By Thomas A. Parmalee
For years, deathcare professionals have watched consumer behavior shift decisively online. Families now research funeral homes, compare cremation options and even complete preneed arrangements digitally.
Yet one major segment of the profession has remained largely offline: cemetery property sales.
Guidant was created to change that.
Founded by George Owens and Michael Cooperman, also the co-founders of Fortitude Research and Marketing, in 2019, Guidant is a patented, cloud-based platform that enables cemeteries to display, select and sell cemetery, columbarium and mausoleum property on their own websites, so families can view inventory, sign documents and pay online.
The company, incubated by Fortitude and spun off independently, initially raised about $1 million from a handful of friends and family members as the duo worked on tackling the challenge. “That was more about investing in us than the technology,” Cooperman said.
They thought through how inventory is managed and how to bring together cloud-based technology to display on a platform geared for selling cemetery property online, assembling an advisory board with a cross section of members, including consolidators, independent firms, salespeople and others.
“We knew from the Funeral and Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study consumer research that we have conducted for Chris Cruger and Foresight that more people are buying online every single year,” Owens said. “The industry is missing that almost 40% of consumers who say, ‘If you give me the opportunity to buy funeral and cemetery property online, I will do it.’”
The exact question from the survey, most recently conducted in 2025, read: “Which of the following would you consider purchasing directly from an organization’s website?”
The results showed:
- Funeral arrangements: 42%
- Cemetery burial arrangements: 35%
- Above-ground cemetery mausoleum spaces and/or cremation niche spaces: 18%
- Caskets: 32%
- Urns: 34%
- Other memorial items (flowers, keepsakes, etc.): 20%
- I wouldn’t feel comfortable purchasing anything directly on the website: 36%
The funeral side of the equation has made some progress in terms of presenting solutions to consumers who want to arrange and buy online, but the cemetery side has come up woefully short, Owens said.
Failing to Meet Consumer Expectations
Owens’ background in customer experience research and data-driven marketing – through work with J.D. Power & Associates, Service Corporation International and at Fortitude – made it impossible for him to ignore the fact that consumer expectations have evolved faster than cemetery sales infrastructure.
“Nearly every industry has adapted to online shopping,” Owens explained. “But cemetery property has remained incredibly difficult to purchase digitally because inventory, contracts, payments and compliance all live in different systems.”
Each space is unique, inventory must be mapped, availability must be precise. On top of all that, contracts must be legally binding and payments secure.
Cooperman, whose background includes working at large-scale e-commerce platforms such as TrueCar and ALG, emphasized that consumer adoption of online buying platforms – particularly for high-ticket items – hinges on familiarity.
“People once said no one would buy cars or houses online,” he noted. “Now it’s normal. The key is making the experience feel very familiar, so this is like everything else they have bought online … this is one more thing.”
Over time, people will naturally get more comfortable buying cemetery property online, Cooperman believes. “At first, trying to get my mom to buy groceries online was hard,” he observed. “But as soon as I walked her through it, she was hooked.”
He envisions a similar type of uptake with Guidant’s technology, which he said was designed to mirror proven e-commerce models.
The goal was to create an experience as familiar as reserving airline seats or purchasing event tickets, he said.
The result is a guided, intuitive experience that allows consumers to explore available inventory visually, understand pricing and options, select a specific space, complete payment and sign documents
Built to Serve the Cemetery Profession
From the start, Guidant’s founders rejected the idea of becoming a third-party marketplace or “Expedia for cemeteries” – even though some potential investors pushed them to go in that direction.
The two men refused to take their money.
“That model doesn’t protect cemeteries or their revenue,” Owens said. “Our goal was to enable cemeteries to sell their own property, on their own websites.”
Guidant integrates into a cemetery’s existing site — regardless of whether it was built by Tukios, Tribute Technology, FuneralOne, or another provider — functioning much like Ticketmaster does for Major League Baseball team sites. The cemetery controls branding, pricing and customer relationships.
Equally important, Guidant does not require cemeteries to overhaul their operations. The platform is designed to work alongside existing inventory systems, CRM tools and document workflows. When those systems are limited — or nonexistent — Guidant’s team helps fill the gaps, so a cemetery can get their inventory mapped and take care of other tasks related to accepting online payments.
One of Guidant’s defining principles is accessibility.
The platform has been built to serve:
- Independent cemeteries.
- Diocesan and municipal cemeteries.
- Medium-sized regional operators.
- Large consolidators.
Guidant launched intentionally with a single cemetery — Brooklawn Memorial Park & Crematory in Portland, Maine — owned by Milestone Funeral Partners. The goal was to refine the consumer experience in a real-world environment before scaling.
“We wanted a location like Brooklawn to dive into a smaller town and get everything connected to the consumer experience down, including enhancing our user interface” Owens said.
Michael Martel, CEO of Milestone Funeral Partners, said he’s pleased with the platform. “Guidant gives our cemeteries a modern, scalable sales channel while preserving the integrity of the family experience,” he said. “We chose Guidant because it aligns directly with how we want to grow our business and meet changing consumer expectations.”
Guidant is about to finalize a deal with another consolidator, which will introduce the platform to several major markets soon, Owens said.
The Sales Process
A common concern the Guidant team hears revolves around how the platform may affect cemetery sales teams.
Guidant’s founders are direct about this: The platform is not designed to eliminate sales professionals.
Instead, it creates an additional sales channel that captures demand from website visitors — traffic that historically resulted in – at best – a contact form submission.
One unexpected but welcome development that the Guidant team has observed is that its technology has become a tool for sales counselors as it automates contracting, payments and documentation — capabilities they previously didn’t have access to while on the move.
“So, even though we have designed this for consumers to buy property in the comfort of their own home, salespeople have used this as a tool as well because they do not have an alternative,” Owens said. “This has been a great unintended consequence of building something new with an easy user interface.”
The biggest benefit that Guidant provides is it allows cemeteries to sell from their website, Owens said. “It doesn’t matter if they are super high-tech or relatively low tech,” he said.
When a sale occurs online, it can still be assigned internally, allowing staff to do what they do best: build family relationships and support future needs.
Owens compares it to the evolution of internet sales in automotive retail. The economics of the first transaction may differ, but the lifetime value of the family relationship often increases.
“When salespeople understand the platform, they will love it,” Owens said. “If someone buys property on the Guidant platform, that can be assigned to someone – and what they should do is everything they normally do when they have a customer: You go and meet their sister, their brother and other friends and family members. You radiate and penetrate.”
To the salesperson’s benefit, Guidant does not earn commission on those additional sales that may be brought in from that relationship building, Owens said.
Asked whether Guidant could ever be used as a tool by families to resell cemetery property they already own – with the cemetery, the family and Guidant all getting a cut, Owens said he doesn’t envision pursuing that opportunity.
“We see Guidant as a way to protect the cemetery and the cemeterian’s business,” he said. “And a broker model does not help that.”
Pricing Aligned with Cemetery Economics
Guidant’s pricing model is flexible and partnership driven. Rather than a rigid per-location structure, fees are tailored based on size, inventory, and operational realities.
Pricing typically includes:
- A modest monthly licensing fee.
- A per-lead fee.
- A commission percentage of completed sales, which averages about half of the cost cemeteries pay a full-time sales counselor.
For some smaller cemeteries, Guidant offers reduced or no licensing fees paired with higher lead and completed sale costs.
“Our goal is for everyone to win,” Owens said. “The cemetery, the mapping provider, the marketing partner — and most importantly, the family.”
Patented Technology
Guidant holds a U.S. patent covering its cloud-based system for selecting, purchasing and digitally contracting for cemetery and mausoleum property, including related services. The platform currently supports at-need and preneed cemetery property sales, with future integrations planned for financing options and additional merchandise categories.
The founders of Guidant are now engaged in a second seed funding round focused on scaling their technology and marketing capabilities.
“Before, we just had pictures – and now we have an actual working model,” Cooperman said. “The dollars we are seeking to bring in are higher, but our proof points are also higher.”
Owens added, “We were very fortunate to have connected with the right people for our initial investment. Now, we are looking for other strategic partners who understand what we are doing.”
And that entails working with cemeteries – not against them, Cooperman emphasized. “People coming from the outside say they want to disrupt the industry – to create a third-party site,” he said. “Our approach has been much different. We’re asking, ‘How do we enable cemeteries to sell their own property on their own site?’”
They are realistic about adoption curves, as they know buying cemetery property online will be new for families.
But so was buying groceries, cars and homes not long ago, they reiterate.
What matters is readiness.
Cemeteries that embrace online sales are not abandoning tradition, Cooperman and Owens said. Rather, they are meeting families where they already are — online, informed and ready to take the next step that has been stuck offline — until now.
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