How much does a prenup cost?

Why is the range so wide?

Because two of those numbers are prices and one is a guess. HelloPrenup charges $599 flat, the same for everyone, because software does not bill by the hour. Their attorney tier is $599 plus $799 per partner, which is $2,197, and it is also a fixed number.

The traditional route has no fixed number because you are buying someone's time. LegalZoom publishes a range of $1,000 to $10,000 for it. That range is doing a lot of work, and the honest read is that it tracks two things: how complicated your money is, and how much you two argue. A couple who agrees, with salaries and a house, sits near the bottom. A couple with a business and a real disagreement sits at the top and can exceed it.

Should you use an online service or hire a lawyer?

The deciding factor is not your income. It is whether anything in your situation needs a human to negotiate it.

An online prenup is genuinely fine when your finances are salaries, savings and maybe a house, when you two already broadly agree, and when nobody is waiving spousal support. You are writing down a decision you have already made. A form is good at that.

Pay for lawyers when there is a business or a trust, when one of you is giving something up, or when you do not agree yet. Software cannot negotiate. If the two of you are not aligned, a questionnaire will produce a document that one of you resents, which is worse than no document.

There is a trap in the middle. A cheap agreement that gets thrown out is worth less than no agreement, because you paid for it and then planned around it. The estimator walks your situation and tells you which tier you actually land in, including when the answer is the cheap one.

What makes a prenup hold up?

Boring, mechanical things. Both of you disclose what you own and what you owe, honestly and in writing. Neither of you is pressured. There is real time between signing and the wedding. Each of you understands what you agreed to, which in some situations means each of you had your own lawyer.

Signing three days before the ceremony, when the flowers are paid for and the family has flown in, is the single most common way an agreement gets attacked later as coerced. If you are close to the wedding and cannot finish comfortably, the same agreement signed afterwards is a postnup, and that is a real option rather than a rushed prenup. It is not a free swap. A judge scrutinises a postnup harder, and the online route for one appears to cost several times what a prenup does, because the attorneys are not optional. We are still verifying those prices at the source, and we will not print a number we have not read.

Some states go further. HelloPrenup states that its attorney package is required in South Carolina and West Virginia, and to enforce a spousal-support waiver in Alabama, California, New York and Washington. That is their published policy, which is a real thing you will meet at checkout. It is not a statement of your state's statute, and we have not yet verified each one at the source, so treat it as a signal to check rather than as the law.

Which situation are you in?

Almost nobody asks this question in the abstract. People arrive because of one specific thing.

One of you owns a business

This is the most common reason people write one, and the situation where paying a lawyer most often earns its money back. The questions are whether your partner ends up with a claim on the company, and whether growth during the marriage counts as marital. Valuing a business and deciding what happens to its increase is not something a questionnaire does well.

This is a second marriage

Usually the goal is keeping things clear for children from the first marriage, so that what you intend for them does not depend on default rules or a judge's read. It is also the situation where couples most often have done this before, know what they want, and find the conversation easier than they feared.

One of you will stay home

This one cuts toward the partner giving something up, not away from them. An agreement that leaves the at-home partner with nothing is both unfair and among the most likely to be thrown out, because courts look hard at agreements that produce a destitute spouse. Sunset clauses, which expire the agreement after a set number of years, and support floors exist precisely for this.

There is family money coming

Inheritance is usually separate property already, which surprises people who assume they need an agreement to protect it. Usually. What people get wrong is what happens after it arrives: money that lands in a joint account, or pays down a shared mortgage, can stop being separate without anyone deciding it should. That is the part worth writing down.

Where to start

If you are not sure you need one at all, start with the question. It will tell you no if the answer is no. If you know you want one and need the number, the estimator takes about a minute.

Whatever you decide, have the money conversation first. Most of the value here is not the document. It is the hour where two adults say out loud what they own, what they owe, and what they expect. Couples who do that often find they need less paperwork than they feared.