Online Estate Planning and Wills: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Who leads the Online Estate Planning and Wills benchmark in October 2026?
• Which brands recorded the largest cumulative declines since the July 2026 baseline?
• Which brand moved above normal variation on the upside?

Trust & Will and LegalZoom sit at the top of the Online Estate Planning and Wills benchmark in October 2026, with valid recommendation coverage of 72.5% and 73.8% respectively. LegalZoom holds the narrowest of leads, a gap of 1.3 points between the two brands. October 2026 registered no movement beyond normal month-to-month variation for any tracked brand — a stable month set against a broader category pattern of five significant cumulative declines and one significant increase since the July 2026 baseline.

Across the full July-to-October 2026 series, Rocket Lawyer recorded the largest cumulative decline, falling 23.2 points to 43.5% in October 2026 from 66.7% in July 2026, a move beyond normal variation for the series. Quicken WillMaker & Trust fell 19.6 points to 56.8% in October 2026 from 76.4% in July 2026, also beyond normal variation. FreeWill declined 18.5 points to 55.6% in October 2026 from 74.1% in July 2026. Trust & Will declined 12.7 points to 72.5% in October 2026 from 85.2% in July 2026. LegalZoom declined 7.0 points to 73.8% in October 2026 from 80.8% in July 2026. All five cumulative declines were beyond normal variation over the series.

The one brand that rose beyond normal variation since baseline is Tomorrow, which moved from 0.0% to 1.8% valid recommendation coverage. Its presence rate moved from 0.3% in July 2026 to 1.8% in October 2026.

From July 2026 through October 2026, each month began with 800 prompt-surface observations. October 2026 produced 324 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. September 2026 marked an intermediate high of 338 qualified observations before October 2026 recorded 324.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Online Estate Planning and Wills

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompt-surface observations qualified for the public benchmark in October 2026?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the leading estate planning brands differ across presence, valid recommendation coverage, and rank-one rate?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the top three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mentions divided by total mentions.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands gained or lost valid recommendation coverage since the July 2026 baseline?
• What do the latest month-to-month changes look like for LegalZoom, Trust & Will, and Rocket Lawyer?

In the latest month, LegalZoom rose 6.0 points to 73.8% in October 2026 from 67.8% in September 2026, a move within normal variation for a single month. Trust & Will rose 2.1 points to 72.5% in October 2026 from 70.4% in September 2026. Rocket Lawyer rose 0.9 points to 43.5% in October 2026 from 42.6% in September 2026. GoodTrust rose 1.0 point to 11.4% in October 2026 from 10.4% in September 2026, continuing a second consecutive month of increase. Fabric was the largest prior-month decliner, falling 2.5 points to 4.6% in October 2026 from 7.1% in September 2026.

Largest Increase: Tomorrow

Tomorrow rose to 1.8% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 0.0% in July 2026, a move beyond normal variation for the series. Its presence rate increased to 1.8% from 0.3%, and its top-three rate moved to 1.5% from 0.0%. This is a narrow increase from a very small base and is not yet a trend.

Largest Decline: Rocket Lawyer

Rocket Lawyer fell 23.2 points to 43.5% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 66.7% in July 2026, a decline beyond normal variation. Its presence rate dropped to 50.3% from 76.1% over the same period, while its top-three rate of 10.2% in October 2026 was down 0.6 points from 10.8% in July 2026.

Category Leader: LegalZoom

LegalZoom leads the benchmark in October 2026 with 73.8% valid recommendation coverage, down from 80.8% in July 2026 on a cumulative basis. Its rank-one rate of 23.5% in October 2026 was second-strongest in the benchmark, down 2.4 points from 25.9% in July 2026. Trust & Will, the prior-month leader, held the strongest first-choice position at 33.0% rank-one rate in October 2026, up 3.7 points from 29.3% in July 2026, even as its valid recommendation coverage fell on a cumulative basis.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands convert recommendation coverage into first-position recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leading cluster shows meaningful divergence between top-three and first-position rates.

Trust & Will's rank-one rate rose to 33.0% even as its top-three rate declined from 81.1% to 70.4%, holding first-position share while losing ground in second and third positions. Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified estate planning observations?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand-recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand has led valid recommendation coverage in each month of the July-to-October 2026 series?

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses for estate planning questions?
• Did any estate planning brand's own domain appear among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,416 total citations drawn from 2,101 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed, with no single domain exceeding 7.0% share and the top 10 accounting for well under a third of the 6,416 total citations observed. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: freewill.com at rank 6, legalzoom.com at rank 7, and trustandwill.com at rank 8. The sources shaping recommendations include a mix of video and community platforms, national nonprofit and news organizations, and official brand sites.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, or private or sponsored channels. A metric movement alone does not establish causality.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands are recommended across major AI answer and search surfaces. It is updated monthly and measures presence, valid recommendation coverage, top-three and rank-one placement, and net sentiment.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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