Understanding the Epilogue rating
Epilogue is the newest entrant to the online Wills market in Canada, out of all of the services in our review.
The major benefit of Epilogue is that the company was founded by two estate planning lawyers.
FormalWill is also founded by a lawyer, but Epilogue is much more open with their founders' profiles.
What we like
The service at Epilogue is very nicely designed. It has the most modern user interface of all of the services in our review.
It has adopted very slick interface elements, the information is clearly displayed, and the process for creating a Will is really very simple.
They have an excellent onboarding interview that immediately lets you know if their service will work for you.
We also like how they are very honest with their assessment of "fit" (as we would perhaps expect with a company founded by lawyers).
If their service cannot meet your needs, they will direct you to professionals who can. We also like their summary of your inputted information.
What needs work
Epilogue is still being developed and it is missing some key capabilities.
For example, they support the fewest number of jurisdictions of all our reviewed service providers.
Editing a document is actually quite difficult once you have made some selections, including the main distribution plan.
Epilogue is by far the most expensive service provider, offering their Will for $139.
Their support is quite limited, there is no live phone support --- you have to book a phone call which can be a little frustrating.
Writing a Will at EpilogueWills.com
The Epilogue design is unique and clever.
After you have stepped through the service, you have a user dashboard that presents all of your selections in different sections.
Any one of these you can click on to edit.
Most sections are completely editable, with some strange exceptions; for example, the main distribution plan for your Will.
Epilogue makes the decision that your main beneficiary will be your spouse, whether you like it or not.
This may make sense for an online Will service provider – Epilogue only wants to create uncontentious Wills.
But it can be frustrating to be told exactly what you are going to put into your Will (even if you do have the option to create other specific bequests).
Even something as simple as distributing your estate between your children and spouse was not easy to do using the Epilogue service.
This is actually reflected in one of their reviews and responses:
However, the charitable bequest page at Epilogue is quite brilliant.
It grabs suggestions from the Canadian charities database and allows you to select them from a drop-down list.
This is particularly important for charities that have ambiguous names like "The Humane Society" where it's not entirely clear which branch you are referring to.
This is a unique attribute of the Epilogue service, and is very, very clever.
We did have one irritating concern: there was no way to view any kind of preview of the Will without paying for it.
Every other service provider reviewed here gives you a sense of what you are getting without committing to a payment.
Pricing and Packages at EpilogueWills.com
Epilogue has the highest entry point for preparing a Will at $139.
However, this does give you a lifetime of unlimited updates to the document.
A couple's package of Wills is available at $269.
Interestingly, they offer the Financial Power of Attorney and Power of Attorney for Health Care (Living Will) documents at an additional $40 for the pair which is the lowest of all service providers.
The problem is, you cannot just order those documents without the Will service.
Epilogue also offers the option to print and mail your documents to you for $19.
Complementary services at EpilogueWills.com
Epilogue includes care of pets within the Will and also have the PoA and Living Will.
Curiously, there is absolutely no provision for expressing funeral wishes in any of their services.
However, Epilogue are leading the way with the handling of digital assets through their "social media Will".
Currently it supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail. This is offered free of charge (but it is quite simple).
Customer support at EpilogueWills.com
Epilogue are the least "available" of the service providers in this review.
Their live chat promises a response within a few hours, their phone support only allows you to book an appointment.
They do also allow you to submit questions through an online form. Their learning centre however is excellent.
Customer reviews
Epilogue has very good ratings, but a limited number of reviews.
On Google MyBusiness they have a 4.9 star rating with only 60 reviews, and a 4.7 star rating on Trustpilot with only 27 reviews.
They do not collect Facebook reviews.
To have less that 100 independent reviews in total for a company of this longevity is a little disappointing.
Overall experience
There are some fantastic design elements to the service at Epilogue, but it is the least flexible Will creation tool.
But this is design intent for a company founded by lawyers who want to ensure that every Will created using their system will be a workable document.
Their social media Will is a welcome innovation, and the overall process has been well designed.
However, their pricing is very high for an online service, and their customer service is the least accessible.