For people who finished the training last month.
No clients, no precedents, no idea what to charge, and a fortnight of enthusiasm before the doubt sets in. This is the part nobody plans for.
Willo is £150 a month with no contract, no minimum term and no accreditation requirement — which matters more when you are starting than at any other point. Project Will's training is free and does not require you to buy anything.
The honest version of starting out#
The training is the easy part. What follows is: no clients, no reputation, no idea what to charge, a website nobody visits, and the growing suspicion around week six that you have made a mistake.
Almost everyone who starts in this profession goes through that, and most of them go through it alone, because it is a scattered profession full of people working from spare rooms.
What we would actually advise, in order#
- Do the training. Free, UKRLP-registered, UKPRN 10101187. Wills, LPAs, trusts, taking instructions, capacity, execution. How it works.
- Get accredited. Also free, no annual renewal, no CPD hours to log. It puts you on a public register a client can check, which matters enormously when you have no reputation of your own yet.
- Write your first few for nothing. Family, friends, their parents. You will learn more from four real fact finds than from any amount of reading.
- Then buy software. When you have someone paying you, £150 a month is a fraction of a single full estate planning package — and because there is no contract, you can start the month your first real client appears rather than committing in advance.
- Get in front of people. Marketing ideas that work, and Project Will route enquiries from their public-facing brands to accredited members.
What stops most people#
Not competence. Isolation and cashflow. Which is why the things around the software — the community of 500+ practitioners, the free training, the overflow drafting, the enquiries — matter more in year one than any feature comparison.
Related#
How to become a will writer · Starting a will writing business · Do you need qualifications? · Training
Before you ask.
Can I really start with no qualification?
Legally, yes — will writing is not a reserved legal activity in England and Wales. Practically, you should train first, and the training is free. The absence of a legal requirement is not permission to be bad at it; a badly drafted will does not reveal itself until the one person who could have fixed it is dead.
When should I start paying for software?
When you start charging. Because there is no contract, no minimum term and no notice period, you can start the month your first paying client appears and stop again if the month goes badly. That is why the no-contract point matters far more when you are starting than at any later stage.
What will I actually earn?
Less than the course adverts imply in year one, and more than a salary in year three if you build it properly. We have written the numbers up honestly in how much do will writers earn.
See it draft one of your cases.
Book a walkthrough with someone who drafts in Willo every day. They will open your kind of case, not a demo script, and you can stop them and ask anything.
Or call 0333 049 5033 — Mon–Fri, 9am–6pm.