A prenup used to mean two lawyers, two retainers, and six weeks of back and forth. For couples with ordinary finances, that was always overkill.
Not legal advice. This article is general information only. Prenup laws differ by state and change over time. Consult a licensed attorney in your state before acting on anything here.
Online platforms changed the math. You can now draft an agreement in an evening for a few hundred dollars.
What has not changed is the law that decides whether the thing holds up.
A prenup is not valid because a website produced it. It is valid because it was executed correctly.
This guide covers how the online route works, what it costs, and the specific mistakes that get these agreements thrown out.
Key Takeaways
- An online prenup is as enforceable as an attorney-drafted one, provided it meets your state’s execution rules.
- The law asks for very little on paper. Under the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, a prenup must be in writing and signed by both parties, and it needs no consideration.
- What sinks agreements is not the drafting. It is bad timing, thin financial disclosure, and no independent counsel.
- Expect $599 for a platform against roughly $1,500 to $5,000 per person for an attorney.
- A free template is the riskiest option, because execution rules vary by state and a generic document ignores yours.
- California will not enforce a spousal support waiver at all unless the party giving it up had their own lawyer.
- Skip the online route if you have a business, a trust, significant separate property, or a partner who disagrees with you.
Can You Get a Prenup Online?
Yes. No state requires an attorney to draft a prenuptial agreement.
The statutory bar is genuinely low. The Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, which most states follow, says only this: “A premarital agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties. It is enforceable without consideration.”
That is the entire formal requirement. No lawyer, no witnesses in most states, no payment changing hands.
Courts do not care who typed the document. They care whether both people understood it, knew what the other person had, and signed it freely.
That is the real test, and it is where cheap agreements fail. Not in the drafting, in the signing.
How to Get a Prenup Online, Step by Step
Step 1: Answer the Questionnaire
Both partners create accounts and work through a guided set of questions. You will be asked what you own, what you owe, what you earn, and what you want to happen to each of those things.
Treat this as the disclosure step rather than paperwork. Everything you leave out here becomes the argument your spouse’s attorney makes later.
Step 2: Negotiate the Terms Together
The platform shows both of you the same draft. One proposes, the other accepts or counters, and the document updates.
This is the part attorneys charge the most for and the part software handles well, as long as you actually agree. If you do not, no interface will fix that.
Step 3: Sign and Notarize
You download the finished agreement and execute it under your state’s rules.
Most states need signatures and a notary. Some want more.
Ohio, for example, requires two witnesses alongside notarization.
Check your own state before signing anything. Our prenup hub sets out the requirements in all 50 states.
How Much Does an Online Prenup Cost?
The gap between the two routes is the whole reason this category exists.
| Route | Typical cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free template | $0 | Almost nobody |
| Online platform | ~$599 per couple | Straightforward finances, both partners agree |
| Platform plus attorney review | ~$599 plus a few hundred | Most couples waiving support |
| Two attorneys | ~$1,500 to $5,000+ per person | Business owners, trusts, high net worth |
Attorney pricing climbs with complexity and with how much your partner argues. The platform fee does not move.
HelloPrenup charges a flat $599 per couple and covers 47 states plus DC. Our full review breaks down what that fee includes and where the platform runs out of road.
Do You Need a Lawyer for a Prenup?
Legally, no. Practically, it depends on one thing: whether you are waiving spousal support.
If you are not, an online prenup with careful disclosure is a reasonable document.
If you are, the calculation changes. California Family Code section 1612(c) makes a support waiver unenforceable outright if the party giving it up was not represented by independent legal counsel when signing.
No amount of software fixes that. In California it is a lawyer or the clause is void.
Elsewhere, counsel is not mandatory but it is the single fact that most reliably defeats a later claim of pressure. A spouse who had their own attorney has a hard time arguing they did not understand what they signed.
The sensible middle path is to draft online and pay an attorney to review the result. You keep most of the saving and put a professional on the clause most likely to be attacked.
Why Free Prenup Templates Usually Fail
Searching for a free prenup template is the most common version of this plan and the worst one.
A template is a document. A prenup is a document plus a process, and the process is what courts examine.
Templates fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the words in them.
They carry no disclosure schedules, so neither of you documents what you owned. They ignore state execution rules, which is how an agreement misses a witness requirement.
They also tend to include clauses your state will not enforce, and a document downloaded free at midnight tends to get signed in a hurry, which is its own problem.
A guided platform is not magic either. It just refuses to let you skip the parts that matter.
What Actually Gets an Online Prenup Thrown Out
Three failures account for most invalidated agreements, and none of them is about who drafted it.
Signing Too Close to the Wedding
An agreement produced days before the ceremony invites the argument that it was signed under pressure.
California puts a number on it. Family Code section 1615(c) requires at least seven calendar days between receiving the final agreement and signing it.
Other states leave it to judges, and they disagree with each other. Washington’s Supreme Court found three days made a signature involuntary in In re Marriage of Bernard, while Alabama upheld one signed the day before the wedding in Ex parte Brown.
The lesson is to give yourself months, not days. Timing is free and it is the cheapest protection available.
Incomplete Financial Disclosure
Under the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, an agreement can be set aside where a party was not given “a fair and reasonable disclosure of the property or financial obligations of the other party.”
The temptation with a fast online process is to round numbers and move on. Attach the schedules instead, with account balances, debts, and income for both of you.
No Chance to Get Advice
The modern uniform act treats access to independent counsel as its own ground for refusing enforcement, alongside a requirement that each party had reasonable time to retain one.
Where a spouse signs without a lawyer, the act expects a plain-language notice explaining the rights being surrendered.
Offering to pay for your partner’s attorney costs a few hundred dollars and removes the most common attack on the entire agreement.
What an Online Prenup Cannot Do
Some terms are unenforceable no matter who writes them or what you both agree to.
Child support cannot be waived or reduced. The Uniform Premarital Agreement Act states that the right of a child to support “may not be adversely affected by a premarital agreement,” because the right belongs to the child rather than the parents.
Custody terms do not bind a court either. A judge decides parenting questions by the best interests of the child at the time of the dispute.
Spousal support is waivable in most of the country but not everywhere. Surveying all 50 states in 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court counted 48 jurisdictions that allow a premarital waiver of spousal support and three that categorically do not: Iowa, New Mexico, and South Dakota.
Lifestyle clauses about chores, weight, or in-laws are generally unenforceable and mostly clutter. If you are the lower earner, the terms worth negotiating are financial, and we cover them in what to ask for in a prenup.
Which States Are Supported?
Online platforms are US products. HelloPrenup covers 47 states plus DC, and coverage is a question of whether the platform has built that state’s rules into its logic.
That matters because state law drives real differences. Community property states divide assets on different assumptions than equitable distribution states, and execution formalities are not uniform.
Before you start, read the rules where you will marry in our state-by-state prenup guides.
When to Skip the Online Route
An honest guide has to name the cases where the cheap option is the wrong one.
Hire attorneys if you own a business or professional practice, hold equity or stock options with a real valuation question, or have trusts and inherited assets in play.
Do the same if the income gap between you is large, if either of you has been through a contested divorce, or if there are children from a previous relationship whose inheritance is affected.
The clearest signal is disagreement.
A platform is built for couples who already agree and want to record it. It is not built to negotiate against someone.
Can You Change a Prenup Later?
Yes, by written agreement between both of you. One of you cannot change it alone.
An amendment signed after the wedding is a marital agreement, which means it is judged by the tougher postnup rules rather than the prenup ones.
If the wedding has already happened, you cannot get a prenup at all. What is left is a postnup, and it is harder to enforce.
Final Thoughts
An online prenup is a real legal document at roughly a tenth of the traditional price. For couples with ordinary finances who already agree, it is the sensible choice.
Just be clear about what you are buying. The platform saves you drafting time and negotiation fees.
It does not save you from signing too late, disclosing too little, or waiving support without a lawyer. Those are the three things that decide whether any of it survives.
Start early, disclose everything, and pay for your partner’s attorney. Do that and $599 buys you an agreement that works.
Sources
- Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (1983), Sections 2, 3(b) and 6, Uniform Law Commission
- Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act (2012), Section 9 (access to independent counsel, notice of waiver), Uniform Law Commission
- California Family Code Section 1612(c) (spousal support waiver requires independent counsel) and Section 1615(c) (seven-day rule)
- In re Marriage of Erpelding, 917 N.W.2d 235 (Iowa 2018), footnote 5 (48 jurisdictions allow spousal support waivers, three do not)
- In re Marriage of Bernard, 165 Wn.2d 895, 204 P.3d 907 (Wash. 2009); Ex parte Brown, 26 So. 3d 1222 (Ala. 2009)
- Ohio Revised Code Section 3103.05 (signing and witness requirements)