Setting up a trust generally costs between $250 and $10,000 or more. How much a trust costs in your case depends on two things: whether you use an online platform or an estate planning attorney, and how complex your estate is. A basic revocable living trust through an online service runs $250 to $1,000. An attorney-drafted trust package usually falls between $1,000 and $5,000. Irrevocable trusts and special needs trusts sit at the top of the range because the drafting has to be precise. And the setup fee is not the whole picture. Funding the trust, annual tax filings, and possible trustee compensation add costs that many people don’t see coming.
Online Service or Attorney
This is the fork that decides most of the price.
Online document services are the budget option. LegalZoom’s trust packages start around $249 and can approach $900 with couples add-ons. Trust & Will’s digital trust creation starts around $499. Nolo offers packages in a similar range. You answer a questionnaire, and the platform generates documents based on your answers. For a single person with a house, a bank account, and a retirement account, that can be enough.
The tradeoff is that no one is checking whether the structure fits your situation. Blended families, property in more than one state, business interests, or coordination with tax planning are the kinds of facts a template won’t handle well. Errors in a trust document can sit undetected for years and surface when it’s too late to fix them.
An estate planning attorney typically charges $1,000 to $5,000 for a standard revocable living trust package. That flat fee usually covers the trust itself, a pour-over will that catches any assets you forgot to transfer, durable powers of attorney, and a healthcare directive. Ask for the total in writing before you sign. More complex estates push attorneys into hourly billing, commonly $150 to $450 per hour depending on experience and market.
Location matters. Attorneys in major metros charge more than those in smaller markets. You need someone licensed in your state who knows local probate and property rules, but within those limits there is real room to shop.
What Different Types of Trusts Cost
The type of trust you need is often the single biggest factor in the final bill.
Revocable Living Trust
This is the most common estate planning trust and the least expensive attorney-drafted option. You keep full control during your lifetime and can change or revoke it at will. Attorney fees typically run $1,000 to $3,000 for an individual. Couples pay somewhat more, whether they set up a joint trust or separate ones.
Irrevocable Trust
Once you sign an irrevocable trust, you generally can’t change the terms or pull the assets back. These trusts are used to reduce estate tax exposure, shield assets from creditors, or qualify for Medicaid. Because the mistakes are hard to fix, the drafting is more demanding. A basic irrevocable trust runs $2,000 to $5,000. Complex versions built for asset protection or tax planning can cost $5,000 to $10,000 or more.
Special Needs Trust
Special needs trusts are among the most expensive to draft. The language has to be precise enough to preserve the beneficiary’s eligibility for Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. A poorly worded provision can disqualify the very person the trust exists to protect. Adding a special needs trust to an existing estate plan can cost an additional $2,000 to $6,000, and standalone versions can cost more. This is not a place to cut corners.
Funding Costs the Quote Doesn’t Always Include
A trust that isn’t funded is an expensive stack of paper. Funding means retitling your assets into the trust’s name so the trust actually controls them. Some of that work costs money on top of the drafting fee.
For real estate, you need a new deed naming the trust as owner, usually a quitclaim deed, recorded with your county recorder’s office. Recording fees vary by jurisdiction and generally run $15 to $100 per document. Deed preparation and recording are sometimes bundled into an attorney’s flat fee and sometimes billed separately, so ask upfront.
Banks and brokerage firms have their own retitling procedures. Most require a Certificate of Trust, a short summary confirming the trust’s existence, its date, its trustees, and their powers. You typically don’t have to hand over the full document. Vanguard, for example, asks for a completed trust account application along with copies of the pages showing the trust name, date, trustees, and signatures.1Vanguard. Trust Accounts Most institutions retitle accounts without a fee, though some charge small administrative amounts.
Trust documents and deeds have to be notarized. Notary fees are regulated in most states, with statutory caps ranging from $2 to $25 per signature. About ten states don’t cap them at all. Budget roughly $5 to $15 per signature in most places.
Irrevocable trusts need their own Employer Identification Number from the IRS, because they’re separate tax entities. Revocable trusts use the grantor’s Social Security number during the grantor’s lifetime and only need an EIN after the grantor dies. You can apply for an EIN directly through the IRS website at no cost, and the number is issued immediately for online applications.2Internal Revenue Service. Get an Employer Identification Number The IRS warns specifically against third-party sites that charge for this.
What You Pay Every Year After Setup
Setup is one-time. Some trusts generate costs for the rest of their existence.
Tax Preparation
Irrevocable trusts must file their own federal income tax return on IRS Form 1041 every year they earn income. Revocable trusts report through the grantor’s personal return during the grantor’s lifetime, but once the grantor dies, the trust becomes its own tax entity and needs a Form 1041 of its own. Having a CPA prepare Form 1041 typically costs $680 to $750 per year, and more with complex investment activity.
Trustee Compensation
If you serve as your own trustee during your lifetime, you generally don’t pay yourself. Successor and corporate trustees are a different story. Corporate trustees, such as bank trust departments, typically charge roughly 1% to 2% of assets under management per year. On a $500,000 trust that’s $5,000 to $10,000 annually. Professional individual trustees commonly charge $150 to $250 per hour for administration. Courts in most states apply a “reasonable compensation” standard, weighing trust size, complexity, and local market rates.
Amendments
A new grandchild, a divorce, a large asset purchase, or a change in tax law can all push you back to the drafting table. A simple amendment to a revocable trust, like changing a beneficiary or naming a new successor trustee, typically costs $300 to $500 through an attorney. Online services offer basic amendment forms for as little as $35. When the changes are extensive, your attorney may recommend a full restatement, which rewrites the entire document and can run $2,000 or more. Budgeting for at least one update in the first five to ten years is realistic.
Is It Worth the Cost
The reason most people set up a trust is to avoid probate, and the math usually favors the trust once an estate has real value. Probate is the court-supervised process that transfers assets after death when no trust is in place. It’s public, slow, and expensive.
Probate costs typically run 4% to 7% of total estate value, though the percentage varies by state and complexity. On a $500,000 estate, that’s $20,000 to $35,000 in attorney fees, court costs, executor compensation, and administrative expenses. The process commonly takes 12 to 24 months, and contested estates run longer. Beneficiaries may have limited access to inherited assets during that time.
A properly funded revocable trust sidesteps probate entirely for the assets held in it.3FDIC.gov. Financial Institution Employees Guide to Deposit Insurance – Trust Accounts Assets transfer according to the trust terms without court involvement, without public filings, and usually in weeks rather than months. Even after setup, funding, ongoing tax filings, and occasional amendments, a trust typically pays for itself many times over on estates above a few hundred thousand dollars. For smaller estates the gap narrows, and some states offer simplified probate that reduces it further.
The word doing the work in that comparison is “funded.” A trust only avoids probate for assets actually titled in its name. Anything you forget to transfer still goes through probate, no matter how well the document is drafted.