Two jobs at once
A funeral price page has to satisfy a regulator and comfort a family. Those pull in different directions. The regulator wants a set list of items in a set order with set wording. The family wants to know, quietly and without asking, roughly what this will cost.
A page built properly does both: the required list rendered exactly as required, and around it the plain explanation a family needs. This is orientation rather than legal advice, and your regulator's own guidance is the authority, but here is how the page is put together.
What the format usually requires
In the United Kingdom, the Competition and Markets Authority's funerals order requires funeral directors to display a standardised price list, in a prescribed layout with prescribed headings, prominently on the website as well as at the premises, alongside an additional options price list and a disclosure of any business or financial interests. The order is specific about wording and order. It is not a page to paraphrase.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule requires an itemised general price list to be given to anyone who asks about arrangements in person, price information over the telephone, and separate casket and outer burial container price lists. The rule was written before websites, and the FTC has consulted on extending it to online disclosure, so check the current position. Several states already require a price list or a notice about it on the site.
Elsewhere the picture differs again, and the country rules post covers the outline. Whichever applies, the design principle is the same: reproduce the required list faithfully and do not improve it.
Build it as data, not as a typed page
Type the list into a page and it will be stale within a year, because a developer is needed to change it. Build it as records instead:
| Field | Purpose | |---|---| | Item name | Exactly as the required list names it | | Section | The required grouping and its order | | Price | The figure | | Included or optional | Which list the item belongs on | | Note | Short plain explanation, shown under the row | | Effective from | The date the figure applies |
The page renders the required list from those records in the required order, and renders the additional options list from the same set. Changing a price is opening one record and saving. The manager's login is an editor role that can change words, numbers and photos and nothing structural.
What goes around the list
Above it, two or three short sentences: that these are the current prices, that a fuller written estimate is given before anything is agreed, and a phone number. Below it, plainly:
- What a simple or direct funeral includes, in a paragraph, because many families are looking for exactly that and will not ask.
- What third party costs are and why they vary: cremation or burial fees, doctors' fees where they apply, minister or celebrant fees. Say clearly that these are paid to others.
- What is not included.
- A line about help with costs, pointing to the state or charitable support that exists where you work.
- One button to ask a question, one number to call.
No pressure, no upsell language beside the figures, no "packages from" framing over the top of a regulated list.
Make it findable
Regulators generally expect the list to be prominent, and families expect it to be easy. That means a top-level menu item, a plain URL such as /prices or /our-services-and-prices, a link in the footer, and a link from the home page. It should be reachable in one tap from anywhere. A price list buried three levels down fails the family test even where it passes the letter of the rule.
Keep it as a page, not a PDF. A PDF is slower, worse on phones, harder for screen readers and often unreadable at a small size. Where a regulator supplies a template, the page reproduces the template's structure and wording, and a downloadable copy can sit beside it.
The details that get missed
- Pricing on the funeral director sub-page is the strictest case, but a memorial mason benefits from guide prices by memorial type and material, and a will writing practice from fixed fees for standard wills, powers of attorney and common trusts.
- A celebrant states the fee with what it includes: meetings, writing, the ceremony, travel.
- Pre-paid funeral plans are a separate regulated matter in some countries, and in the UK they fall under Financial Conduct Authority regulation, so the plan page follows different rules from the price list.
- Reviews, awards and marketing copy do not belong on the price page.
- Every figure carries an effective date, and a review of the page goes on the calendar with the other renewals.
Checking it
Twice a year, and whenever prices change: read the page against the regulator's current template line by line, confirm the additional options list and any disclosure statement are present and current, confirm the page loads in one tap from the home page on a phone, and confirm the figures match what the office quotes. Regulators update templates. Finding out from an inspection is the expensive way.
Where this sits
A price list built as records in the regulator's format, plainly explained and easy to reach, is part of every funeral and life events website we build, and it is the page families read first and mention most. Getting it right is compliance. Making it kind is the rest of the job.