Traditional Funeral Home Pricing vs. Funeral Matters Pricing

Visiting a funeral home is not the only way to find out how much a funeral costs. Today, an online build-and-price tool, offered free of charge to consumers by Funeral Matters, is also available to add a level of convenience to the sometimes daunting task of figuring out how much to spend on saying goodbye.

Funeral Matters’ build-and-price tool allows you to choose your preferences for disposition (cremation or burial/entombment), funeral or memorial services and other goods and services, all from the convenience of your home through your computer, tablet or smartphone. But there are important differences between what you see when you visit Funeral Matters online or visit a funeral home offering Funeral Matters pricing and what you experience when you visit a funeral home that does not offer Funeral Matters.

Throughout the U.S., when you visit your local funeral home, you will be provided with a General Price List, Casket Price List and Outer Burial Container Price List. These price lists may be available separately or combined into one complete GPL. The lists provide full pricing disclosure of services and merchandise offered at the funeral home. When you make funeral arrangements, your funeral director will go over the pricing with you as you make your selections.

Also included in many funeral homes’ GPLs is a basic non-declinable service fee, which includes such items as responding to the initial call, conducting an arrangement conference, preparing biographical and statistical data and filing papers, permits and other authorizations, along with other necessary services.

An example of a GPL can be found here.

Funeral Matters, however, does not include a basic services fee. Designed to accommodate today’s consumer, the Funeral Matters pricing structure breaks the basic services of a funeral director and staff into parts. There is no longer one lump non-declinable fee. Instead, the items included in the basic services fee, and their associated prices, are restructured into smaller, digestible offerings that are easy to understand.

Essentially, all Funeral Matters charges are “a la carte.” You only pay for the services you request. Some funeral homes offering traditional pricing charge different hourly prices based on whether services are held with or without a body present, or whether the service is being held in their funeral home or another location. With Funeral Matters, however, there is one hourly price for services across the board, no matter what the type of gathering or location of commemoration.

An example of a Funeral Matters GPL can be found here.

Step by step, consumers are taken through the process of building and pricing a funeral that is tailored to their needs. Consumers can see the average costs of various items and services provided by funeral directors and select different options to fit within a budget or an intended funeral recipient’s desires. Consumers can choose to save their selections, print them out, send them to family or friends to review or send them to a funeral home that participates in Funeral Matters.

The ease of Funeral Matters is a major advantage for consumers. Funerals can be built and priced at leisure and either at need, when a person has already died, or in advance of the intended funeral recipient’s death.