The Casket Markup Calculator
The casket is the single most marked-up thing your family will ever buy: a box that costs the funeral home $800 routinely sells for $3,500, ten feet from where you sign. Pick the casket they’re showing you and see all three prices.
And here’s the part they mention quietly, if at all: federal law says you can buy the same box online and they must use it. No fee, no fuss, no being present for delivery.
Death hack #2
Price the box
Funeral home showroom
$3,100
Costco / Titan online price, delivered
$1,699
Same quality tier, shipped direct to the funeral home in days.
The math
Buying the same box online keeps $1,401 with your family, and federal law says the funeral home must use it, fee-free. (For what it’s worth, the box cost them about $800 wholesale. That showroom price is a ~288% markup.)
What $1,401 could do instead
7 years of fresh flowers on the grave, every month
Figures from our sample of published funeral home casket price lists across seven states, plus Costco/Titan retail listings and industry wholesale reporting. Your showroom will vary. The destination does not.
Your federally guaranteed casket rights
All of this is the FTC Funeral Rule (16 CFR Part 453), in force since 1984. Funeral homes have paid six-figure penalties for breaking it.
They must accept your casket
Any casket, from any seller: Costco, Titan, Amazon, a local carpenter. The funeral home cannot refuse it or require you to be there when it arrives.
Zero handling fee
No “inspection fee,” no “storage fee,” no “third-party casket surcharge.” Charging one is a federal violation.
They can't require a casket for cremation at all
For a cremation, you're entitled to an inexpensive alternative container. Nobody needs a sealed steel casket to be cremated in.
“Protective” caskets protect the price, not the person
The FTC bars funeral providers from claiming any casket preserves a body indefinitely, because none does. The gasket is a $1,100 rubber ring.
Why the showroom works on you
Casket showrooms are laid out like jewelry stores for a reason: you’re grieving, you’re on a deadline, and spending feels like loving. The industry knows the guilt math better than you do. The counter-move is simple: decide what the box needs to do (be dignified for a day), buy that, and spend the difference on the living, or on a memorial that actually lasts.
If you skip burial entirely, the casket question mostly disappears: a direct cremation needs only a simple container, and it’s the lowest-cost option in every state.
How the numbers work
Funeral home figures come from our sample of published casket price lists from funeral homes in Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Texas, Washington and California, cross-checked against the NFDA’s published median for a metal casket (about $2,500). The sample’s own headline: the same 18-gauge gasketed steel casket sells for $1,800 at one funeral home and $5,595 at another. Retail figures are current delivered prices for equivalent-quality caskets from Costco (from $999) and Titan Casket (from $1,199). Wholesale figures reflect industry reporting of 300–500% casket markups (PIRG and funeral trade consultancies). Every showroom differs; the markup structure doesn’t.
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