Editorial policy

Effective 2026-09-23.

1. Official sources only. Cost inputs come from the NFDA, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the FTC. Third-party price aggregators are never treated as authoritative.
2. Every input is dated. Source vintage and retrieval dates appear on the methodology page and in the dataset itself.
3. Modeled means modeled. State figures are estimates derived from national medians; they are labeled “modeled estimate” wherever they appear and never presented as surveyed prices or quotes.
4. Assumptions are explicit. Where no official figure exists (e.g., green burial), the assumption is stated in the open — on the page, in the data, and in the methodology.
5. No funeral-industry money. No provider can pay for coverage, placement, or a changed number. Any future commercial relationship will be disclosed before it appears on any page.
6. Respectful tone. No popups, no countdown timers, no fake urgency, no dark patterns, no grief-exploiting copy.
7. Corrections. Errors are corrected promptly and noted. If a source revises its data, we revise with it on the next annual refresh — sooner if the error is material.
8. Annual refresh. The dataset is rebuilt each year from the latest BEA, NFDA, and BLS releases.