Best Digital Legacy Planning Tools in 2026: Full Comparison

Every major tech company now has a plan for what happens to your account when you die. Most families don’t know these features exist until it’s too late, and even when they do, Google, Apple, and Facebook only cover their own walled gardens.

That gap is why a small industry of digital legacy planning tools has grown up around it - and why at least one well-known name in the space, Cake, shut down user access entirely in June 2025. Choosing the wrong tool doesn’t just cost you a subscription fee; it can mean your family loses access to everything the day they need it most.

Disclosure: I’m Akash, the developer behind Eternal Vault, one of the tools reviewed below. I’ve tried to review every tool here honestly, including where competitors do something better than we do. Verify pricing and features directly with each vendor before you commit, since this market moves fast.

Quick answer: best digital legacy tool by use case

Use case	Pick	Why
Best overall (encryption + access control)	Eternal Vault	Zero-knowledge encryption and Shamir’s Secret Sharing so no single party can unlock your vault alone
Best free option	MyWishes	Fully free digital legacy and goodbye-message planning, no paywall
Best for families managing shared household info	Trustworthy	Built specifically as a shared “family operating system” for documents, not just a solo vault
Best built-in/free (single ecosystem)	Apple Legacy Contact	No extra app, works with data you already store in iCloud
Best for simple document sharing + legal documents bundled	GoodTrust	Combines a digital vault with will, trust, and POA document generation

Now the details, so you can see how these picks were made.

Eternal Vault

Eternal Vault is a client-side encrypted vault built around the idea that your legacy data shouldn’t depend on any one company - or any single trusted person - being able to unlock it alone.

What it does: Documents are encrypted in your browser before upload, so the master key never leaves your device (you can also link Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box if you’d rather bring your own storage). To release access, Eternal Vault uses Shamir’s Secret Sharing to split the recovery key among your verified trusted contacts, so no single contact - and no Eternal Vault employee - can unlock your vault unilaterally. Release is triggered by an inactivity check-in system (manual check-ins, API pings, or Google Fit activity) with a configurable Inactivity Threshold, plus a Practice Run mode so you can test the whole flow without actually triggering a release, and a recovery window if a check-in was missed by accident.

Pricing: Free plan available; paid Individual and Family plans billed monthly or as a one-time lifetime purchase. See the pricing page for current tiers.

Strengths: Zero-knowledge encryption model, multi-party unlock instead of single-point release, flexible check-in methods, identity verification for trusted contacts, and bring-your-own-storage if you don’t want documents on our servers.

Limitations: No built-in will or trust document generator - it’s a vault and access-control system, not a legal-document service. Newer to the market than Everplans or GoodTrust, so it has less brand recognition. Read more about the encryption model.

Everplans

Everplans is one of the longest-running names in this category, organizing estate information into sections covering financial, legal, health, digital, and property information.

What it does: A digital vault split into nine categories where you document account details, funeral wishes, passwords, and important documents, then share access with chosen “deputies.”

Pricing: $99.99/year, single plan, with a 60-day free trial (Everplans pricing page).

Strengths: Mature product, comprehensive checklist-style guidance for what to document, strong content library for planning topics.

Limitations: Single pricing tier means you pay full price whether you need family sharing or not, and access to deputies is admin-controlled rather than using cryptographic multi-party release. For a deeper look at how the two differ, see our Eternal Vault vs Everplans comparison.

GoodTrust

GoodTrust pairs a digital vault with actual legal document creation - wills, trusts, and power of attorney - in one subscription.

What it does: The Estate+ plan bundles a revocable living trust, last will and testament, financial power of attorney, advance healthcare directive, funeral directive, pet directive, and a “Smart Digital Vault” for online accounts and device access, with up to four complimentary family accounts.

Pricing: $149 for the first year (unlimited updates), then $39/year to keep editing documents afterward, per GoodTrust’s support documentation.

Strengths: Genuinely useful if you want legal documents and a digital vault from the same vendor, family accounts included at no extra cost in year one.

Limitations: Renewal pricing structure (steep first-year cost, cheaper maintenance fee after) means you should read the fine print on what “unlimited updates” actually covers after year one. See our full Eternal Vault vs GoodTrust comparison for a deeper look.

Trustworthy

Trustworthy markets itself as a “Family Operating System” - built less around solo end-of-life planning and more around ongoing household document management that happens to include legacy access.

What it does: Centralizes IDs, financial accounts, property records, insurance, tax documents, and passwords for a household, with the ability to share categories with family members or advisors while you’re alive, and pass them on when you’re not.

Pricing: Plans starting around $120/year, with tiered options for higher-net-worth households, per Trustworthy’s pricing page.

Strengths: Genuinely designed for multi-person households rather than a single user, SOC2/HIPAA-aligned security claims, useful even day-to-day (not just after death).

Limitations: Pricing scales up quickly for premium tiers aimed at complex estates, and it’s positioned more as a family document hub than a pure legacy-release system. We break down the differences in Eternal Vault vs Trustworthy.

Clocr

Clocr focuses on an “Emergency Vault” concept - fast access for emergency contacts and first responders, alongside longer-term digital legacy and estate tools.

What it does: Combines an emergency vault, a patent-pending “Emergency Card” for first responders, crypto/NFT asset tracking, a family time capsule, and a digital executor service.

Pricing: Free 14-day trial, then $59.99/year.

Strengths: Lower price point than most competitors, useful emergency-access angle beyond just after-death planning, covers newer asset types like crypto.

Limitations: Smaller company with less track record than Everplans or GoodTrust; verify current feature availability directly since some listed tools are still patent-pending.

MyWishes

MyWishes is a UK-based, genuinely free platform covering digital legacy planning, a “Digital & Social Media Will,” goodbye messages, and advance care planning.

What it does: Lets you catalog accounts into a printable digital and social media will, schedule goodbye messages for future delivery, and separately supports free will-writing and funeral planning tools.

Pricing: Free, described by MyWishes as a “tech for good” service.

Strengths: Zero cost is hard to beat, useful goodbye-message feature not common among competitors, backed by the UK’s Digital Legacy Association.

Limitations: Free services depend entirely on continued funding/sponsorship, so there’s no guarantee of long-term availability - the same risk that hit Cake. Interface and legal-document relevance skew toward UK users.

Cake (discontinued - a cautionary tale)

Cake was one of the most-recommended free end-of-life planning apps for years. It was acquired by Foundation Partners Group and folded into the Altogether funeral platform. As of June 15, 2025, all Cake login access and shared links were deactivated, and remaining user data was scheduled for deletion.

This is worth including specifically because it’s the clearest real-world example of the shutdown risk every digital legacy tool carries. If you had documents or plans stored exclusively in Cake and didn’t export them before the cutoff, that information is gone. It’s a strong argument for choosing tools that let you export your data at any time, or that use client-side encryption you control independent of the vendor’s continued operation.

Free built-in options

If you don’t want a separate subscription, the big platforms you already use have basic legacy tools built in. I covered these in detail in Google vs Apple vs Facebook: Digital Legacy Features Compared, but the short version:

• Google Inactive Account Manager: Set a timeout of 3, 6, 12, or 18 months of inactivity. Google emails reminders first, then shares selected data (Gmail, Photos, Drive, YouTube, and more) with up to 10 trusted contacts, or deletes the account. Free, covers only Google services.
• Apple Legacy Contact: Designate up to five people who can request access to iCloud photos, notes, messages, files, and device backups after you die, using an access key plus a death certificate. Free, covers only Apple/iCloud data, and excludes purchased media and Keychain-stored passwords.
• Facebook Legacy Contact: After an account is memorialized, your legacy contact can pin a tribute post, moderate tagged content, and manage the memorial page - but cannot log in, read messages, or post as you. Free, covers only Facebook.

None of these talk to each other. If your family needs to piece together your Google account, your iCloud account, your Facebook memorial, your bank logins, and your insurance policy, they’re doing it across four or five separate free tools with four or five separate verification processes.

Password manager emergency access

If you already pay for a password manager, check whether it includes emergency access before buying a separate legacy tool just for passwords.

• 1Password Emergency Kit: Families plan runs about $71.88/year for up to five users. The Emergency Kit is a downloadable PDF containing your Secret Key, and the family plan admin can help locked-out members regain vault access.
• Bitwarden Emergency Access: Included with Bitwarden Premium (around $19.80/year). You appoint an emergency contact with either read-only “view” access or full “takeover” access, granted via public-key encryption after a waiting period you control. Contacts receiving access don’t need their own Premium subscription.

These are worth having, but they solve one problem: password access. They don’t cover instructions, physical document locations, or non-password accounts your family needs to find in the first place.

How to choose: the criteria that actually matter

Feature checklists in this category all start to look similar after a while. These four questions cut through the noise.

1. What’s the encryption model? Ask specifically whether the vendor can read your data. “Encrypted” alone doesn’t tell you much - AES-256 at rest is standard, but if the company holds the decryption key, they (or anyone who compromises their systems) can technically access your vault. Zero-knowledge, client-side encryption means the key never leaves your device, so even the vendor can’t open your vault.

2. What actually triggers release? Some tools release data the moment one person clicks a button and uploads a death certificate. Others require a waiting period, multiple confirmations, or a check-in system that first tries to rule out a false alarm (a missed vacation, a broken phone) before anything unlocks. A system with no verification step is easy to abuse; a system with no recovery path for false alarms will eventually lock out a living user by mistake.

3. What does this cost over 10+ years, not just year one? GoodTrust’s $149 first year drops to $39/year after - a very different number than the sticker price suggests. Everplans and Trustworthy are flat annual fees. Run the 10-year math before comparing headline prices.

4. What happens if the company shuts down? Cake answered this question for the whole industry in June 2025: user access simply ended. Before trusting a vendor with information your family will need someday, confirm you can export your data on demand, and understand whether your access depends on the vendor staying solvent or on encryption you control independently.

If you’re not sure how exposed your own digital footprint currently is, our free digital legacy assessment walks through what accounts and documents you likely need to plan for before you pick a tool.

Bottom line

No single tool wins every category. The free built-in options from Google, Apple, and Facebook are worth turning on today regardless of what else you choose, since they take ten minutes and cost nothing. For anything beyond a single ecosystem - banking, insurance, instructions, and documents your family will actually need in the first 48 hours - you want a dedicated vault with clear answers to the four questions above.

If zero-knowledge encryption and a release process that doesn’t depend on trusting one company (or one relative) alone is what you’re after, that’s exactly what we built Eternal Vault to do. You can start a free account and set up your first trusted contact in about fifteen minutes.