KeepsakeKeepsake vs Everplans
Everplans is the most thoughtful end-of-life planning product in this category, and its guided checklist is genuinely better than ours. It is also a binder you fill in once, on their servers, that never reads a document or warns you about a deadline.
Should I choose Keepsake or Everplans?
They do different jobs. Everplans ($99.99/year) is a guided estate-planning binder: nine categories, strong written guidance, and deputies who can be given read or write access, with some items released only after death. Keepsake (from £19/year) is a daily-use vault: it reads each document on your device, files it, extracts expiry dates and warns you before anything lapses, and nobody at Keepsake can read any of it. Choose Everplans for guided planning, Keepsake for custody and daily use.
| Keepsake | Everplans | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Daily-use document vault | Guided end-of-life planning binder |
| Where documents live | Your devices + your own cloud | Everplans' servers |
| Can the vendor read them? | Never — encrypted on your device | Yes, server-side |
| Guided checklist | Family File checklist, per country | Nine categories, excellent guidance |
| OCR / reads your documents | Yes, on-device | No |
| Expiry alerts & renewals | Yes — 30/7/lapsed, plus calendar feed | No |
| After-death access | Legacy Kit — Shamir 2-of-3, offline | Deputies, released by Everplans |
| Works offline | Fully | No |
| Price | Free / £19 yr Premium / £29 Family / £79 Teams | $99.99 per year, 60-day trial |
| If the company shuts down | Everything keeps working | Export window, then gone |
Keepsake prices are in pounds sterling (£); Everplans's are its own published list prices, quoted in their original currency and unconverted.
When Everplans is the better choice
- You want to be told what to think about: Everplans' guidance library and nine-category plan are the best hand-holding in this category, and planning is the part most people never start.
- Your need is end-of-life specific — funeral wishes, account inventories, letters — rather than the passport-and-insurance paperwork of an ordinary year.
- You want your deputies to be released by a company that will still be there, and you are comfortable with that company being able to read everything in the meantime.
When Keepsake is the better choice
- You want the documents to be useful now: found in a second, filed automatically, and shouting before a visa or an MOT lapses.
- Custody matters to you. Everplans holds your plaintext by design; Keepsake cannot read a single document, because the key never leaves your device.
- You would rather pay £19 than $99.99, and would rather the vault outlive the vendor: with Keepsake it does, because the apps are local and the format is published.
Questions
Can Keepsake do what Everplans deputies do?
Yes, and with stronger custody: the Legacy Kit splits your master key three ways (you, your heir, a printed copy) so any two can open the vault. The difference is that Everplans releases access from their servers, while Keepsake's release needs a human being to hold a share — which is why we added a rehearsal, so you can prove it works while you are alive.
Does Keepsake have Everplans' guidance?
A version of it. The Family File checklist lists the documents a household should hold, why each matters, who issues it and what it costs to replace, per country. Everplans' library is broader and better written on end-of-life topics specifically.
Could I use both?
People do. Everplans for the planning narrative, Keepsake for the documents themselves. Nothing in either prevents it — although anything you put in Everplans is readable by Everplans.
The honest verdict
Everplans wins the question "what should I be planning for?" and loses the question "where should the documents actually live?" It is a binder on someone else's server: excellent at prompting you, incapable of reading a document, warning you about a date, or working on a plane. Keepsake is the opposite, and at a fifth of the price. If your worry is dying, start with Everplans' checklist — then keep the documents somewhere the company cannot read them and cannot take them away.