New website allows you to compare funeral prices
Getting prices on burials, cremations and funerals hasn't been easy in the past, but that is changing thanks to a company called Funeralocity. It claims to be the first of its kind to offer easy comparison pricing nationwide.
The idea for Funeralocity, was born out of the CEO's colleague having a tough time planning a funeral.
"We started looking around and doing a deep dive," said CEO Ed Michael Reggie. "And saw that there is no comparison website like there is for hotels, for automobiles, for restaurants and over 90% of funeral homes don't put their general price lists on their websites."
Funeralocity launched in 2019 with pricing from 19,000 funeral homes across the country. And with the country seized by the coronavirus, it has seen a surge in interest.
"We've been bombarded on our site, really had an enormous amount of traffic," he said. "We want to give them the look at the entire market and whatever is available in that market with reviews and ratings and prices so they can make an informed decision."
Prices can really range. For instance, for direct cremation within Philadelphia you can pay between $500 to $5,300. That range widens when you look statewide. For a full service burial in Philadelphia, you can pay anywhere from $2,600 to over $8,700.
"What we've seen is many families are directly cremating right now, holding the ashes and going to plan a celebration of that person with people," he said.
The most expensive place for a direct cremation in America is right here in the Delaware Valley, in Reading, Pennsylvania. At $3,547, that's 7% higher than the national average which stands at $2,124.
And of course we have long advised that pre-planning is the best option to get what you want for the best possible price.
