What the FTC Funeral Rule asks of price lists, and what 175 funeral home websites do

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Funeral homes are among the few businesses in the United States with a federal rule about how they share their prices. Agencies who build their websites often hear the rule mentioned and are unsure what it covers. This explainer sets out, in plain terms, what the rule asks of price information, what it leaves unsaid about websites, and what the sites we studied actually do.

The numbers come from The State of Independent Funeral Home Websites 2026, our read of 175 independent and family-owned funeral homes: single locations, family firms with two or three locations, cremation-focused providers and homes that serve a faith or cultural community. The finding that frames everything below: only 39% of the sites publish or offer the General Price List.

This is not legal advice, and the study does not judge whether any home complies with the rule. It reports what a family can find on a website.

What does the Funeral Rule require of prices?#

The Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule gives families the right to see prices before they choose. In plain terms, a funeral home must:

• give a written General Price List to anyone who asks, in person, about funeral arrangements, goods or services, and let them keep it;
• show the prices of caskets and of outer burial containers before discussing them, on their own lists or on the general one;
• give price information by telephone to anyone who asks;
• let families buy only the goods and services they choose, with some stated exceptions, and give them an itemised statement of what they selected.

The General Price List itself follows a set form: each service with its price, the fee for the funeral home's basic services, and standard wording that tells families they may choose only the items they want.

What does it say about websites?#

Nothing. The rule's duties are about a list handed over across a desk and prices given over a phone. It does not require a funeral home to publish its list, or any price, online. The FTC has asked the public whether the rule should cover online price information; until the rule changes, posting it is a choice. California is an exception: it requires a funeral home that has a website to post its price list there.

So when an agency tells a director "you should have your price list online", the honest reason is the families, not the rule. That distinction matters to a director, who will know the rule better than you do.

What did the sites actually do?#

We read each home page and the pages it links to, as a server delivers them, against written pass rules. Section by section:

The price list. 39% of sites publish the General Price List (a page, a PDF or the rule's own wording) or offer it in words, such as "request our price list". A casket price list alone did not count, and neither did "view our price list" with nothing to view. By kind of home: cremation-focused providers 57%, faith and cultural community homes 50%, family firms with two or three locations 41%, and one-location family homes 25%.

A price for cremation or a burial. 37% show a dollar price for direct cremation, a package or a named service. Discounts, deposits, insurance amounts and figures in obituaries did not count. The split here is the widest in the study: cremation-focused providers show a price on 89% of their sites, one-location family homes on 17%.

The phone. The rule's other price duty is by phone, so the number matters. 58% of sites say the home can be reached 24 hours a day and have a phone number a family can tap on the home page. One-location family homes do this on 47% of their sites.

What sits around the prices. Pre-planning is offered on 97% of sites, obituaries are published on 93% and grief support on 89%. The rarest answer is a tradition named: 13% of sites name a religious or cultural tradition the home serves, and 70% of faith and cultural community homes do.

Why do cremation providers publish and family homes not?#

The scan does not record why, so we can only describe the pattern. Cremation-focused providers sell a short list of plainly defined services,, and their sites lead with them. Family funeral homes offer many combinations of service, and a single figure can feel misleading to a director who prices each family's choices with them. That concern is real. The General Price List answers it, because it is itemised by design: it shows each part and lets the family see how the total is made.

What does this mean for an agency?#

The price list page is the gentlest first piece of work a funeral home can say yes to. The home already has the document; it changes when prices change, usually once a year. Publishing it as a page that reads well on a phone, linked from the home page, with its date, is a quick fix. 61% of the homes we read have not done it.

Raise it carefully. A director who hears "the law requires this" will correct you. A director who hears "61% of independent homes don't show their list, and families now compare before they call" hears something useful.

For the respectful letter that carries this offer, paragraph by paragraph, read the letter to a funeral director. For how another trade handles prices it is not required to publish, see the vet clinic myth check.

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