Mausoleum entombment is above-ground burial. Instead of a grave, you buy a crypt, which is a sealed chamber in a stone building, and the crypt front becomes the marker. The pricing runs on a different logic from a cemetery plot, and the single thing that surprises most buyers is that two identical crypts in the same wall can differ by thousands of dollars based on how high off the floor they sit.
Cemetery pricing is also poorly regulated compared with funeral homes. The Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule does not cover cemeteries and mausoleums unless they also sell funeral goods and services, so there is no federal requirement that a mausoleum publish a price list at all. Everything below comes from cemeteries and city governments that do publish one, read on September 5, 2026.
What Does a Mausoleum Cost in 2026?
| Item | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single crypt, municipal mausoleum | $2,200 | $3,025 | $6,325 |
| Single crypt, private or religious cemetery | $6,500 | $12,925 | $50,000 |
| Companion or double crypt | $11,000 | $19,745 | $70,000 |
| Lawn crypt, pre-installed below-ground chamber | $3,640 | $4,790 | $5,220 |
| Columbarium niche | $700 | $3,740 | $29,240 |
| Private family mausoleum | $50,000 | $95,000 | $3,500,000 |
| Entombment fee, opening the crypt | $1,100 | $1,618 | $2,025 |
| Inurnment fee, opening a niche | $272 | $550 | $1,190 |
| Saturday or holiday entombment | $1,400 | $2,200 | $3,200 |
| Crypt or niche inscription | $180 | $389 | $595 |
| Bronze crypt or niche vase | $479 | $559 | $769 |
Municipal figures are Greenville, North Carolina’s adopted schedule effective July 1, 2026 and Garden City, Kansas. Private and religious figures come from Shrine of Remembrance in Colorado Springs (dated March 19, 2026), Swan Point in Providence, Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles, The Catholic Cemeteries serving the Twin Cities (effective June 1, 2026) and Green-Wood in Brooklyn.
What Drives the Price
Crypt level, and why heart level costs more
Mausoleum crypts are stacked, usually five or six high, and each row is priced differently. Hollywood Forever describes the convention directly: the lower “touch” and “heart” level spaces cost more than a “sky” or “heaven” upper tier crypt. Heart level sits at roughly eye height, where a visitor can stand in front of the crypt and place a hand on it, and that is what commands the premium.
The pattern shows up in columbarium walls too, though not always in the same direction. Garden City, Kansas prices its four-row columbarium at $1,000 for the top row, $900 for the second, $800 for the third and $700 for the bottom, which inverts the usual logic because the top row there is the one at eye height.
The practical takeaway is the same either way. Ask for a price by level before you ask for a price. Moving one or two rows up in the same building is often the largest discount available on the same product.
Single, companion, tandem and Westminster
A single crypt holds one casket. A companion crypt holds two side by side, so both names sit on one front. A tandem crypt holds two caskets end to end, one behind the other, with only one front exposed. A Westminster crypt, per Hollywood Forever’s definitions, holds two caskets with one space below floor level, or four caskets with two below.
Tandem and Westminster crypts are the value plays, because they use less wall frontage per casket. Green-Wood charges $50,000 for a single community mausoleum crypt, $60,000 to $70,000 for a double, and $50,000 to $75,000 for a quad holding four entombments, which works out to as little as $12,500 per person. Hollywood Forever’s True Companion crypts start at $19,745 against $12,925 for a single.
Community mausoleum vs private family mausoleum
A community mausoleum is a shared building, and you buy one or more crypts in it. A private family mausoleum is a structure you commission for your family alone, and the price is an order of magnitude higher.
Shrine of Remembrance quotes private family mausoleum rooms from $95,000 for a family of six and from $175,000 for a family of twelve. Hollywood Forever says it has built private family mausoleums on budgets from $50,000 to $3,500,000. Green-Wood sells the land alone: a 756 square foot mausoleum site is $500,000, before the building. At the other end, Garden City, Kansas sells a lot for an above-ground mausoleum for $5,000, and you supply the structure.
Indoor vs outdoor, and lawn crypts
Indoor, climate-controlled mausoleum space costs more than an outdoor garden wall. Greenville, North Carolina charges residents $6,050 for an inside mausoleum space, $3,025 for an outside one, and $2,200 in its Hillside West section. Hollywood Forever’s upper-level garden crypts start at $8,000 plus $800 in endowment care.
A lawn crypt is a hybrid: a pre-installed concrete chamber below ground, usually double depth for two caskets, in a lawn section rather than a building. The Catholic Cemeteries system prices lawn crypts at $3,640 to $4,790 and Swan Point at $5,220 for a two-casket unit. That is the cheapest way for a couple to get the sealed-chamber benefit without buying into a building.
Columbarium Niches for Cremated Remains
A columbarium is a wall of small compartments for urns, either freestanding or built into a mausoleum. Niches are the cheapest thing in the building and still not cheap.
Published 2026 prices run $700 to $1,000 at Garden City, Kansas, $2,118 for a resident at Greenville, North Carolina, from $1,000 per person at Shrine of Remembrance, $3,740 to $5,460 at Swan Point depending on whether the front is marble, glass or garden-facing, $2,000 to $19,000 at Green-Wood, and $3,920 to $29,240 across the Catholic Cemeteries range. Glass fronts cost more than stone because the urn stays visible.
Some niches hold two urns. Garden City, Kansas charges $350 to add a second urn to a single niche. Shrine of Remembrance prices an additional inurnment right at 25 percent of the current retail price of the crypt or niche, or $450, whichever is greater, plus 10 percent endowment care and memorialization. The Catholic Cemeteries prices an additional right of burial in a crypt at 50 percent of the current crypt price.
For the cremation side of the bill before the niche, see our cremation cost guide.
Entombment, Inscription and Vase Charges
The crypt price is the property. Everything that happens on the day of the service is billed separately, exactly as with a ground burial.
Entombment, which is opening the crypt, sliding the casket in and sealing the front, runs $1,100 on a weekday in Greenville, $1,450 at Shrine of Remembrance, $1,618 at Green-Wood, $1,950 at Swan Point including the required crypt liner, and $2,025 at The Catholic Cemeteries. Weekends cost more everywhere: $1,400 in Greenville, $2,200 on a Saturday at Shrine of Remembrance, $2,500 at Swan Point, and $3,200 on a holiday at Shrine of Remembrance.
Inurnment in a niche is much cheaper: $272 at Green-Wood, $550 at Swan Point and Greenville, $650 at Shrine of Remembrance, and $1,190 at The Catholic Cemeteries.
Then the small stuff that adds up. Inscribing the crypt front costs $280 for a final date at The Catholic Cemeteries, $389 in handling at Green-Wood for community mausoleum crypt tablets and $180 for niche tablets, and from $595 at Shrine of Remembrance for bronze lettering with $45 per additional letter. A bronze vase on the crypt front is $769 at The Catholic Cemeteries, or $479 to $559 for a niche vase. A porcelain or bronze photo memorial is another $595 to $795.
Endowment care may or may not be inside the crypt price. Shrine of Remembrance and Swan Point include it. Hollywood Forever charges $800 on top of an $8,000 garden crypt, which is 10 percent. Ask which it is before you compare two quotes.
Mausoleum vs. a Ground Plot
On the property price alone, entombment usually loses. Green-Wood charges $21,000 to $32,000 for a single grave and $50,000 for a single community mausoleum crypt. Greenville charges residents $1,100 for a grave space and $2,200 to $6,050 for mausoleum space.
The gap narrows once you count what a crypt does not need. There is no burial vault or grave liner, which is $850 to $2,585 on a ground burial, and no headstone or monument, because the crypt front is the marker. Shrine of Remembrance makes this argument on its own price list, noting that ground burial requires separately buying the grave, the opening and closing, the vault and the tombstone, and that families often spend more on a protective casket for a ground burial than for entombment.
There is also a floor to the comparison. A municipal grave space plus opening and closing plus a liner will still beat almost any crypt. Run both numbers using our cemetery plot cost guide and the headstone cost guide before deciding, and check the funeral cost guide for the funeral home’s separate bill.
How to Pay Less
Ask for the price list by level, in writing. This is the biggest lever in the building. The same crypt one or two rows higher can be thousands cheaper, and no salesperson will lead with that. Getting the full itemized schedule is the same discipline that works on a hospital bill, and our guide to reading an itemized bill covers how to make people break a bundled quote into lines.
Compare at least three cemeteries before you commit. Where price lists are published the spread is enormous and visible in an afternoon. This is the logic behind hospital price transparency applied to a market with even less disclosure.
Look at a tandem, Westminster or quad crypt. Per person, end-to-end and stacked configurations are consistently the cheapest casket spaces in a community mausoleum.
Check the outdoor garden sections. Outdoor crypt space runs roughly half of indoor space at the cemeteries in this guide.
Do not schedule on a weekend. The entombment surcharge is $300 to $1,750 depending on the cemetery and the day.
Unbundle the extras. The vase, the photo memorial and the emblem are separate line items priced at hundreds of dollars each and are not required. The same negotiation approach we use on medical bills applies: ask for each item priced separately, then decline the ones you do not want.
The Bottom Line
For a realistic budget in September 2026, plan on $6,500 to $15,000 for a single crypt in a community mausoleum at a private or religious cemetery, $2,200 to $6,325 at a city-run one, and roughly $1,100 to $2,025 more for the entombment plus $200 to $600 for the inscription. A companion crypt for a couple starts around $11,000 and runs past $20,000 quickly. A private family mausoleum is a five- or six-figure construction project and should be treated as one.
Whatever you choose, get the full fee schedule before you sign, and get it by crypt level.