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 Ohio, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a estate planning / probate in Ohio costs on average $2,050, typically $1,000-$3,100 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $160 to $325 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 | $300 | $550 | $900 | 1-2 weeks |
| Moderate | $1,000 | $2,050 | $3,100 | 2-6 weeks |
| Complex | $2,900 | $5,800 | $9,700 | 1-3 months |
Last verified: June 2026
$160 – $325/ hour
Median: $255/hr
2-6 weeks
For moderate complexity cases
New to how attorney fees work? Read the legal fees guide — hourly, flat, and contingency billing explained.
Researching costs in another area? These free tools from our network may help.
Add this calculator to your own site with a copy-paste snippet — includes an attribution link back to this page.
<iframe
id="legalcostcalc-embed"
src="https://legalcostcalc.co/embed/ohio/estate-planning-cost"
title="Ohio Estate Planning / Probate Cost Calculator"
width="100%"
height="720"
style="border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:8px;max-width:768px;"
loading="lazy"
></iframe>
<p style="font-size:12px;text-align:center;">
<a href="https://legalcostcalc.co/ohio/estate-planning-cost?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=embed_snippet" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow ugc">
Powered by LegalCostCalc
</a>
</p>
<script>
window.addEventListener("message", function (event) {
if (!event.data || event.data.type !== "legalcostcalc:embed-resize") return;
var frame = document.getElementById("legalcostcalc-embed");
if (frame && typeof event.data.height === "number") {
frame.style.height = event.data.height + "px";
}
});
</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 Ohio. The recorded median total is $2,050, with reported quotes clustering between $1,000 and $3,100. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $310–$925, which leaves roughly $1,125–$1,740 of the Ohio median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes.
At $2,050, the median estate planning / probate cost in Ohio runs 5% above the $1,954 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Ohio carries 3 rows — simple, $300–$900 at $140–$255/hr over 1-2 weeks; moderate, $1,000–$3,100 at $160–$325/hr over 2-6 weeks; complex, $2,900–$9,700 at $230–$440/hr over 1-3 months — on 4 shared citations. They put it below the midpoint of the table without reaching the bottom quarter.
$2,050 is a median, not the middle of the band — $1,050 above the $1,000 floor, $1,050 under the $3,100 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 46.
Ohio occupies the 25th row of 46 for a estate planning / probate. Its $2,050 median trails the $2,075 table midpoint by $25, which is 1% — close enough that a single firm's quote can straddle both figures.
Georgia ($2,050) and Minnesota ($2,000) bracket Ohio inside a $50 window — narrow enough that 25th is close to arbitrary.
7 tracked states — Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Wisconsin among them — record a median within three percent of Ohio's $2,050. 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 Ohio is 30th of 46 at $255 an hour, 5 places behind its 25th position on total cost.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Ohio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Virginia | $2,150 | +$100 |
| 20 | Maryland | $2,100 | +$50 |
| 21 | Nevada | $2,100 | +$50 |
| 22 | Utah | $2,100 | +$50 |
| 23 | Wisconsin | $2,100 | +$50 |
| 24 | Georgia | $2,050 | −$0 |
| 25 | Ohio | $2,050 | — |
| 26 | Minnesota | $2,000 | −$50 |
| 27 | Pennsylvania | $2,000 | −$50 |
| 28 | Indiana | $1,950 | −$100 |
| 29 | Oregon | $1,950 | −$100 |
| 30 | Wyoming | $1,900 | −$150 |
| 31 | Florida | $1,850 | −$200 |
Within ten percent of the Ohio figure there are 14 states above and only 8 below. $0 up or $50 down moves Ohio a row, which means the ranking has far more room to improve than to slip: the estate planning / probate field is dense overhead and sparse underneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Wisconsin, Georgia and adding $50 to the $2,050 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Oregon, Wyoming: $150.
$550 short of Hawaii ($2,600), $700 clear of Alabama ($1,350).
The $2,050 median covers only about 8 hours at the $255 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. The peer median is 7 hours, so 1 more hours of work sit behind the Ohio figure than behind the typical state's.
Moving from a simple to a complex estate planning / probate multiplies the Ohio total by 10.5, and almost all of that is hours rather than price: 3 hours at $185 becomes 18 hours at $325, so the workload grows 6x while the rate grows only 1.76x. Complexity here buys attorney time, not a premium hourly rate.
From $1,000 to $3,100 the moderate band is $2,100 wide, close to the $2,050 peer median. End to end that is 8 hours at $255.
A third ordering: by implied hours Ohio is 1st of 46 at 8 hours, 24 places above its cost rank of 25th on cost — more work behind the same estate planning / probate money.
51% up the $1,000–$3,100 band sits the $2,075 table midpoint, buying 8 hours at $255 against the 8 the local estate planning / probate median implies — 0 hours apart.
| Measure | Ohio | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $2,050 | 25th |
| Hourly median | $255 | 30th |
| Implied hours | 8 | 1st |
| Simple median | $550 | 32nd |
| Complex median | $5,800 | 26th |
$255 an hour puts Ohio between Georgia ($260) and Wyoming ($250) — not the estate planning / probate cost pairing.
No other tracked state records $255 as its median rate, so the figure identifies Ohio on its own within this dataset.
$2,050 buys 11 hours at $185, 8 at $255, 6 at $325.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | Florida | $265 |
| 29 | Georgia | $260 |
| 30 | Ohio | $255 |
| 31 | Wyoming | $250 |
| 32 | Idaho | $245 |
Ohio moves up the table as complexity rises: 32nd at the simple tier, 25th at moderate, 26th at complex, a 6-place climb. The state's position on the headline moderate figure understates where it sits once a matter is contested.
$550 is 32nd of 46 on a straightforward estate planning / probate, under North Dakota ($550) and over Wisconsin ($550), $75 under the $625 tier midpoint.
$5,800 is 26th of 46 once contested, between Iowa ($5,800) and Georgia ($5,750), $100 off the $5,900 tier midpoint.
$100 separates the simple ceiling of $900 from the moderate floor of $1,000, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $2,900 upward. The expensive end of a routine estate planning / probate and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in Ohio.
| Tier | Ohio | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $550 | 32nd | $625 | 3 |
| moderate | $2,050 | 25th | $2,075 | 8 |
| complex | $5,800 | 26th | $5,900 | 18 |
$550 drops Ohio to 32nd of 46 on straightforward matters, 7 below its moderate position and $75 (12%) under the $625 tier midpoint.
3 implied hours at $185: 38% of the moderate tier's 8, over 1-2 weeks.
North Dakota ($550) and Wisconsin ($550) bracket it — a $0 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $550 here, against 7 at the moderate row.
$5,800 drops Ohio to 26th of 46 on contested matters, 1 below its moderate position and $100 (2%) under the $5,900 tier midpoint.
18 implied hours at $325: 225% of the moderate tier's 8, over 1-3 months.
Iowa ($5,800) and Georgia ($5,750) bracket it — a $50 window.
10 states record a complex-tier median within three percent of $5,800, denser than the 7 around the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | Nevada | $550 |
| 31 | North Dakota | $550 |
| 32 | Ohio | $550 |
| 33 | Wisconsin | $550 |
| 34 | Idaho | $500 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | Pennsylvania | $5,900 |
| 25 | Iowa | $5,800 |
| 26 | Ohio | $5,800 |
| 27 | Georgia | $5,750 |
| 28 | Utah | $5,750 |
In Ohio a estate planning / probate is 7th of 8 at $2,050, between Bankruptcy and Real Estate Closing. At 23% of Criminal Defense ($9,050).
Across practice areas Ohio ranges from 25th of 46 for Estate Planning / Probate to 35th for Real Estate Closing — a 10-place spread, with its 25th on estate planning / probate inside it.
Ohio is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, Estate Planning / Probate runs 1% below its own midpoint while Real Estate Closing runs 15% below its own midpoint — a 14-point spread between the extremes.
The largest tracked median in Ohio is 4.8x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
0 of 7 matter types rank Ohio in the upper third, 1 in the lower, 6 between; estate planning / probate is 25th.
In percentile terms it sits at the 47th percentile of the 46 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,200 | $9,050 | $25,500 | 32 | 32nd | −11% | Florida |
| Divorce | $2,850 | $8,000 | $19,100 | 29 | 32nd | −6% | Florida |
| DUI / DWI | $3,300 | $6,850 | $16,700 | 27 | 33rd | −8% | Idaho |
| Personal Injury | $1,400 | $4,700 | $13,450 | — | — | −10% | — |
| Immigration | $1,850 | $4,400 | $9,900 | 17 | 31st | −7% | Missouri |
| Bankruptcy | $1,500 | $3,500 | $4,500 | 15 | 26th | −3% | Oregon |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $550 | $2,050 | $5,800 | 8 | 25th | −1% | Georgia |
| Real Estate Closing | $900 | $1,900 | $3,800 | 8 | 35th | −15% | Mississippi |
Simple tier. $550 ÷ $185 = about 3 hours — 5 fewer than the moderate tier's 8, and $1,500 less.
Work against price. $2,050 to $5,800 is a $3,750 step, mostly work: 10 more hours at $255 is $2,550, while moving to $325 across 18 hours adds $1,260. Work carries 67%.
Borrowing the wrong row. Budgeting from Minnesota ($2,000) lands $50 under Ohio; from Georgia ($2,050), $0 over; from the $2,075 table midpoint, $25 out.
Contested against simple. At Ohio's own recorded figures, $5,800 buys 10.5 matters at the $550 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 Ohiocourt'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.