The high price of saying goodbye: Why funeral costs are rising and how to manage them

When Michele Treacy’s brother died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in January 2025, she took on the responsibility of planning his funeral. The problem was he had left no will and had limited means. She had no clue what his final wishes were.

“We opted for cremation to save money,” said Treacy, a communications executive based in New Jersey. “I paid about $1,000 for the body storage, cremation and urn." The family will soon gather at her brother’s favorite beach in Florida to spread his ashes and say goodbye.

Like Treacy, more Americans are looking for dignified ways to put their loved ones to rest without breaking the bank as funeral costs rise. According to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), the median cost of an adult funeral with viewing and burial reached $8,300 in 2023, the most recent year information is available, up 5.8% from 2021. With a burial vault, the cost climbs to $9,995. Meanwhile, the average cost of a cremation with a viewing reached $6,280, up 8.1% over the same time period.

What’s behind higher funeral costs?

Daniel Ford $F -1.54%, president of the NFDA and owner of Alderson-Ford Funeral Homes in Connecticut, explains that rising costs are being driven by the same forces squeezing practically every other industry in recent years. This includes higher gasoline costs, taxes and tariffs on vehicles and wood for caskets.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), most funeral homes structure their costs into three categories: basic service fees, merchandise and options, and cash advance items. Basic services include fees for planning the funeral, paperwork, storing the remains, coordinating with the crematory, cemetery, house of worship or other third parties. These fees are typically fixed and run about $2,000 to $3,000, depending on location.

Merchandise and options are where costs can quickly surge. This includes selections for caskets, urns, burial plots and vaults, with casket prices alone ranging from $2,000 for a basic model up to $10,000 or more for premium finishes.

Other services and merchandise might include embalming or other preparation, transporting the remains, use of the funeral home or event space, a hearse or limousine for the service, cremation, and interment.

The third category, cash advance items, includes third-party services like flowers, obituaries, musician honorariums, clergy stipends, and certified death certificates. The funeral home bills you for these items and pays these expenses on your behalf.

Under the FTC’s Funeral Rule, funeral homes must provide consumers with an itemized price list and a written statement detailing every charge. You have the right to see pricing before committing to anything and to select only the services you want. Ford recommends that families never move forward without understanding the written statement and asking questions about anything that’s unclear. “You can take as much time as you want to make decisions,” he said.

The shift toward simpler, less expensive disposition options

With household debt rising and costs exploding across the board, the funeral industry is seeing cost sensitivity reflected in how people choose to say goodbye.

The rise in cremation versus traditional burials is a prime example. The cremation rate was estimated at 63.4% in 2025 compared to 31.6% for burials, according to the NFDA’s 2025 Cremation and Burial Report. By 2045, the organization estimates that cremation will account for 82.3% of all final dispositions.

The average cost of direct cremation — cremation without any formal viewing or service — is about $1,100 to $2,200 nationally. That’s a fraction of the cost of a traditional burial.

Funeral directors around the country say families are becoming more cost-conscious but still find ways to give their loved one a fitting goodbye.

Chris Robinson, president and general manager of Robinson Funeral Homes based in Easley, South Carolina, puts the average across all services at his firm — burial and cremation combined — at around $7,800, not including cash advance items. That number speaks to how much variation exists depending on selections.

“If you’re going from a full service to a direct cremation, it can be a couple of thousand dollars in savings,” Robinson said.

Many families are opting for direct cremation followed by a celebration of life held later — at a restaurant, a park, a private club or a family home. This approach separates the disposition of the remains from the memorial, gives families flexibility on timing (especially helpful when relatives are scattered) and can eliminate costs for items like embalming, a viewing and a casket.

Camelia Clarke, a funeral director with Paradise Memorial Funeral in Milwaukee, said she’s seeing families come who’ve done their research online ahead of time and know exactly what they want.

“It is really price sensitive in terms of, am I going to have a burial or am I going to have a cremation? But in the middle of that, how am I going to have a very personalized celebration of life?”

Uptick in interest in more eco-conscious and alternative burial options

As funeral expenses increase, some people are looking toward less expensive avenues that have the added benefit of being more environmentally friendly.

Green burial

Green burial, which is interment without embalming, uses a biodegradable shroud or simple wood casket. Costs vary by region and cemetery but are considerably less than conventional burial because the process doesn’t include embalming or a traditional casket. However, what qualifies as a “green burial” differs by location, and fewer than 200 funeral homes and 65 cemeteries offer this option, according to the Green Burial Council.

Water cremation

Water cremation uses aquamation, or alkaline hydrolysis, to break down remains into ash, and is a more eco-friendly alternative to flame cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America. While costs are comparable, the availability is limited.

Human composting

A newer alternative is human composting, which converts human remains into usable soil through natural organic reduction. With an average cost of $5,000 to $7,000, this type of disposition is the mid-range between direct cremation and traditional burial.

However, it’s the newest and most restricted disposition method, available only in states that have legalized it, according to Recompose, a human composting provider in Seattle. Those states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

How to save on funeral costs

To combat higher costs, one of the best things you can do is pre-plan your final arrangements, experts said. Both Clarke and Robinson are seeing more families coming to pre-arrange services and have end-of-life planning discussions more openly.

The Funeral Consumers Alliance estimates that pre-planning could potentially slash funeral costs by as much as 50%, depending on the funeral home’s price guarantee.

When you pre-pay for a funeral, the money goes into a third-party, interest-bearing account until the money is needed. Most importantly, pre-paid funeral arrangements are typically portable if you move across the country, the funeral home you made the arrangements with goes out of business, or you decide to change providers later, Robinson explained.

Not only does pre-planning help save some money, it can also offer peace of mind and take pressure off your loved ones so they can focus on mourning.

If you can’t afford funeral expenses due to a sudden death or a lack of cash on hand, there are options to help. These include:

• State or county social services: Most states have some form of indigent burial or cremation assistance through county or state social services.
• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): U.S. military veterans can apply online to access VA burial benefits.
• Social Security: Social Security provides a single lump-sum $255 death benefit to surviving spouses or children who qualify.
• Crowdfunding: Some families use crowdfunding sites to help with final expenses, including GoFundMe or Ever Loved. According to GoFundMe data, users raised more than $580 million in the memorial category in 2025. Online fraud is an issue, though, so be cautious about where and how you donate.

When looking for a funeral home to work with, compare services and costs with a few local providers, Clarke recommends. Ask friends and relatives for recommendations, check out their websites and read online reviews to get a sense of their reputation, she added. The NFDA’s consumer website, RememberingALife.com, is also a good place to research service and disposition options and find NFDA-affiliated funeral homes in your area.

If costs are a barrier, Clarke suggests asking funeral providers how they might be able to help.

“Most funeral home operators that I’m aware of do an amazing job with doing everything that they can to ease the emotional and the financial burden on any family,” Clarke said. “There isn’t one funeral home that I know in my 30 years of existence that have ever turned anyone around that I know of because of genuine financial hardship.”

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