Professionals pay us. You never do.
When something is free, it is fair to ask who is paying for it. Here is the whole answer: real estate advisors, attorneys, and tax professionals pay Kindeed a flat monthly subscription to keep a profile in our directory. That subscription is our only revenue. It does not change when you sell the house, and it does not change based on anything you do.
To be exact about today: while we grow the directory, that subscription is set to $0 and no professional is being charged. The model above is what we will charge when the offer ends, and it is the only way we ever intend to make money.
What that buys you.
Every part of Kindeed that helps you understand the estate is free: the guide, the document file, the timeline, the calculators, the library. Not free for now — free as the model. Families are not the customer, so there is nothing to upsell you into.
We do not sell, rent, or share your information with insurers, lenders, investors, or lead buyers. Some companies in this space market grieving beneficiaries to advertisers as high-intent prospects. We do not do that, and our revenue does not depend on it.
No commission. No success fee. No percentage of the sale. Kindeed is not a real estate brokerage and is not a party to your transaction — we introduce you to professionals, we do not represent you or anyone else in the deal. A feature that pays us when your deal closes is not something we build, and not something we want to.
Estate funds never pass through Kindeed. We do not move your money, so we earn no interest on it while it sits in transit. Whatever the estate is owed goes where it belongs, at whatever speed the bank and the court set.
Where our interests and yours could diverge.
A subscription model removes the worst conflicts, but not all of them. The one that remains is worth stating plainly: the professionals you see in our directory are the professionals who pay to be there. A perfectly good attorney down the street who has never heard of Kindeed will not appear, because there is no listing for them to appear in.
What we do not do is let money change the order. Within each profession, providers are sorted by how well they cover your county — the ones who work where your property is appear first. There is no premium placement, no sponsored slot, no way to pay for a higher position, and no bidding.
Nor does paying us get anyone in the door. Before a provider is visible to a single family, someone here reads their application by hand — who they are, the license or bar number they give us, and where they practice — and no listing goes live until that review is done. Where a provider records a license expiry date, we remind them as it approaches and hide the listing if the date passes. What we do not do is run our own search of a state licensing registry: the number is the provider's own representation to us, and keeping the license current is their obligation. Confirm any license with the issuing state board before you hire anyone — it takes a minute and it is the only check that is actually authoritative. Subscribing buys a listing, not a vouching, and not a recommendation. We will never tell you which professional to hire.
One conflict we own outright: Kindeed operates a joint venture with Renovation Pros LLC, and that joint venture is itself one of the real estate advisors listed in the directory. It meets the same vetting standards as every other listing, gets no preferential placement, and you are never required to consider it — but you should know we have a business interest in one of the names you may see, and now you do.
We think the directory is a good place to start looking. We do not think it is the only place, and we would rather say so than pretend the list is the whole world.
Why we chose the harder model.
The easy way to fund a free product for grieving families is to sell them, or to sell what they are worth to somebody else. A referral fee when the estate's cash lands at a partner bank. Interest earned on that money while it moves. A list of beneficiaries who have just come into a house, sold to whoever wants to reach them.
All of it is legal and none of it is visible on the pricing page. It also means that at the moment you most need disinterested help, the company helping you is being paid by someone whose interests are not yours.
Charging professionals a flat fee is a slower business. It is the only one we could find where nothing we earn depends on what you decide to do with the house.