About
About Calla
Calla is an independent guide to funeral and cremation services across the US. We gather clear, comparable information — what local providers offer, what they charge, and how the process actually works — so families can make confident decisions during one of the hardest moments of their lives.
What Calla is
We are not a funeral home, and we don't sell funeral services. We're an information resource: prices sourced directly from providers' published price lists, plain-language guides to the choices you'll face, and honest comparisons. When we connect you with a provider, we tell you.
Why we're building Calla
The funeral industry is one of the few places where people spend thousands of dollars while grieving, under time pressure, with almost no transparency. Prices are hard to find, rarely posted online, and vary enormously between providers a few miles apart. The FTC's Funeral Rule has entitled families to an itemized price list on request for decades — yet most never see one before they're sitting across a desk.
We think that's wrong. A family arranging a cremation shouldn't have to call ten funeral homes to discover that the same service ranges from a few hundred to several thousand dollars across one city. Calla exists to put that information in the open — clearly, calmly, and for free — so the decision belongs to the family, not to whoever they happened to call first.
Our goal is simple: be the place people trust to understand their options, before and after a death.
About the author
Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa
Founder of Calla
I'm a software engineer by training, obsessed with one thing: making information that should be public actually accessible. I've spent my career building search and information systems — work that's all about gathering scattered, messy data and turning it into clear answers you can find in seconds. I'm relentlessly curious, I want the answer now, and I have no patience for the manual digging most people are forced to do.
That's exactly why I built Calla. I don't have a personal history in the funeral industry — I came to it as an information problem, and a stark one. Funeral and cremation pricing is some of the most consequential, most hidden information there is: families pay thousands of dollars on the worst day of their lives, with prices buried, scattered, and nearly impossible to compare. Breaking open that kind of opacity is what I've spent years building systems to do.
I'm not a funeral director, and Calla doesn't pretend to be one. What I bring is rigour about sourcing and a commitment to getting the facts right — every price traced to its source, every claim backed by an authority. For anything that calls for professional expertise, we rely on and cite recognized sources rather than our own opinion.
Contact: LinkedIn · kallasmaa.com
How we make money
We believe you should know exactly how a free service pays for itself. Calla is funded in a few transparent ways, and none of them change the prices, reviews, or rankings you see:
- Display advertising. We may show ads on some pages. They are labelled and kept separate from our editorial listings and guidance.
- Affiliate links. If you buy certain products (such as urns or planning resources) through a link we provide, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
- Insurance and planning leads. If you choose to ask for a quote — for example on final-expense insurance or pre-planning — we may be paid a referral fee. This only happens when you opt in; we never sell your details for cold outreach.
- Optional featured listings.A provider may pay to be featured, which is always clearly labelled as such. Featured placement never affects another provider's reviews, prices, or ranking, and a basic listing is always free.
What we will never do: fabricate reviews, hide a provider's prices, accept payment to remove honest criticism, or run high-pressure sales. If we ever get something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
How we research and write
- Prices come from the source.We pull pricing from providers' own price lists and quotes, and we date every figure so you know when it was last verified.
- We cite authorities. Our guides reference recognized sources, including the FTC Funeral Rule and the National Funeral Directors Association.
- We keep pages current. Prices and regulations change; we re-check and update, and show the last-updated date.
- This isn't legal or financial advice. For decisions with legal or financial consequences, consult a qualified professional.
Our editorial standards explain in full how we source prices and state laws, how reviews work, and how we stay independent. Spot something wrong? Email hello@withcalla.com and we'll fix it.
Start here
If you're dealing with a death right now, our step-by-step checklist walks you through the first hours and days. If you're researching or planning ahead, the guides explain costs and choices in plain language, and how Calla works shows how to use the directory.
How we keep this trustworthy
Our editorial standards explain how we source prices and state laws, how reviews work, and how we stay independent.
Read our editorial standards