(Image credit: Getty Images)
Estate planning can be a complex process during which professionals collaborate to achieve their clients’ goals.
Financial advisers and wealth managers sit at this table, working with lawyers, tax accountants, trust officers, insurance specialists and real estate professionals, among others.
However, financial advisers can get more involved in estate plan preparation and analysis — providing more value to clients, forging a deeper relationship with them and increasing revenue — with the help of modern estate planning tools.
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more – straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice – straight to your e-mail.
These tools can help create estate plan documents (wills, trusts, powers of attorney, etc.), centralize financial documents, analyze existing estate plans, provide personalized insights, automate repetitive tasks and integrate tax planning strategies.
There are so many of these tools on the market, financial advisers often struggle to choose the best one. In this article, I compare four pieces of estate planning software that I believe may offer particularly good value.
1. EncorEstate Plans
EncorEstate Plans combines estate document creation and trust funding in one platform and helps financial advisers integrate estate planning into client services. It’s best for clients who requires basic to complex estate planning.
Key features:
- Trust funding. EncorEstate Plans has a trust funding service that allows advisers to transfer ownership of assets into the trusts they create on behalf of their clients.
- Human review and trusted guidance. Every estate plan goes through a 60-point quality review by an estate planning professional. EncorEstate Plan’s back office also includes paralegals and attorneys who can provide trusted guidance.
- Flexible pricing. Advisers can pay for each plan or opt for a subscription-based model, if you have a larger clientele, for example.
- Custom documents. When required, advisers can create custom documents, such as restatements, QDOT language and Special Needs Trust provisions.
2. Vanilla
Vanilla is an estate planning platform designed for financial advisers with clients who require basic to complex estate planning services. It uses AI-powered tools to help create comprehensive plans.
Key features:
- Comprehensive estate planning. Vanilla covers various components of the estate planning process, including document creation, balance sheet analysis, tax projections and tax planning.
- Dynamic estate planning. Advisers can create comprehensive plans for all types of clients, from individuals with simple estates to high-net-worth individuals with more complex estates.
- Visually appealing dashboards. One of the unique selling points of Vanilla is its intuitive and visually appealing dashboards and polished deliverables.
- Branded tools. Advisers can include their branded identities when sending customized reports to clients, helping to increase their perceived value.
Wealth.com is an estate planning platform for financial advisers that helps them manage the process for mass affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Key features:
- Flexibility. Financial advisers can create estate plans for a wide variety of clients, from mass affluent to ultra-high-net-worth clients.
- Scenario builder. Advisers can visualize how tax liabilities and estate distributions change when a component of the current plan varies.
- Dynamic visuals. The platform provides visually appealing charts and documents that clients will love to read.
- Insights from existing documents. Ester, Wealth.com’s AI tool, can analyze existing estate plans and provide recommendations and insights for improvement.
4. FP Alpha
FP Alpha is a financial planning tool that evaluates estate plans, tax returns and insurance policies. It provides AI-powered insights (opportunities, gaps and risks) that advisers can share with their clients.
FP Alpha is therefore ideal for advisers whose clients already have estate plans prepared, either by themselves or other professionals.
Key features:
- Customized deliverables. FP Alpha’s AI agent will summarize various estate plans into an Estate Snapshot that will be the basis of advisers’ client communications.
- Scenario building. The Estate Planning Lab shows how clients’ estate plans will change if they implement the insights recommended by the AI agent.
- Holistic financial planning. Advisers can also use FP Alpha for tax planning, insurance planning and prospecting, making it an all-in-one platform.
These four tools help advisers expand their assets under management (AUM) and build deeper relationships with clients by providing more value.
The following comparison can help advisers evaluate all the options and choose the one that fits best with their advisory business and clientele.
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
EncorEstate Plans |
Vanilla |
Wealth.com |
FP Alpha |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Level of automation |
Moderate: Combines automated document creation with human review |
High: AI-powered visuals and scenario models |
High: AI engine extracts and analyzes estate plans for personalized insights |
High: AI engine extracts and analyzes estate plans for personalized insights |
|
Level of customization and personalization |
High: Estate documents adapted to the complexity of the estate |
High: Customized and branded estate plans for all client types |
High: Optimized by jurisdiction |
High: Personalized insights based on estate plans and other financial documents |
|
Integration with other software |
Integrates with adviser workflows via the support team |
Integrates with wealth management platforms |
Integrates with adviser practices and vaults for document sharing |
Integrates with other financial planning software and enterprise dashboards |
|
Adviser satisfaction* |
8.0 |
7.1 |
7.5 |
8.3 |
|
Pricing or fees |
Subscription-based ($99/month for a pro plan, $149/month for a team plan, and an enterprise plan that can be negotiated) or pay-per-project model ($100-$650) |
Customized based on advisers’ needs |
Customized based on advisers’ needs |
$1,790/year for the estate planning module; $1,995/year for the all-in-one platform |
|
Key USP |
Back-office paralegal and attorney support; trust funding |
Scenario modelling |
AI engine for personalized insights |
AI engine for personalized insights |
|
Ease of implementation |
High |
Moderate |
Moderate |
High |
* Adviser satisfaction scores are based on The-Kitces-Report 2025
Financial advisers would do well to fully explore the technology available to them, thinking about best value and fit as they seek to provide clients with even greater benefits and support.
