney consultations as add-ons.
Nolo’s WillMaker runs from about $109 to $219 depending on tier. Higher tiers bundle powers of attorney and healthcare directives with the will itself. Nolo has been publishing legal self-help material for decades, and WillMaker gives you more control over drafting details than the competition.
Trust & Will charges roughly $199 for an individual will or $299 for a couple. The interface is the cleanest of the group, which matters if the whole exercise feels intimidating, and the platform also sells living trust packages if you decide you need one.
Depth of customization varies more than price suggests. FreeWill fits a simple estate and zero budget. LegalZoom and Trust & Will occupy the middle. Nolo appeals to people who want the fullest document package in one purchase. Output quality depends entirely on the information you feed in.
What a Usable Kit Has to Include
State-specific compliance comes first. Will execution rules differ across jurisdictions, and a generic template that ignores your state’s requirements can produce a document a probate court refuses to accept. Any kit worth using asks for your state up front and adjusts its output accordingly.
Past that, a good kit walks you through the core decisions: naming beneficiaries for specific property, appointing an executor, naming guardians for minor children, and including a residuary clause. The residuary clause matters more than most people realize. It catches everything you didn’t specifically mention and directs it to a named person. Without one, any unlisted asset drops into intestacy and the state decides who gets it, regardless of what the rest of your will says.
The kit should also let you update easily. Life changes, and you want to be able to swap an executor, add a beneficiary, or account for a new asset without starting from scratch.
Decisions the Kit Will Walk You Through
Naming Beneficiaries
You’ll list significant assets, real estate, bank accounts, investment accounts, vehicles, personal property, and assign a beneficiary to each. Most kits let you leave specific items to specific people and sweep the rest to a residuary beneficiary. Name alternates for every beneficiary. Forgetting alternates is one of the most common DIY mistakes and can send part of your estate into intestacy if your first choice dies before you do.
Choosing an Executor
Your executor shepherds the will through probate, pays outstanding debts, files tax returns for the estate, and distributes assets. Pick someone organized enough to manage paperwork and deadlines, and name a backup in case your first choice can’t or won’t serve.
Guardians for Minor Children
If you have children under 18, your will is where you name who raises them if both parents die. Courts give heavy weight to the parent’s stated preference, though a judge can override the choice if the named guardian is clearly unfit. Talk to your chosen guardian before you name them. Naming someone who doesn’t want the job creates problems a piece of paper can’t solve.
Debts
Your estate pays your debts before beneficiaries receive anything. Your will can specify which assets should be sold first to satisfy those debts, which gives your executor clearer direction and protects the assets you most want your beneficiaries to keep.
Getting the Signing Right
A will that isn’t properly executed is just a piece of paper with wishes on it. Signing formalities are where DIY wills most often fail.
Witnesses
In most states you must sign your will in the presence of at least two adult witnesses, who then sign it themselves. This requirement comes from the Uniform Probate Code, which the majority of states have adopted in some form. Witnesses need to actually watch you sign, or you need to acknowledge your signature to them, and each witness should sign within a reasonable time after.
Many states require witnesses to be “disinterested,” meaning they aren’t beneficiaries. Where that rule still applies, a gift to an interested witness can be reduced or voided entirely. Other states following the modern UPC approach have relaxed the rule, but the safer practice everywhere is to use witnesses who receive nothing under the will. Two neighbors, coworkers, or friends who aren’t mentioned in the document will do.
Self-Proving Affidavits
A self-proving affidavit is a notarized statement in which you and your witnesses swear you signed voluntarily and were of sound mind. It doesn’t make the will valid, but it can dramatically simplify probate. Without one, the court may need to track down your witnesses and have them testify that the will was properly executed. With it, the court can typically accept the will without that step.
Most states allow self-proving affidavits and most DIY platforms include them in the signing instructions. You’ll need a notary, and in-person notary fees are typically modest, often between $5 and $15 per signature depending on your state.
Louisiana is a notable exception to the general witnessing rules. It requires a specific notarial will form that must be signed by the testator on each page, witnessed by two people, and executed before a notary, with a formal attestation clause confirming all requirements were met.1Tulane Law Review. Louisiana’s Notarial Will: A Case for Simplification of the Signature and Attestation Clause Form Requirements
Testamentary Capacity
For your will to hold up, you must have testamentary capacity when you sign. That means you understand what property you own, who your natural heirs are, what the will does, and how those pieces fit together.2Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Testamentary Capacity If someone later challenges the will on capacity grounds, typically citing dementia, illness, or medication, the court examines whether you met those four criteria at signing. Signing while healthy and alert is the best protection. Some people record a short video of the ceremony as extra evidence, though it isn’t required.
Holographic Wills
About half of U.S. states recognize holographic wills, which are handwritten and don’t require witnesses. The key provisions and your signature must be in your own handwriting. This sounds like the ultimate DIY approach, but holographic wills get challenged in court frequently and tend to omit important provisions because there’s no template guiding you. If you can use one of the platforms above, use it instead.
What Your Will Won’t Control
This is where DIY will-makers most often trip up. Several common asset types transfer directly to a named beneficiary at death and bypass your will entirely. The beneficiary form on the account controls, no matter what your will says. If your will leaves everything to your daughter but your ex-spouse is still listed on your 401(k), your ex-spouse gets the 401(k).
Assets that typically bypass probate include retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs, life insurance proceeds, payable-on-death bank accounts, transfer-on-death brokerage accounts, and any property titled as joint tenants with right of survivorship.
After you finish your will, review the beneficiary designations on every account. Updating the will without updating those forms is one of the most expensive mistakes in estate planning, and no DIY kit can fix it, because these designations live with the financial institution rather than in your will.
Digital Assets Need Their Own Document
Cryptocurrency, online banking logins, social media accounts, and digital media libraries are assets too, and they’re easy to overlook. Almost every state has adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which gives your executor authority to manage digital accounts only if you’ve granted that access in your will or through the platform’s own settings.
The practical approach is two steps. Your will should reference your digital assets by name or category so they don’t disappear into a vague residuary bucket. Then create a separate access document, sometimes called a digital asset memorandum, listing wallets, exchange accounts, private keys, passwords, and PINs. Keep it separate from the will, because the will becomes a public record during probate and you don’t want login credentials in a court file. Store the access document securely and make sure your executor knows where to find it.
For cryptocurrency the access document is critical. Unlike a bank account, there’s no institution your executor can call to recover lost crypto. If the private keys die with you, the assets are gone.
Storing and Updating the Will
A will that can’t be found is nearly as useless as no will at all. In most states, if the original signed copy is missing, the court presumes you intentionally destroyed it and treats it as revoked. Getting a court to accept a photocopy typically requires a formal proceeding with additional proof.
The strongest options are a fireproof safe at home, with a trusted person who knows the combination, or your local probate court if it offers a will-filing service. Safe deposit boxes can create a catch-22: your executor may need the will to access the box and a court order to open it, which takes time. If you use a box, add your executor to the contract so they can get in without delay. Wherever the original lives, tell your executor and at least one other trusted person exactly where it is.
Review the will after any major life event: marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or acquiring significant assets. Modern DIY platforms make it easy enough to generate a new will that there’s rarely a reason to patch the old one with a codicil. When you create the new will, include explicit language revoking all prior wills, then shred the old copies so no one can probate the wrong version.
When a Kit Isn’t Enough
DIY kits handle simple estates well and hit a ceiling fast. If any of these describe you, an attorney is worth the cost:
- Blended families with children from prior relationships or competing interests between a current spouse and earlier children.
- Business ownership, where a poorly drafted will can force a sale, trigger tax problems, or leave partners in limbo.
- A dependent with special needs who receives government benefits like Medicaid or SSI. Leaving assets directly to that person can disqualify them; a special needs trust preserves benefits, and a DIY kit can’t create one.
- Estates that may owe federal estate tax, which currently applies above roughly $13.99 million per individual. Gifting, trusts, and charitable structures can save beneficiaries enormous sums, and no template captures this.
- Real estate in more than one state, which can trigger separate probate proceedings in each. An attorney can recommend ownership structures that avoid it.
Even for a straightforward situation, a middle path exists: draft the will yourself with one of the kits above and pay an attorney $150 to $350 to review it. That one-time cost buys confidence that the document a court will eventually rely on actually says what you meant.