A death in the family not only causes emotional turmoil, but the task of planning a cremation adds to the anxiety. Knowing what you will face upfront regarding cremation costs will prevent you from spending too much in such a stressful time. In general, cremation costs are much less than burial costs.

Basically, three types of cremation service are known. They are traditional service with visitation, cremation with a memorial service and direct cremation with no service.

If you are conducting a traditional cremation, you are bound to have visitors. To perform it at an affordable price you can rent a casket and avoid buying one. This would reduce the cost. The visiting ceremony can be held in a church or even a funeral home chapel. After the visitation, the cremation is performed. A cremation with a memorial service only slightly differs from the traditional cremation. In this, the cremation is performed before, and later a memorial service is held at a particular place, and the urn with the remains can be present at the memorial service, but the body is not available as it is cremated before. On the other hand, a direct cremation costs the least, as there is no service of any kind and after the cremation of the body, the ashes are returned to the family.

Now let’s see in a nutshell what are the cremation costs, that you will have to bear
The basic service fees which will include a fee for the funeral home and their staffs.
Transporting your body to the funeral home which might cost you around $285.
A cremation container will be needed that generally starts at $100.
You can rent a casket for the cremation service which will cost around $1000.
The cremation fee will start around $300.
After the cremation, the ashes are returned to the family in an urn which will cost around $250.
Some additional costs that you have to bear are the municipal registration cost and the Coroner’s certificate.
Benefits of choosing cremation over burial
The first advantage of choosing cremation over burial is that the cremation costs are much more affordable. If you choose burial process, then the headstone, the metal casket and the grave plot itself will cost you $1500, $2395 and $1000 respectively.
You could scatter the last remains in the deceased’s favorite places if those were the last wishes. You will not have that option with burial process.
The ashes can be shared among the family members, if they wish to. Family members in many cases want to keep the remains but they may live in separate places, in that case, they can share the remains.
No land is disturbed in case of cremation, unlike burial.
The burial costs have considerably increased over the years than the cremation costs. Cremation has always been a cheaper option, and people do opt for it. Back in the 1980s, the national cremation rate was accounted as 9.7 per cent, but today it has increased four times.