A General Price List (GPL) is the itemized price list the FTC Funeral Rule requires a funeral home to offer families to keep. This free template has every required item and disclosure, with the prices left blank for you to fill in. Download it as a spreadsheet or a printable file. No email address is required.
What the template covers
Built from the FTC guide Complying with the Funeral Rule and 16 CFR Part 453. Each row names the section it comes from.
Four parts, in the order the list is usually printed.
A shortened preview of the printed list. Each number matches a note on what that block is for and where it has to sit.
[Funeral home name]
[Address, phone, and each branch the list covers]
General Price List
Effective date: ________
Header
Name, address, phone, caption and effective date sit above everything else.
Right of selection
The goods and services shown below are those we can provide to our customers. You may choose only the items you desire. [However, any funeral arrangements you select will include a charge for our basic services and overhead.] …
Basic services
This fee for our basic services [and overhead] will be added to the total cost of the funeral arrangements you select. …
Priced as one figure
If you want to arrange a direct cremation, you can use an alternative container. …
Itemized services
Except in certain special cases, embalming is not required by law. …
Merchandise ranges
A complete price list will be provided at the funeral home.
Optional
Your business name, address and phone number, each branch the list covers, the caption "General Price List" and the date the prices took effect. The effective date is how you, a family and an investigator tell one version from the next.
The paragraph telling the family they may choose only the items they want. It sits above the prices. Keep the bracketed sentence about the basic services charge only if that fee cannot be declined.
The one fee a family cannot decline, with a description of what it covers and the disclosure that it will be added to the total. The other option the Rule allows is to fold the fee into casket prices and say so.
Four services priced as one figure that already includes the basic services fee. Direct cremation carries the alternative container disclosure right beside its range, and both ranges include an option where the family supplies the container or casket.
Transfer of remains, embalming, other preparation, facilities and staff for viewing, ceremony and memorial service, graveside, hearse and limousine. The embalming disclosure goes directly next to the embalming price, not in a footnote.
A low and high price for each, followed by "A complete price list will be provided at the funeral home." The full prices then live on the Casket Price List and the Outer Burial Container Price List.
Optional rows for items such as refrigeration or register books, and any package you offer. A package can appear only in addition to the itemized prices above it.
The Rule only requires the items you sell. Delete any row you do not offer, and add rows for other goods and services you do.
Fill each price with what you charge. Forwarding and receiving remains, direct cremation and immediate burial each carry the basic services fee inside their price.
Keep or delete the bracketed sentences to match your basic services fee and your state’s embalming and container laws. The notes column says when.
Prepare a Casket Price List and an Outer Burial Container Price List, each with its own caption and effective date, unless you price those items on the GPL.
Confirm what your state adds, set the effective date, and issue a new dated list whenever a price changes.
Each of these comes from the FTC’s own compliance guide or its enforcement announcements. The examples are composites, not named firms.
The FTC says to offer the GPL when the face-to-face discussion of arrangements, goods, services or prices begins. A binder kept at the desk or a spoken offer does not count.
Example A director walks the family through packages first and hands over the GPL with the contract at signing.
Packages are allowed only alongside the itemized list. In the FTC’s 2023 phone sweep, one home promised to send its GPL and sent package prices instead.
Example A "Traditional Service $X" sheet mailed in place of the General Price List.
None of the required itemized services can be listed as "free" or "no charge." Price it, or leave it off if you do not offer it.
Example "Hearse: included at no charge" printed on the list.
The FTC guide says required disclosures must use the Rule’s wording, and the embalming disclosure must sit in immediate conjunction with the embalming price.
Example The embalming statement shortened and moved to a footnote at the bottom of page two.
The basic services fee is the only non-declinable fee the Rule allows. The guide calls a charge such as a casket handling fee a hidden penalty.
Example A handling fee added when a family brings a casket bought elsewhere.
Prices must reflect what you actually charge. In the 2023 sweep, 38 of the problem calls involved refusing to give prices or giving inconsistent prices for the same service.
Example Two staff members quote different direct cremation prices to the same caller a day apart.
The FTC tests compliance by posing as a customer. In 2017, investigators visited 134 funeral homes in 11 states and found 29 that failed to disclose the price information the Rule requires. Throughout 2023, staff placed undercover calls to more than 250 funeral homes and sent warning letters to 39 of them. One home on those calls said the local health code required embalming for a viewing over a certain size. The code said no such thing.
A home with serious violations is usually offered the Funeral Rule Offenders Program instead of a lawsuit. The FTC describes it as a legal review of the home’s price disclosures with training, testing and monitoring, run by the National Funeral Directors Association, with a voluntary payment to the U.S. Treasury in place of a civil penalty. By April 2018 the FTC had inspected nearly 3,200 homes since the program began in 1996 and referred 559 to it.
Outside the program, the FTC guide lists penalties of up to $53,088 per violation, a figure adjusted for inflation over time. An investigator can also ask to see your old lists and statements, which is why the retention rule below matters.
Any price change means a new list with a new effective date. Here is one change carried through, start to finish, at a fictional firm.
Who does what: the owner approves prices, the office manager issues the list and pulls the old copies, and every director who meets families checks the date on the list in the arrangement room before the conference.
February 10
The owner approves a change
A fictional two-location firm decides to change its transfer of remains price and its viewing charge from March 1. Nothing else moves.
February 17
The office manager drafts the new list
She copies the current GPL, changes the two lines, sets the effective date to March 1 and checks that every disclosure is still worded and placed as before. The casket and container lists do not change, so they keep their dates.
February 24
Phone sheet and statement lines updated
The price sheet staff read from on calls, and the line items used to build the Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected, get the same two changes so a phone quote, the list and the statement agree.
March 1
Old copies come out of every room
Arrangement rooms, the front desk and both locations get the new printed list. The old version goes into a dated file, not the recycling bin.
March 1 next year, at the earliest
The old list can be discarded
The Rule says to keep each price list for at least one year after you last hand it out, and each statement for one year after the arrangements conference. Check whether your state asks for longer.
Free to use and adapt. No email address is required.
The spreadsheet version (CSV) opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Each row is one line of the list, with columns for the price or price range, the services included, the disclosure to print beside it, the Funeral Rule section and a note for whoever prepares it.
The printable version (Markdown) is laid out as a finished list, with blanks for prices and the disclosures in place. Paste it into your word processor, fill it in and print it on your letterhead.
The disclosure wording follows the FTC’s guide to complying with the Funeral Rule. This template is a starting point, not legal advice. The FTC also requires casket and outer burial container price lists, and your state may require more, so confirm both before you use the list.
Keep the General Price List once for each location, or preview and import its rows from a CSV like this one.
The Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected is built on the case from the same line items, so it matches the list.
The statement and its acknowledgment stay with the case record, and the statement becomes the invoice that syncs to accounting.
With AI phone answering switched on, the assistant reads prices only from your General Price List, so a price given on the phone matches the printed list.
The Funeral Rule is the federal floor. Many states add their own price list requirements, such as extra disclosures, cemetery or crematory charges, or longer record keeping. Check with your state funeral board before you print, and have the finished list reviewed.
General Price List and statement softwareHow FuneralHQ keeps the GPL once and builds each statement from it.Read more 
General Price List managementKeep the GPL, casket and container lists and the statement consistent.Read more 
Casket and outer burial container price listsA checklist for the two companion lists.Read more 
Phone price disclosureWhat the Funeral Rule asks of a price call.Read more A General Price List template needs the firm’s name, address and phone number, the caption "General Price List", an effective date, a price for each required item the firm offers, and the disclosures the FTC Funeral Rule requires. This template lists all of them, with the Rule section for each row.
The FTC Funeral Rule requires itemized prices for forwarding and receiving remains, direct cremation and immediate burial ranges, basic services, transfer of remains, embalming, other preparation, facilities and staff for viewing, ceremony and memorial service, graveside service, hearse and limousine. It also requires casket and outer burial container prices or ranges and set disclosures. Items you do not offer can be left off.
No. The GPL is one of three price lists: the Rule also requires a Casket Price List and an Outer Burial Container Price List unless those prices are on the GPL, plus price information by phone and a Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected. Your state may add requirements, so check them and have the finished list reviewed.
Because your prices have to be the ones you actually charge. The Rule also says a required item cannot be shown as free or no charge, so fill every item you offer with your real price and delete the rows you do not offer.
Update it every time a price changes, with a new effective date on the new version. There is no set annual schedule in the Rule, but the prices on the list have to be the ones you charge on the day a family receives it.
Keep each version for at least one year after the date you last handed it out, and each Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected for one year from the arrangements conference. That is 16 CFR 453.6, and the FTC can ask to inspect them. Your state may require longer.
The FTC says to offer the GPL for the family to keep at the start of any face-to-face discussion of funeral arrangements, goods, services or prices. A phone inquiry alone does not require mailing one, but you must answer price questions by phone.
Bring your General Price List. In 20 minutes we import it, build a sample statement on a case, and show the invoice it becomes.
