If you have received a monument quote from a funeral home, you may have experienced sticker shock. Funeral homes routinely mark up monuments by 100 to 300 percent over what a monument company charges for the same product. Understanding why this happens empowers you to make a more informed purchasing decision.
Funeral homes are middlemen in the monument transaction. They do not quarry granite, fabricate monuments, or install them. Instead, they take your order, pass it to a monument manufacturer (often the same companies that sell directly to consumers), add their markup, and deliver the finished product. You are paying for the convenience of one-stop shopping, the funeral home's overhead, and their profit margin. While this model has existed for decades, it is no longer the only option.
Federal law protects your right to purchase a monument from any provider you choose. The Funeral Rule, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, prohibits funeral homes from requiring you to buy a monument through them and from charging you a handling fee for a monument purchased elsewhere. Despite this protection, many families are unaware of their options and default to the funeral home out of convenience or emotional fatigue.
Buying directly from a monument company like The Monument Store gives you access to the same quality granite, the same skilled craftsmanship, and the same professional installation — at a fraction of the funeral home price. Direct monument companies have lower overhead costs and pass those savings to you. You also benefit from working with monument specialists who focus exclusively on memorials, rather than funeral directors who may handle monuments as a side offering.
The savings can be substantial. A monument that costs $4,000 through a funeral home may be available for $2,000 to $2,500 direct from a monument company. Over the decades that the monument industry has operated this way, families have collectively overpaid by billions of dollars. The direct-to-consumer model is changing this dynamic, and tools like our online 3D designer make it easier than ever to research, design, and purchase your monument on your own terms and timeline.