For several years the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Finger Lakes (FCAFL) has surveyed funeral prices in its service area at 2-year intervals. The service area, centered on Tompkins County, includes parts of eight surrounding counties in the southern Finger Lakes region and adjacent Southern Tier.  A survey of the entire area is an intense project, given the time and energy expended to obtain General Price Lists (GPLs), and the level of detailed data extraction required to make the survey useful. (The parameters and format used in this report are those recommended by the National Funeral Consumers Alliance.) The amount of work involved depends directly on the number of funeral homes included in the survey. 

For the 2023 survey, prices for 14 types of services and two categories of merchandise were extracted from each price list. In addition, an index related to the price of a full-service funeral was compiled for each funeral home.  This Full-service funeral price index (last column in each table) provides the reader with a quick comparison of pricing levels at the various funeral homes. 

We urge anyone who will be responsible for planning and/or paying for disposition of human remains to request a General Price List from the funeral homes of interest, as part of becoming familiar with the services available and the costs of the many options.

Regardless of the county you live in, a funeral home is required to furnish a General Price List (GPL) upon request.  A phone call, or perhaps a personal visit to the funeral home, is all that is required to obtain a GPL.  By comparing the prices in a GPL obtained in any locality with the data given in our tables, an individual can extend the survey reported here to any funeral home of interest, thereby obtaining a meaningful evaluation of the level of pricing offered by a local funeral home.

The data are presented in two tables. The reported prices were in effect when price lists were submitted. The effective dates on these lists ranged from February 2019 to June 2023. However, a funeral business can change its prices at any time. Therefore, if you need to know current prices at any funeral home, call or visit that business.

Table 1 lists prices for the set of four limited services that each include a funeral home’s Basic Arrangements charge. These four services are direct cremation, direct or immediate burial, forwarding of remains from one funeral home to another, and receiving of remains by one funeral home from another. This table also shows prices of the cheapest casket and/or alternative container and the cheapest cemetery burial vault, as well as our full-service funeral price index for each funeral home. 

Important footnotes are listed at the end of the table.

Table 2 shows the Basic Arrangements charge at each funeral home, followed by the prices of some typical components of full-service funerals, and the full-service funeral price index. 

Important footnotes are listed at the end of the table.

Please do not ignore the footnotes following the tables!  They are intended to clarify situations that cannot be fully understood by simply listing dollar values.

The Full-Service Funeral Price Index is obtained by adding up the basic arrangements price and the prices of the next seven services (the next seven columns) listed in Table 2.  For reference, these eight items are also listed in footnote (h) of Table 1 and footnote (i) of Table 2.

Section 5 creates a context for interpreting the price survey by listing information on the changes in ownership of local funeral homes, offering comments on the results of the survey, and making important comparisons derived from the tables of price data.

The Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Finger Lakes is grateful to the funeral homes in Tompkins County for providing their General Price Lists in a timely manner.

For important additional information see: 

Additional Information About Funeral Home General Prices Lists