Everplans helped invent this category — it has organized family information since 2012, and its estate-planning articles are cited all over the internet for good reason. If you’re comparing it to Trusted Directive, you deserve the real differences, not a hit piece: how each unlocks in an emergency, what each costs year after year, and who pays whom on the advisor side.
A comparison you can trust has to start here. These are real strengths, and if they’re what you need most, Everplans may be the right pick.
Everplans’ guides — executor checklists, POLST forms, how to order death certificates — are recommended across forums and by professionals. It’s a durable, genuinely useful resource, free to read.
You can start with a free account (up to 3 items), and the company has been at this since 2012 — BBB accredited since 2013 with an A+ rating and zero complaints on file as of mid-2026.
Reviewers who lost a parent describe the plan left behind as a lifesaver — “it significantly streamlined the process of organizing his estate.” That outcome is the whole point, and Everplans has delivered it.
Everplans facts below are from its own pricing page, FAQ, and help center, checked July 2026.
| Everplans | Trusted Directive | |
|---|---|---|
| Track record | Since 2012; acquired in October 2024 by Precoa, a preneed funeral-planning company | New — opening to a founding cohort in 2026, and honest about it |
| Individual pricing | Free tier (up to 3 items); Premium $99.99 every year | $120 year one, $60/year after — renewal stated upfront; 30-day free trial |
| Free family access | Deputies included with Premium sharing | Free view-only Trusted Contact accounts (in development for alpha) — family will never pay to see what you share |
| Emergency access | Reactive: a deputy reports your passing, then waits while Everplans attempts to contact you | Proactive Verify-Silence Release Protocol (in development for alpha): no response within your pre-set window → access releases |
| Incapacity coverage | Unlock flow is built around reporting a death | Covered — the trigger is your silence, not a death certificate |
| What’s missing from your plan | Guided sections to fill in | Gap Discovery classifies documents today; alerts for what’s missing or expiring — what you don’t have, not just what you filed — are in development for alpha |
| Advisor economics | Advisors pay Everplans (Everplans Professional, quote-only pricing); no advisor commission advertised | Free for advisors, plus a flat 25% evergreen commission |
| Mobile | iOS only — no Android app; iPad runs the iPhone-sized layout | Browser-based — works on any device with a web browser |
Everplans pricing and protocol details per everplans.com/pricing, the Everplans FAQ, and its help center, reviewed July 2026. If anything here goes stale, tell us and we’ll fix it.
Here is how Everplans describes its own unlock process, from its FAQ:
“A deputy with unlock permission will need to log into Everplans and report your passing. After reporting, the deputy must wait for a period of time while Everplans attempts to contact” the account owner.
That’s a reasonable safeguard against premature access — and it works, for death. But notice what it requires: someone must report a passing. A stroke, a coma, a sudden dementia diagnosis — the emergencies that arrive before death — have no passing to report. Yet incapacity is precisely when your family needs the healthcare proxy, the power of attorney, and the Emergency Medical Packet (in development for alpha), and there’s no death certificate to unlock anything.
Trusted Directive inverts the model. The Verify-Silence Release Protocol is in development for alpha; here is how it is designed to work. You pre-authorize your Trusted Contacts and set a response window. When one of them requests emergency access, we notify you and wait. If you respond, nothing happens — false alarm, no harm done. If you stay silent past your window, access releases. We verify silence, not documents — which is why the same protocol covers incapacity and death, with no reports to file and nothing for a grieving family to prove.
Everplans Professional is a real advisor offering — cobranded vaults advisors have distributed since around 2015. The structural difference is the direction money flows: advisors pay Everplans for the platform, and in the 2025 T3/Inside Information software survey it held a 0.89% share of the estate planning category. Trusted Directive is free for advisor Partners and pays a flat 25% evergreen commission on every client payment instead.
For registered reps and IARs, this payout is an outside business activity: expect to give your firm prior written notice and to disclose it to clients — see the Partner Program Terms.
Where each lands on the two questions that matter
Illustrative positioning, not measured share. Everplans Professional is a real, long-running advisor product with a genuinely useful free content library; the axes simply show the two structural differences — how access unlocks, and who pays whom.
This category has earned its trust problem: surprise renewals, files locked behind lapsed cards, documents gone after cancellation. Whichever vault you choose, hold it to these.
Your documents are never held hostage. One-click export of everything, any time — subscriber or not — is in development for alpha.
Cancel and your documents remain yours. Your family’s map doesn’t vanish because a card expired.
$120 the first year. $60 a year after. Now stated on this comparison page too — that’s the habit.
Full pricing, including the renewal math: see pricing · More questions? Read the FAQ
As of mid-2026, Everplans offers a free tier (up to 3 stored items plus its content library) and a Premium plan at $99.99 per year — every year. The advisor product, Everplans Professional, has no public pricing; it is quote-only "flexible pricing" behind a demo request. Trusted Directive is $120 the first year and $60 a year after, with a 30-day free trial — the renewal price is stated before you pay.
The public review footprint is small but consistent. Praise: the web version ("5 stars for the web version"), the content library, and real help for bereaved families — one reviewer called the plan their late father left "a wealth of notes… which significantly streamlined the process of organizing his estate." Complaints: the iPad app runs iPhone-sized, there is no Android app at all, and some question paying a subscription for what a cloud folder does.
Everplans is deputy-report based: per its own FAQ, a deputy logs in and reports your passing, then waits while Everplans attempts to contact you. Trusted Directive is building the Verify-Silence Release Protocol (in development for alpha): a Trusted Contact requests access, we notify you, and if you don’t respond within your pre-set window, access releases — no death certificate, no report to file.
Everplans’ unlock flow is built around reporting a death. Incapacity — a stroke, a coma, a sudden dementia diagnosis — has no passing to report, yet it’s exactly when your family needs the healthcare proxy and power of attorney. Trusted Directive’s trigger is your silence, not a death certificate, so the same protocol covers incapacity and death.
Honestly: if you mainly want a free place to start and a large estate-planning content library, Everplans is a credible, long-running choice. Choose Trusted Directive if you want the emergency access we’re building to cover incapacity, Gap Discovery for what’s missing — not just what you’ve filed — and pricing where the $60 renewal is disclosed upfront. The emergency-access protocol and gap alerts are in development for alpha; the renewal-price promise is live today.
Trusted Directive opens to a small first group soon. Join the waitlist, try the vault free for 30 days, and hold us to everything on this page.
Join the waitlist — your invite lands the day we open.