This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for estate planning / probate in Massachusetts, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a estate planning / probate in Massachusetts costs on average $2,350, typically $1,200-$3,600 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $200 to $405 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 2-6 weeks to resolve. Common related costs include notarization fees ($10-$25) and trust registration fee ($50-$200).
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $350 | $750 | $1,200 | 1-2 weeks |
| Moderate | $1,200 | $2,350 | $3,600 | 2-6 weeks |
| Complex | $3,600 | $7,200 | $12,000 | 1-3 months |
Last verified: June 2026
$200 – $405/ hour
Median: $315/hr
2-6 weeks
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Estate planning and probate cost formation depends on which side of death the work happens on. Planning documents drafted while someone is alive — a will, a revocable living trust, powers of attorney — are usually flat-fee, priced by document complexity and whether a trust (which avoids probate but requires more drafting) is involved rather than a simple will alone. Probate, which happens after death when an estate moves through court, is billed differently: often hourly or as a percentage of the estate's value, and its cost tracks estate size and how many beneficiaries or disputes are involved.
The biggest cost driver in probate specifically is whether the estate is contested. An estate with a clear will, cooperative beneficiaries, and no significant debts moves through simple probate with predictable court filing fees, executor fees, and appraisal costs. A contested estate — disputed will validity, disagreements among heirs, or complex assets like a business — adds litigation-style hourly billing on top of the base probate costs, which is why complex-case figures on this page run substantially above the simple-case median.
Take a moderate-complexity estate planning / probate matter in Massachusetts. The recorded median total is $2,350, with reported quotes clustering between $1,200 and $3,600. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $310–$925, which leaves roughly $1,425–$2,040 of the Massachusetts median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes.
At $2,350, the median estate planning / probate cost in Massachusetts runs 20% above the $1,954 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Massachusetts carries 3 rows — simple, $350–$1,200 at $175–$315/hr over 1-2 weeks; moderate, $1,200–$3,600 at $200–$405/hr over 2-6 weeks; complex, $3,600–$12,000 at $290–$545/hr over 1-3 months — on 4 shared citations. Those figures put it in the top quarter of the table.
$2,350 is a median, not the middle of the band — $1,150 above the $1,200 floor, $1,250 under the $3,600 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 46.
Massachusetts ranks 6th of 46 tracked states for a estate planning / probate, inside the highest-cost quarter of the table. The gap to the $2,075 midpoint is $275 — 13% — and only 5 states record a higher median.
In the estate planning / probate table Massachusetts falls between Connecticut at $2,300 and Vermont at $2,400, $50 above the first and $50 below the second.
5 tracked states — District of Columbia, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey among them — record a median within three percent of Massachusetts's $2,350. The figure sits in the densest part of the estate planning / probate distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
On hourly rate alone Massachusetts is 11th of 46 at $315 an hour, 5 places behind its 6th position on total cost.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Massachusetts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | $2,600 | +$250 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | $2,550 | +$200 |
| 3 | Alaska | $2,450 | +$100 |
| 4 | District of Columbia | $2,400 | +$50 |
| 5 | Vermont | $2,400 | +$50 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | $2,350 | — |
| 7 | Connecticut | $2,300 | −$50 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $2,300 | −$50 |
| 9 | Rhode Island | $2,300 | −$50 |
| 10 | New York | $2,250 | −$100 |
| 11 | Illinois | $2,200 | −$150 |
| 12 | Texas | $2,200 | −$150 |
The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 13 below Massachusetts against 4 above. $50 up or $50 down moves Massachusetts a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 6th position is propped up by a thin estate planning / probate field above it and a crowded one beneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Hawaii, New Hampshire, Alaska, District of Columbia, Vermont and adding $250 to the $2,350 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Illinois: $150.
$250 short of Hawaii ($2,600), $1,000 clear of Alabama ($1,350).
The $2,350 median covers only about 7 hours at the $315 median rate, which is short enough that flat-fee and limited-scope arrangements, rather than an hourly meter, tend to describe how the work is actually billed. That rounds to the same 7 hours as the peer median, so on workload Massachusetts is indistinguishable from the middle of the table at this precision.
Moving from a simple to a complex estate planning / probate multiplies the Massachusetts total by 9.6, and almost all of that is hours rather than price: 3 hours at $230 becomes 18 hours at $405, so the workload grows 6x while the rate grows only 1.76x. Complexity here buys attorney time, not a premium hourly rate.
In dollars the Massachusetts moderate band is wide: $1,200 to $3,600, a $2,400 range, $350 wider than the peer-median band of $2,050. End to end that is 8 hours at $315.
By implied hours Massachusetts falls to 17th of 46 at 7 hours, 11 places below its 6th on cost — the estate planning / probate total arriving on less recorded work.
36% up the $1,200–$3,600 band sits the $2,075 table midpoint, buying 7 hours at $315 against the 7 the local estate planning / probate median implies — 0 hours apart.
| Measure | Massachusetts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $2,350 | 6th |
| Hourly median | $315 | 11th |
| Implied hours | 7 | 17th |
| Simple median | $750 | 5th |
| Complex median | $7,200 | 7th |
$315 an hour puts Massachusetts between Maryland ($315) and Vermont ($315) — not the estate planning / probate cost pairing.
4 other states record exactly $315 — District of Columbia, Maryland, Vermont, Virginia among them — so rate is a coarse instrument in this estate planning / probate table.
$2,350 buys 10 hours at $230, 7 at $315, 6 at $405.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | District of Columbia | $315 |
| 10 | Maryland | $315 |
| 11 | Massachusetts | $315 |
| 12 | Vermont | $315 |
| 13 | Virginia | $315 |
The ranking barely moves across tiers — 5th at the simple tier, 6th at moderate, 7th at complex of 46 — so Massachusetts keeps roughly the same relative position whether the estate planning / probate is straightforward or contested.
$750 is 5th of 46 on a straightforward estate planning / probate, under Hawaii ($750) and over New Hampshire ($750), $125 over the $625 tier midpoint.
$7,200 is 7th of 46 once contested, between Connecticut ($7,300) and New Jersey ($7,150), $1,300 off the $5,900 tier midpoint.
The three bands are continuous in Massachusetts: the simple tier reaches $1,200 where the moderate tier starts at $1,200, and the moderate tier reaches $3,600 where the complex tier starts at $3,600. A single quoted figure can therefore belong to two different tiers, and the tier label — not the number — is what identifies which.
| Tier | Massachusetts | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $750 | 5th | $625 | 3 |
| moderate | $2,350 | 6th | $2,075 | 7 |
| complex | $7,200 | 7th | $5,900 | 18 |
$750 puts Massachusetts 5th of 46 on straightforward matters, 1 up on its moderate position, and $125 (20%) over the $625 tier midpoint.
3 implied hours at $230: 43% of the moderate tier's 7, over 1-2 weeks.
Hawaii ($750) and New Hampshire ($750) bracket it — a $0 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $750 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
$7,200 drops Massachusetts to 7th of 46 on contested matters, 1 below its moderate position and $1,300 (22%) over the $5,900 tier midpoint.
18 implied hours at $405: 257% of the moderate tier's 7, over 1-3 months.
Connecticut ($7,300) and New Jersey ($7,150) bracket it — a $150 window.
7 states record a complex-tier median within three percent of $7,200, denser than the 5 around the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Delaware | $750 |
| 4 | Hawaii | $750 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | $750 |
| 6 | New Hampshire | $750 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | $700 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Washington | $7,400 |
| 6 | Connecticut | $7,300 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | $7,200 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $7,150 |
| 9 | Delaware | $7,100 |
Among the 8 matter types tracked in Massachusetts, a estate planning / probate records the smallest median at $2,350, below Real Estate Closing on the line above.
The state does not rank uniformly. Massachusetts is 2nd of 46 for Bankruptcy but 18th for Criminal Defense, a 16-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 6th on estate planning / probate says little about what the other lines cost.
The spread across practice areas is wide. Divorce runs 25% above its own midpoint, while Personal Injury runs 2% above its own midpoint — 23 percentage points apart. A single "Massachusetts is expensive" or "Massachusetts is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.
The practice areas sit unusually close together in Massachusetts — the largest tracked median is 4.6x the smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state — so one figure travels further across matter types here than it would elsewhere.
7 of 8 matter types rank Massachusetts in the upper third, 0 in the lower, 1 between; estate planning / probate is 6th.
In percentile terms it sits at the 89th percentile of the 46 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $4,050 | $10,800 | $34,850 | 31 | 18th | +6% | Maine |
| Divorce | $3,700 | $10,700 | $24,050 | 31 | 5th | +25% | Virginia |
| DUI / DWI | $4,150 | $8,050 | $18,450 | 26 | 17th | +8% | Vermont |
| Immigration | $2,200 | $5,700 | $12,000 | 18 | 13th | +20% | Illinois |
| Personal Injury | $1,850 | $5,300 | $16,400 | — | 13th | +2% | Colorado |
| Bankruptcy | $1,650 | $4,400 | $6,200 | 15 | 2nd | +22% | Hawaii |
| Real Estate Closing | $1,200 | $2,650 | $4,750 | 9 | 7th | +19% | California |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $750 | $2,350 | $7,200 | 7 | 6th | +13% | Vermont |
Simple tier. $750 ÷ $230 = about 3 hours — 4 fewer than the moderate tier's 7, and $1,600 less.
Work against price. $2,350 to $7,200 is a $4,850 step, mostly work: 11 more hours at $315 is $3,465, while moving to $405 across 18 hours adds $1,620. Work carries 68%.
Borrowing the wrong row. Connecticut ($2,300) is $50 light, Vermont ($2,400) is $50 heavy — but the $2,075 table midpoint is out by $275, 6x the neighbour error.
Contested against simple. At Massachusetts's own recorded figures, $7,200 buys 9.6 matters at the $750 simple median — or, counted in time, 18 implied hours against 3, a factor of 6 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the Massachusettscourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.