How to Submit an Obituary to a Newspaper

How newspaper obituary submission actually works, whether you go through the funeral home or send it yourself, what papers charge for and how they count it, the deadlines that catch families out, and the free places you can publish instead.

Updated August 8, 202612 min readWritten by the Reposa team

On this page

Two ways to submit
Submitting it yourself, step by step
What it costs, and how it is counted
Deadlines
Formatting and photo rules
Reading the proof
Free places to publish instead
When something goes wrong

Two ways to submit

Through the funeral home

The director takes your text, sends it to the papers you name, handles the proof, and adds the cost to your bill. This is how most obituaries reach print.

It is the easier route and the one to take if you are tired. Two things to ask: whether they charge a placement fee on top of what the paper charges, and whether you will see the proof before it runs. Ask for the paper’s quote in writing, not a rounded verbal figure.

Submitting it yourself

You use the paper’s own online form or email the obituary desk. You see the price directly, you control the wording, and there is no placement fee.

Most papers still require the funeral home to confirm the death, which is one email from the director. Budget an hour for the first submission and about ten minutes for any additional paper after that.

There is no wrong answer. If the funeral home is already handling three papers and a livestream, let them handle this too. If you want the exact wording preserved and the cost visible, do it yourself.

Submitting it yourself, step by step

Decide which papers, and how many
The paper where they lived. The paper where they grew up, if that is a different town and people there still remember them. A trade or union paper if their working life ran through one. Three is a lot; one or two is normal.
Find the obituary desk, not the newsroom
Nearly every paper has an obituaries page with a “place an obituary” link, an email address for the obituary desk, and a phone number staffed on weekday business hours. Do not send it to a reporter or to a general news tip line. It will not arrive anywhere useful.
Ask five questions before you finalize the length
What is the deadline for the edition I want? How is the price calculated, and what is the rate? Is the photo charged separately? Is the online listing included or extra? Do you need the funeral home to confirm the death, and how?
Ask all five in one email. The answers determine how long the obituary can be.
Write to the length the answers allow
Write the full version first for the funeral home page and the program, then cut it for print. Cutting is far easier than padding. The short obituary examples show the same notice at 309 words and at 113, with a list of what came out.
Send it as plain text
Paste the text into the body of the email or the web form. Do not send a PDF, a Word file with a decorative border, or a photo of a printed page. Typesetters retype anything that is not plain text, and retyping is where names get misspelled.
Send the photo the way they ask for it
A separate attached image file, not one embedded in a document. Head and shoulders, in focus, at the largest file size you have. A phone snapshot of an old printed photograph usually reproduces poorly on newsprint. If that is all you have, tell them, and expect it to look soft.
Confirm the price and the run dates in writing
Before you give a card number, get an email or an on-screen total that states the line count, the dates it will run, and whether the online listing is included. Keep it. It is what you refer to if something runs twice or on the wrong day.
Read the proof out loud, then approve
Most papers send a proof or show you a preview. Read it aloud to another person, starting with the service details. Once it prints, it cannot be recalled.

Email to the obituary desk

replace the bracketed parts

Subject: Obituary submission for [Full Name], died [Month Day, Year]

Hello,

I would like to place an obituary for [Full Name], of [City, State], who died on [Month Day, Year]. I would like it to run in the [day, date] edition if the deadline allows.

The text is pasted below. A photo is attached as a separate JPEG.

Arrangements are being handled by [Funeral Home Name] in [City]; [Director’s Name] can confirm the death on [phone number].

Could you please confirm: 1. The deadline for the edition above 2. The total cost, and how it is calculated 3. Whether the photo is charged separately 4. Whether an online listing is included 5. Whether you will send a proof before it runs

I am [Your Name], [relationship] of the deceased, and I am authorized by the family to place this notice. My phone number is [number].

Thank you, [Your Name]

---

[Paste the obituary text here as plain text.]

What it costs, and how it is counted

There is no standard rate. Every paper sets its own, and the same notice can cost very different amounts in a small weekly and a metropolitan daily. What is consistent is the way the price is built.

What you are usually charged for

The base notice · priced per line, per column inch, or as a flat fee up to a set length
Additional lines · an incremental rate once you pass the base length
The photo · almost always a separate charge, often the single biggest add-on
An emblem · a military branch insignia, flag or fraternal symbol, usually a flat fee
The name line · some papers bill a bold or capitalized headline at a higher rate
Extra run dates · running Friday and Sunday is two charges, not one
Sunday or holiday editions · commonly priced above a weekday
The online listing · sometimes bundled, sometimes an extra line item. Ask which

Because the price scales with length, the first draft is usually the expensive one. Trimming adjectives, club memberships and the names of great-grandchildren often takes a third off the length without losing a single fact anyone came for.

Who pays, and how it appears on the bill

When the funeral home places it, the newspaper charge normally appears on the funeral bill as a cash advance item, sometimes with a placement fee attached and sometimes not. It is a fair question to ask, and asking it does not make you difficult. Nothing about a funeral bill is beyond a plain question.

Permission to spend less

If the newspaper price is more than the family can carry, publish a short death notice in the paper and the full obituary somewhere free. People will find it. Length in a newspaper is not a measure of how much someone was loved, and the notice everyone will actually keep is the program handed out at the service.

Deadlines

Deadlines are the part that goes wrong. A paper that prints on Saturday may stop accepting obituaries on Thursday afternoon, and no amount of explaining changes it once the page is set.

How deadlines usually work

One to three business days ahead of the print date · confirm the exact hour, not just the day
Weekend editions close earliest · Sunday papers are often set by Thursday or Friday morning
Holidays move everything forward · Thanksgiving, Christmas and July 4 weeks are the worst offenders
The obituary desk keeps business hours · a Saturday email may not be read until Monday
Payment often has to clear before the deadline · an unpaid notice can be held even though the text arrived in time

The practical rule: submit as soon as the service time is confirmed by the venue, and not one hour before. Families who submit early to be safe are the ones who end up calling thirty people because the church moved the Mass. If you need the notice out before the service is fixed, publish it with “a memorial service will be announced at a later date” and place a second, shorter notice when you know.

Formatting and photo rules

Newspapers apply house style to everything they print, obituaries included. Knowing what they will change saves you an argument on the proof.

What you send	What the paper often does	What to do about it
Bold text, italics, centered lines, a decorative font	Strips all of it and sets the notice in the paper’s own style	Send plain text. Save the typography for the program, where you control it.
Mom, Dad, Grandma, Nana	May change it to his mother, her father, and so on	If the family name matters, say so when you submit and check the proof.
March 14th, 2026 at 10:00 AM	Rewrites dates and times to house style	Leave it. The meaning does not change and arguing about it costs you time.
A poem, a psalm, or song lyrics	May trim for space, and may decline copyrighted lyrics outright	Keep it to a line or two here and put the full reading in the program.
A charity’s donation web address	Some papers set links as plain text or shorten them	Give the charity name in full as well, so the link is not the only route.
A group photo cropped down to one face	Prints it soft and dark, because newsprint loses detail	Send the highest-resolution original you have, and prefer a brighter image.

Photos

Send a separate image file at the largest size available. Head and shoulders reproduces best; a full-length shot shrinks the face to nothing in a single column. Newsprint prints darker than a screen, so a slightly bright photo lands better than a moody one. A scan of an old print is usually better than a phone photo of it, and most libraries and print shops will scan one in a few minutes.

Reading the proof

Read the proof in this order. Do not start at the top, because the opening line is the part you have read forty times and will no longer see.

Proof check, in order

Service day, date and start time, checked against a calendar rather than from memory
Venue name and city for every event listed
Every survivor’s name, spelled the way that person spells it
Suffixes and parentheses: Jr., III, and the spouses in brackets
That nobody living has been placed in the preceded in death sentence
The date of death and the age
The charity name and the giving address
The run date and the edition shown on the invoice

Then approve it and stop looking. Once a paper prints, corrections are handled as a new notice, and whether you pay for it depends on whose error it was. If the paper introduced the mistake, say so plainly and ask for the correction to run free. That request is normal and often granted.

Free places to publish instead

A newspaper is one channel and no longer the main one. These cost nothing and reach most of the people who need to know.

The funeral home website · included in nearly every funeral package, unlimited length, allows photos and a guest book
An online memorial page · many funeral homes create one automatically; it is what people share by text
A church bulletin or newsletter · still the most reliable way to reach an older congregation
A union, lodge, alumni or trade newsletter · free, and reaches people the family may not have contact details for
A workplace notice · one email to a former employer often reaches dozens of colleagues
The person’s own social media account · one clear post, then turn off comments if the family finds them hard
A free death notice column · some local papers still run a short one supplied by the funeral home

Whatever you use, keep one master copy of the text so the versions do not drift apart. A different service time on the funeral home page and in the paper causes real confusion on the morning. Reposa keeps one copy and produces the versions you need: a plain-text block to paste into a newspaper form, and the same obituary laid out to fit the program panel.

When something goes wrong

Problem	What to do
A name is misspelled in print	Call the obituary desk the same day. Ask for a correction in the next edition and ask whether it is free. Fix the funeral home page and the program immediately, since those are the copies the family keeps.
The service time printed wrong	Post the correct time on the funeral home page, tell the church office, and ask the funeral home to put a note on the door. Then call the paper. People check the funeral home listing far more than they recheck the paper.
You missed the deadline for the edition you needed	Publish on the funeral home page today and ask the paper for the next available edition. Then call the twenty people who most need to know, or ask two relatives to split the list with you.
The paper edited something you cared about	Ask for it restored in the next run if it matters enough to pay again. Otherwise let it go, and put the original wording in the program, which is the version that gets kept.
You were charged twice, or for the wrong run dates	Send them the written quote you kept and ask for the difference refunded. This is an ordinary billing dispute and the obituary desk handles them routinely.
You cannot face any of it today	Hand the whole task to the funeral director and ask them to place it. This is inside what they already do, and nobody will think anything of it.

If the obituary itself is still unwritten, start with a fill-in-the-blank template or the step-by-step guide, and check what to include before you send anything to a paper. If the whole week is the problem rather than this one task, the funeral planning checklist sets out what genuinely has to happen today and what can wait.

Common questions

Do newspapers charge to publish an obituary?

Almost always, yes. Obituaries are paid advertising at nearly every US newspaper, priced by the line or the column inch. A small number of papers still run a free one-paragraph death notice, usually supplied by the funeral home, with the paid obituary sold separately. Ask which the paper offers before you write to length.

How much does a newspaper obituary cost?

There is no national rate. Papers set their own, and the range is wide: a short notice in a small-town weekly is modest, while the same notice in a big metropolitan daily can run into the hundreds of dollars, and a long one with a photo can go higher. Ask for a written quote with the line count before approving.

Can I submit an obituary myself, or does it have to come from the funeral home?

You can submit it yourself at most papers. Many require the funeral home or crematory to confirm the death first, which usually means one phone call or an email from the director. A few papers only accept submissions from funeral homes. Their obituary page will say which policy applies.

How far in advance do I need to submit it?

Most papers close submissions one to three business days before publication, and weekend editions often close earliest, sometimes on Thursday afternoon. Holidays push everything forward. Submit as soon as the service time is confirmed, and confirm the exact deadline with the paper rather than assuming.

Will the newspaper edit what I wrote?

Papers apply house style. They may change abbreviations, standardize dates, adjust capitalization, and occasionally trim a poem or a long quotation for space. Most will not change your wording without telling you. If a phrase matters to you, say so when you submit and check it on the proof.

Do I have to publish in a newspaper at all?

No. Many families now publish only on the funeral home website, which is free and reaches most of the people who need it. A newspaper notice still matters for older communities, for small towns, and for anyone whose friends do not use the internet. It is a choice, not an obligation.

Can I publish in more than one newspaper?

Yes, and families often do when someone lived in two places. Each paper charges separately and each has its own deadline and format. Send the same text to both, but check the service details on both proofs, since a retyped notice is where errors get introduced.