Pricing at a glance
Vanilla's Starter tier (historically $99/mo) is legacy; current positioning is institutional, with pricing not publicly listed and typically quoted in the $5,000 to $20,000+ per advisor per year range based on the Vanguard-channel and family-office signals. Bancroft Advisor is $299/mo ($3,588/yr). Bancroft Growth is $499/mo ($5,988/yr, unlimited). Vanilla's pricing supports a different shape of product: strategic-modeling visualizations for $20M+ households, not high-throughput document generation for sub-25-employee RIAs.
Feature-by-feature
| Feature | Bancroft | Vanilla |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $299/mo (Advisor) | Not publicly listed (institutional, typically $5K-$20K+/yr/advisor) |
| Per-document fees | Zero, every plan | Tiered per-document fees |
| Full white-label (custom domain + colors + fonts + branded emails) | Yes, Firm tier and above | No. Vanilla branding throughout. |
| End-to-end trust funding workflow | Yes (6-category letters, per-asset strategy, proof capture) | No. Strategic-planning focus; trust funding downstream. |
| Built for the advisor segment specifically | Yes, sub-25-employee RIA focus | Multi-segment with institutional bias |
| Strategic-modeling visualizations (asset map, beneficiary donut, hypothetical scenarios) | Partial (estate snapshot + beneficiary donut + readiness ring on every household) | Yes (their core competency) |
| Document generation depth (unlimited at $499/mo) | Yes | Partial / tiered |
| AI document review | AI questionnaire helper with hard UPL guardrails | AI-assisted document review |
| Pricing transparency | Four tiers publicly listed | Not publicly listed (contact sales) |
Source: Vanilla product positioning, Vanguard partnership, Kitces joint webinars. Pricing and feature claims for Vanilla sourced from publicly available pricing pages and product documentation as of May 2026. Refreshed quarterly.
The honest gate
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Frequently asked
Is Vanilla a document generator or a planning visualization tool?
Primarily a planning visualization tool. Vanilla's focus is strategic estate-planning modeling: asset maps, beneficiary distribution diagrams, hypothetical scenarios. Document generation is a tiered feature with per-document fees on lower tiers. Bancroft is the inverse: document generation as the core deliverable, with planning intelligence (estate snapshot, beneficiary donut, readiness ring, 42 opportunity-flag rules across 15 categories) as the supporting layer.
How does Bancroft's pricing compare to Vanilla?
Vanilla's pricing is not publicly listed and is positioned for institutional buyers (typically $5K-$20K+/yr/advisor based on the Vanguard-channel and family-office signals). Bancroft is publicly priced at four tiers: Advisor $299/mo, Growth $499/mo, Firm $799/mo, Enterprise custom. The pricing models support different shapes of product: Vanilla's for institutional UHNW modeling, Bancroft's for sub-25-employee RIAs delivering estate planning under their own brand.
Does Vanilla generate the same document types as Bancroft?
Vanilla generates a subset of estate-planning documents on a tiered model with per-document fees on lower tiers. Bancroft generates a complete library of attorney-reviewed, state-specific documents (wills, revocable living trusts, financial POAs, healthcare POAs, HIPAA authorizations, trust certifications, schedules of assets, personal property memoranda, Lady Bird Deeds, trust amendments, trust restatements) with the governing state statute cited on every clause. Unlimited generation from Growth tier ($499/mo) up.
Next
Every claim on this page is shipping in production. The trust funding automation is at funding-letters, the security posture is at security, the full feature-by-feature comparison across all competitors is at vs-competitors.
The fastest way to see whether Bancroft fits your firm: book a 15-minute walkthrough. We will show you the actual advisor and client surfaces, your firm's name in the white-label preview, and the trust funding workflow live on a sample household.