My Life & Wishes alternatives: 5 platforms compared

My neighbor Carol spent a weekend filling out her My Life & Wishes account after her husband's bypass surgery. She typed in passwords, listed insurance policies, noted where the safe deposit key was. A few months later, when she told me about it over coffee, she paused mid-sentence. "I realized I'd documented everything about our stuff," she said, "but nothing about us."

That gap between logistical planning and personal expression is what brings most people to this page. My Life & Wishes handles the organizational side of end-of-life planning well enough. It gives you structured categories, guided prompts, and a way to share information with family members. But if you want something more, or something different, you have options.

What My Life & Wishes does well

My Life & Wishes uses a questionnaire-based approach. You fill in sections covering medical wishes, funeral preferences, financial accounts, and personal information. The platform organizes everything into a printable format you can share with your family or attorney.

This structured approach works for people who need a starting point. If you've never written down where your life insurance policy lives or what kind of service you'd want at your funeral, the guided prompts get you past the blank-page problem.

The platform also offers sharing controls so you can grant access to specific family members for specific sections. Your spouse might see financial details while your adult children only see general wishes.

Where people get frustrated

I've read through forums, app store reviews, and Reddit threads about My Life & Wishes. The complaints tend to fall into a few buckets.

The subscription feels expensive for what you get. At around $39.99/year, you're paying ongoing fees for what amounts to organized text storage. If you stop paying, your access gets limited. This creates an odd incentive structure for a product that's supposed to outlast you.

The personal side is thin. You can note funeral preferences and medical directives, but there's no real space for storytelling. No place to write a letter explaining why you're leaving specific items to specific people. No prompts that ask "what do you want your grandchildren to know about your life?" The tool captures your wishes but not your voice.

The sharing is sometimes too rigid. Several users mention wanting more nuance in who sees what and when. You might want your spouse to have access now, but your children to receive certain information only after both parents pass. That kind of conditional timing requires more flexibility than the current setup provides.

5 My Life & Wishes alternatives

1. When I Die Files

When I Die Files was built around the idea that practical planning and personal expression belong in the same place. You can store documents, list accounts, and organize important information. You can also write letters to specific people, record life stories, and create messages timed for future delivery.

The pricing is one-time rather than subscription. You pay once, your family keeps access indefinitely. There's a free tier that includes core functionality without a time limit. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, organizing financial information for family access is one of the first steps in responsible end-of-life planning. When I Die Files covers that step while also covering the emotional one.

What it doesn't do: generate legal documents or provide attorney review. You'll still need a separate tool or lawyer for your will and healthcare directive.

Pricing: Free tier available. One-time purchase for full features. Best for: People who want document organization and personal letter writing in one platform.

2. Cake

Cake (joincake.com) is free and surprisingly comprehensive. It walks you through planning medical wishes, funeral preferences, and legacy decisions with clear, friendly prompts. You can create an advance directive directly through the platform. AARP reports that fewer than one-third of Americans have an advance directive on file, which makes Cake's free tool genuinely useful.

The trade-off: Cake doesn't offer secure file storage or robust sharing controls. You can plan your wishes, but you can't upload your insurance policy or store login credentials. The personal messaging features are basic. And because it's advertising-supported, the experience includes partner recommendations throughout.

If your frustration with My Life & Wishes is mainly about cost, Cake eliminates that friction entirely. If your frustration is about depth or personalization, you'll probably hit the same wall here.

Pricing: Free. Best for: People who want guided planning prompts without paying anything.

3. Trust & Will

Trust & Will approaches end-of-life planning from the legal side first. You answer questions about your assets, family structure, and wishes, then the platform generates state-specific documents: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives. The American Bar Association recommends that every adult have at minimum a will, healthcare directive, and durable power of attorney.

The Will Plan costs $199 for individuals ($299 for couples) with a $19/year renewal to maintain editing access. The Trust Plan is $499/$599 with a $39/year renewal. You can add attorney review for an additional $299.

Trust & Will doesn't replace My Life & Wishes so much as it complements it. If your issue is "I've been documenting my preferences but none of it is legally binding," Trust & Will solves that upstream problem. It won't store your miscellaneous files or help you write personal messages, though. For a full comparison of online estate planning options, see our Trust & Will alternatives breakdown.

Pricing: From $199 one-time plus $19/year for continued editing. Best for: People who need legal documents created, not just preferences documented.

4. Everplans

Everplans is a secure digital vault for all of your end-of-life information. You upload documents, store credentials, record preferences, and assign "deputies" who can access specific information when needed. The vault approach is clean: everything lives in one encrypted place with granular sharing controls.

The platform costs $99.99/year after a limited free tier (10 items). That annual cost is Everplans' biggest liability in conversations about alternatives. Over a decade, you'll have spent $1,000 on organized file storage. If you stop paying, your deputies lose access.

Compared to My Life & Wishes, Everplans is more polished and has better security features. The vault infrastructure feels solid. But it shares the same gap: no meaningful personal content tools. You can't write a letter to your daughter or record a story about your childhood. It's a filing cabinet, just a really well-built one. We've written a full guide to Everplans alternatives if you want the detailed breakdown.

Pricing: $99.99/year after limited free tier. Best for: People who want a secure, well-designed document vault with deputy access.

5. GoodTrust

GoodTrust specializes in your digital life. It focuses on online accounts: social media profiles, email, subscriptions, cloud storage, streaming services. You designate a digital executor, set instructions for each account (delete, memorialize, or transfer), and store credentials. A 2023 McAfee study estimated the average person holds over 100 online accounts, and almost none of them have a succession plan.

GoodTrust fills a gap that My Life & Wishes barely addresses. If you're worried about what happens to your Gmail, your Facebook, or your family's shared iCloud photos, GoodTrust handles that directly. It partners with platforms that support legacy contacts and memorialization.

The limitation is scope. GoodTrust doesn't handle physical documents, financial planning, or personal letters. It's specifically for your digital footprint. You'd likely pair it with another tool for the non-digital side of your plan.

Pricing: From $49.99 one-time for basic plans. Best for: People focused on managing online accounts and digital assets after death.

Quick comparison

Choosing based on what you actually need

If your problem with My Life & Wishes is the cost, Cake offers similar guided planning for free. You'll give up file storage and detailed sharing controls, but the core planning functionality is covered.

If your problem is that it feels impersonal, When I Die Files bridges the gap between practical organization and meaningful expression. Same place to list your accounts, plus a place to write the things your family will actually want to read. You might also find our post on how to write a personal message for loved ones after you're gone helpful for getting started.

If your problem is that none of your documented wishes are legally enforceable, Trust & Will gives you real documents that hold up in court. Consider pairing it with a storage tool for everything else.

If your problem is that your digital life has outgrown what any general planning tool can handle, GoodTrust focuses specifically on online accounts and digital assets. Read our digital estate planning guide for a fuller picture of what that involves.

And if you just want a better-designed vault with stronger security, Everplans does that specific thing well.

The part no platform handles automatically

Every tool on this list organizes information. Some create legal documents. Some store files securely. But none of them can do the hardest part for you: deciding what to say to the people you love.

Carol, my neighbor, eventually wrote her husband a letter by hand. She tucked it into the folder with their planning documents. "If something happens," she told me, "I want him to find more than account numbers."

That's the work no software automates. But having a platform that invites you to do it, that gives you prompts and space and the ability to deliver your words at the right time, makes starting easier. When I Die Files was built around that idea. You can organize the practical stuff and write the personal stuff in the same place, and your family gets access to both when they need it.