Best Online Estate Planning Software: How to Choose the Right Tools for What Your Clients Need

As a financial planner, you do more than manage portfolios—you build lifelong trust by guiding clients through some of their most important life decisions.

One of those key areas is estate planning, a natural extension of financial wellness.

As more financial clients seek affordable and accessible options, estate planning software has become an indispensable tool in your advisory toolbox.

But with a growing list of platforms claiming to add valuable estate planning tools to your practice, knowing what to look for can be a challenge, especially if estate planning has not been on your services list in the past.

The key is to evaluate each software solution not just on features, but on how seamlessly it integrates with your workflow, enhances client experience, and strengthens your value as a trusted advisor.

From document comprehensiveness and legal compliance to advisor dashboards and white-label capabilities, the best estate planning software should help you deliver deeper planning support while also maintaining efficiency and compliance.

Let’s break down the criteria that matter most when selecting estate planning software tailored to your advisory needs.

Why Estate Planning Software Is a Smart Addition to Your Practice

Let’s break down the criteria that matter most when selecting estate planning software tailored to your advisory needs.

Integrating estate planning tools into your advisory approach can:

Whether you help guide them toward an estate attorney or an online will maker, you can help your clients see the value in estate planning by having the right software in place once their documents are prepared.

Having such items as a living will, a revocable living trust, and an advance healthcare directive in place ensures that your clients’ intentions are clearly documented and are legally binding.

By offering software that organizes and centralizes these critical documents, you provide your clients with ongoing clarity and access, while positioning yourself as a comprehensive, life-centered advisor.

When clients see you proactively helping them address life’s “what ifs,” your value becomes irreplaceable.

From retirement savings to life insurance policies, estate planning conversations naturally lead to deeper, long-term discussions about how clients want their assets distributed, both during life and after. These discussions often go beyond wills and other documents and delve into their values, family dynamics, and legacy goals.

By engaging clients in estate planning, you open the door to more personal reflections that influence not just their future plans but their present financial decisions as well. This insight allows you to craft more intentional, values-aligned strategies that evolve alongside your clients’ lives.

By integrating estate planning into your financial planning firm, you give your clients a more complete, forward-thinking approach to managing their wealth.

You’re not just optimizing investments—you’re helping clients preserve what they’ve built, protect their families, and articulate their long-term wishes with clarity and confidence.

To support this, adaptable software for estate planning ensures that clients at any life stage receive tailored guidance that grows and evolves with their financial goals.

What to Look for in Estate Planning Software

For advisors who are looking to expand their advisory offerings and deliver greater holistic value to clients, choosing the right estate planning software is a strategic decision.

Choose software that provides secure, centralized storage for all estate planning documents, making it easy for you and your clients to access, update, and manage their estate plans over time.

Whether your client has used an estate planning attorney or one of the increasingly popular online will makers, having a way to keep all their estate planning documents organized in one secure location ensures consistency across their financial and legal plans.

Estate Reports:

Look for software that gives you the ability to quickly view and analyze a client’s last will, revocable living trusts, healthcare directives, a durable financial power of attorney, and other estate planning documents so you can quickly assess any gaps and/or inconsistencies in their overall estate plan. You can also use estate reports to give a client’s attorney access if and when additional legal assistance or attorney advice is needed.

Beneficiary Review Tools:

Great platforms include beneficiary tracking features such as real-time alerts for mismatched or outdated designations, visual summaries of beneficiary assignments across accounts, and indicators showing the last time each designation was reviewed or confirmed.

Being able to easily view all beneficiaries in one centralized dashboard empowers both you and your client to quickly identify inconsistencies and prioritize updates. It reduces the risk of costly oversights and helps ensure that beneficiary intentions are clearly and correctly reflected across the estate.

Asset Diagrams:

Visual estate mapping capabilities—like interactive diagrams or family flowcharts—can help clients better understand the distribution of their assets and clarify the impact of specific legal and financial structures.

From real estate and retirement accounts to life insurance policies and online accounts, visual diagrams can reveal how each asset flows through an estate plan.

This clarity is especially helpful for identifying gaps in beneficiary designations, simplifying complex ownership structures, and ensuring digital assets are accounted for.

Tax Calculation Tools:

Choose a platform that includes tax planning tools along with estate planning. Integrating these two areas allows you to deliver more precise and proactive strategies, particularly when it comes to minimizing estate taxes, capital gains, and inheritance liabilities.

The most robust platforms should also offer built-in calculators that project tax exposure under various scenarios, such as gifting strategies, trust structures, or generational transfers.

Integration with Other Financial Planning Tools:

Estate planning software should integrate with your overall financial planning platform.

Whether you’re pulling asset values from your portfolio management system, syncing contact information through your CRM, or cross-referencing tax scenarios, integration streamlines your process and enhances accuracy.

The goal is to put together a comprehensive suite of services so that your clients can have a seamless and unified financial planning experience.

Education Resources:

Strong estate planning software often comes with access to online and ongoing education tools that will help you stay up-to-date on the latest changes in estate planning laws, tax strategies, and planning best practices.

These resources might include webinars, legal updates, informational blogs, white papers, and other types of content you can easily absorb and share.

This continuing education not only sharpens your expertise—it reinforces your value to clients as a knowledgeable, forward-thinking advisor.

Using Estate Planning Software to Deepen Client Relationships

Successful financial planners know the importance of earning trust, offering holistic guidance, and staying ahead of life’s transitions.

Here’s how:

Facilitating Life Stage Check-ins:

Estate planning naturally aligns with milestones like marriage, parenthood, business growth, and retirement. By revisiting estate documents together, you open the door to timely, personal conversations that reinforce your value beyond investment management.

Promoting Family Involvement:

Some platforms enable clients to share documents with loved ones or designate collaborators, allowing you to help guide multi-generational planning. This encourages broader family engagement and positions you as a resource across generations.

Demonstrating Proactive Value:

Instead of waiting for clients to bring up their estate concerns, you can take the lead—showing initiative, foresight, and a genuine commitment to their long-term security. It’s a powerful way to stand out in a crowded market.

Supporting Emotional Conversations with Structure:

Discussing legacy, healthcare wishes, or end-of-life decisions can be difficult. Estate software offers a structured and non-threatening approach to introducing these topics and documenting them with clarity.

Reinforcing Your Advisory Role:

When you help clients understand how their estate plan aligns with their broader financial objectives—from taxes to charitable giving—you strengthen your position as a comprehensive, trusted advisor, rather than just someone who manages assets. While you may not be able to offer legal support, you can offer the structure, tools, and insight that guide clients in making informed decisions and staying organized.

Done well, estate planning becomes more than a compliance checklist—it becomes a cornerstone of lifelong financial partnership.

Future-Proof Your Estate Planning with Holistiplan

Today’s financial planners know that true value isn’t just in managing assets—it’s also in preparing clients for the entire journey of wealth, including the legacy they’ll one day leave behind.

Holistiplan is transforming how advisors approach estate conversations by providing an intuitive, powerful platform that brings clarity and structure to a traditionally complex process.

Estate Reports that consolidate key documents—including wills, trusts, healthcare directives, and POAs—into one organized snapshot.

Asset Diagrams that help visualize real-time distributions and show how changing values impact overall planning.

Beneficiary Reviews that make it simple to keep designations accurate and up-to-date across accounts.

Whether your client is planning their first legacy conversation or revisiting documents after a major life change, Holistiplan empowers you to support those moments with confidence, clarity, and care.

If you’re ready to upgrade your estate planning services, then come join more than 40,000 financial professionals who already use Holistiplan to deliver deeper value, streamline their workflows, and build lasting client relationships.

Reach out today and learn how!

To explore additional tools designed for scenario-based planning and client-specific needs, consider using estate planning case software, which can help simulate different legacy planning outcomes and improve advisory precision.