🎯 The business: you take on the writing and messages that pile up around every family a funeral home serves: obituaries drafted from a family interview, service programs, memorial slideshows, bilingual versions and gentle follow-up notes in the months after. If the home wants it, you also cover phone questions about prices, answering only from its current price list, exactly as the FTC’s Funeral Rule requires. AI speeds up the drafting. The funeral director stays in charge of every arrangement, and you never sell or advise.
At a glance
| Money to start | ≈ $440 to $1,990 |
| Time to the first paying funeral home | 3 to 10 weeks |
| Hours a week | 10 to 20, with short-notice deadlines |
| Skills that matter most | Warm, careful listening, accurate writing, simple design and video, calm under deadline |
| What it can pay | About $3,250 a month before tax with three monthly clients and some single-family work (worked below) |
Is this for you?
It suits a steady, kind person who writes well and does not rush grieving people: a former journalist, a church administrator, a hospice volunteer, someone who has helped their own family through a funeral and saw how much there was to do. Speaking a second language that local families use is a real advantage.
It is a poor fit if death and grief weigh on you heavily, if you need regular hours, or if you want to grow fast. Services are scheduled within days, and the work arrives when it arrives. Funeral directors also buy slowly and only from people they trust.
Who pays, and what
Independent, family-owned funeral homes. The director often writes the obituary late at night after the arrangement meeting, builds the program the next day and assembles a slideshow from a shoebox of photos, while also handling removals, paperwork and the service itself. Many homes also miss price calls during services or after hours.
Services are changing too. The National Funeral Directors Association’s 2025 report projected a U.S. cremation rate of 63.4% in 2025, about double the burial rate of 31.6%. Memorial gatherings after cremation still need programs, photo tributes and well-written notices, and families increasingly want them personal.
Funeral software (Passare, Gather and Tribute Technology among others) handles records, websites and online obituaries. A personal service that does the writing and creative work, in the family’s language, is still thin. As an estimate from the research, homes pay about $50 to $150 per family, or $300 to $800 a month for a package.
What it takes to start
| LLC and city or county license | $150 to $500 |
| One paid AI account on a business-grade plan (Claude Pro is $20 a month) | About $240 a year |
| Slideshow and design software (free tools work; paid ones are faster) | $0 to $200 a year |
| Licensed music for slideshows, if the home has no library (example) | $0 to $200 a year |
| General liability and errors and omissions insurance (an estimate) | $0 to $700 first payment |
| Simple website, domain, business email | $50 to $150 |
| All-in | ≈ $440 to $1,990 |
Start to finish: the steps
1. Learn the Funeral Rule. Read the FTC’s free business guide to the rule. The core: a funeral home must give an itemized General Price List at the start of an in-person discussion of arrangements, and must give accurate price information from its price lists to anyone who asks by phone. Anyone answering phones for a home has to follow this.
2. Learn where your job stops. Arranging funerals and selling funeral goods and services is licensed work in most states. You write, design and relay information under the director’s supervision. You do not quote packages, recommend products, discuss contracts or talk about preneed plans; you pass those to the director.
3. Make the business legal. Register, get insurance, and write a contract that covers confidentiality, turnaround times and who approves every piece before it goes to a family. See Choosing a legal structure and Contracts, client data and AI rules.
4. Build a gentle interview guide. Twenty questions that help a family talk: where they grew up, work, faith, what made them laugh, who should be named. Practice on a living relative’s life story. Families remember the person who listened.
5. Set your privacy rules. Keep Social Security numbers and death certificate details out of AI tools entirely; you do not need them for an obituary. Use a business AI plan that excludes your inputs from training. Suggest leaving full birth dates and home addresses out of published obituaries, a common precaution against identity theft.
6. Make samples. A sample obituary, a two-page program and a three-minute slideshow, all for a made-up person or a willing relative. Print the program on good paper; directors judge with their hands.
7. Offer a three-family pilot. Low price, fast turnaround and the director approves everything. Agree on how you reach the family (usually by phone, after the director introduces you) and your deadlines for each piece.
8. Draft with AI, never invent. Feed the AI your interview notes and ask for a draft in the home’s style. Then check every name, date, place and relationship with the family. AI fills gaps with plausible details; in an obituary a wrong grandchild’s name is unforgivable. The family approves the final words, and the director approves before publication.
9. Add phone coverage only with a tested price script. If the home wants after-hours or overflow price calls covered, by you or by an AI phone tool you set up, build the answers from the current General Price List and test them every time prices change. Calls about a death go straight to the on-call director, every time.
10. Grow slowly and locally. Add follow-up notes, translated programs and online memorial pages for the homes you already serve before adding new homes. Two or three homes that trust you fully are better than ten that barely know you.
Pricing
| Obituary from a family interview | $50 to $100 |
| Service program, designed and print-ready | $40 to $100 |
| Memorial slideshow, up to about 100 photos | $75 to $150 |
| Translated or bilingual version, with a fluent review | $50 to $100 |
| Monthly package for a home: writing, programs, slideshows, follow-up notes | $300 to $800 |
These are example prices; the per-family and monthly ranges match the research estimates. Price to the funeral home, not to the family: the home decides whether to include your work in its own charges. Every item it sells must appear on its General Price List, which is the director’s job to update.
The math
Take a solo operator about a year in. Three homes on a $500 monthly package bring in $1,500. Twenty single-family jobs from other homes at an average of $100 bring in $2,000, $3,500 in all. Costs are about $20 for AI, $60 for software and music, $70 set aside for insurance and $100 for mileage and marketing, $250 in all. That leaves about $3,250 a month before tax, for roughly 70 hours of work in the month, or about 16 a week.
Set aside a quarter to a third of profit for income and self-employment tax. See Small business taxes and Pricing AI and IT services.
Getting customers
Start with the funeral home your own family or church uses. Directors are part of the community and buy on personal trust; an introduction from a pastor, rabbi, imam or a family they served carries more weight than anything you can send.
A plan for the first ten: list the 30 independent funeral homes within an hour. Mail each a printed sample program and a short letter, then call to ask for 15 minutes, never during a service and never unannounced. Aim for 12 conversations, and offer each a three-family pilot at a reduced price. Ask clergy and hospice chaplains you know for introductions in parallel. As an example, expect 2 to 4 homes to try a pilot and 1 to 3 to stay on in the first three months.
Dear Mr. Whitfield, I help independent funeral homes with the writing and design around each service: obituaries drafted from a phone interview with the family, programs, photo slideshows, and Spanish versions checked by a fluent reader. You approve everything before the family sees it, and I keep to your deadlines. I have enclosed a sample program. Could I bring a few more examples by for 15 minutes at a time that suits you, and offer to handle the writing for your next three families at a reduced rate? Maria Alvarez, 555-0157
Channels, best to worst for funeral homes:
1. Personal introductions. Clergy, hospice chaplains and families who were served; nothing else comes close.
2. Referral partners. Florists, monument makers and printers who already work with the home every week.
3. Your state funeral directors association. Regional meetings and newsletters reach the owners of independent homes.
4. In-person visits with a printed sample. Arranged in advance; directors judge the paper and the care.
5. LinkedIn and Facebook. Modest; some owners are active, most are not.
6. Google Business Profile. Set it up so a director who hears your name can check you.
7. Marketplaces and paid ads. Last. They reach families looking for help, which pulls you toward advising them directly, and homes do not hire there.
Case studies here must be discreet. Ask the director, not the family, for a short quote about turnaround and care, and show work only with the family’s written permission or as made-up samples. Thank the referring florist or pastor every time. When a director is happy, ask whether they know a colleague two towns over who is short-staffed. More in the launch and marketing playbook.
Running it week to week
Keep your phone on during the day and check messages each evening; a family interview often has to happen the day the director calls. Track each family’s pieces and deadlines on one sheet. Before anything goes out, check names, dates and spellings against the family’s own list. Keep each home’s current General Price List on file if you cover price calls, and ask the director each month whether it changed. Send follow-up notes on schedule, in the home’s name and voice, approved in advance.
Rules to check
The FTC Funeral Rule requires funeral homes to give accurate price information by phone and an itemized General Price List in person; a home cannot make a caller visit to learn prices. In a 2023 undercover phone check of more than 250 funeral homes, FTC staff found violations on 39 calls and sent warning letters in January 2024; penalties can reach about $51,744 per violation (the 2024 figure; it rises with inflation). As of November 2026 the federal rule does not require posting prices online; the FTC has been considering that since 2022, and some states have their own rules, so check yours. Funeral directing and selling funeral goods are licensed in most states, and preneed sales often need a separate license; stay on the writing side. Keep family information confidential and out of AI tools beyond what the writing needs. Use only licensed music in slideshows that will be played publicly or posted online. Translated programs need a fluent human check.
What goes wrong
A name is misspelled or a relative is left out; read the final draft back to the family by phone. AI adds a detail nobody said, like a hobby or a military rank; every fact must come from your notes. A price answer is out of date because the list changed; ask monthly and keep the date on your copy. A family asks you what package they should choose; that question goes to the director, kindly and at once. A slideshow uses a popular song and gets muted when posted; use licensed music from the start. And a home stops calling when its busy season ends; the monthly package keeps the relationship steady.
Questions people ask
Can AI write an obituary?
AI can turn notes from a family interview into a first draft quickly. A person must check every name, date and relationship with the family, because AI fills gaps with details that sound right but are not. The family approves the final words.
Do funeral homes have to give prices over the phone?
Yes. Under the FTC Funeral Rule, a funeral home must give accurate price information from its price lists to anyone who asks by phone, and cannot require the caller to come in first.
Do funeral homes have to post prices online?
Not under federal rules as of November 2026. The FTC has been considering an online price requirement since 2022, and some states set their own rules, so check your state’s funeral board.
How much does it cost to have an obituary written?
As an example, a freelance writer working through a funeral home might charge $50 to $100 for an obituary from a family interview. Newspapers charge separately to publish it.
Can I work with funeral homes without a funeral director license?
Yes, for writing, design, slideshows and relaying price-list information under the director’s supervision. Making arrangements, selling funeral goods and preneed plans are licensed in most states; leave those to the director.
Free help
The FTC publishes a free plain-language guide for businesses on complying with the Funeral Rule. Your state funeral board explains what is licensed work, and your state funeral directors association runs events where you can meet owners. SCORE and your Small Business Development Center help with contracts and pricing at no cost. See also The path to the first client.
The Funeral Rule’s phone requirement, the FTC’s 2023 phone check and the online-price question were checked in November 2026. Re-check whether the FTC has proposed or adopted an online price rule, and your state’s own rules, before offering phone or website services.