Can the app estimate what items are worth?

Not credibly, and claiming it can is the fastest way to be useless here. Resale values for used household goods vary wildly by region and condition, and a wrong number in a probate filing has consequences. Record values, cite their source, and make it easy to attach a real appraisal — that is the honest and more defensible product.

Does an estate inventory need to be legally formatted?

It varies by jurisdiction, which is exactly why the app should export a clean, complete schedule rather than pretend to produce a court-ready form. Group by room, total everything, show valuation sources and dates, and let the executor or their attorney drop it into whatever their local court requires.

How to Build an Estate Inventory App with AI (2026)

What a estate inventory app needs

Room-by-room capture with photos taken in place
Valuation per item with source: appraisal, comparable sale, or estimate
Beneficiary assignment with conflict flags when two heirs want one item
Running totals by room, by category, and by beneficiary
PDF and CSV export formatted as a schedule of assets

The screens

Screen	What it does
Estate	Overview: rooms, item count, total valuation, unassigned items
Room	Items in one room with thumbnails and values
Add Item	Photo, description, category, value, source, beneficiary
Beneficiaries	People, their assigned items, and running value per person
Export	Schedule of assets as PDF or CSV, with or without photos

The data model

Estate: decedentName, dateOfDeath, executorName, jurisdiction, notes
Room: estateId, name, sortOrder
Item: roomId, description, category, quantity, photoUris, conditionNote, appraisedValue, valuationSource, valuationDate
Beneficiary: estateId, name, relationship, contact, sharePercent
Assignment: itemId, beneficiaryId, status, note

The build prompt (copy this)

Paste this into ShipNative and it becomes a working React Native app with these screens, navigable in a live preview, in about two minutes:

“An estate inventory app for an executor walking through a house. The core loop is Add Item and it must be fast enough to use standing up: open the camera first, shoot the object, then type a short description, pick a category, and optionally enter a value — everything else can be filled in later from the sofa. Items belong to rooms, and rooms are created inline so the executor never leaves the room they are standing in to make a room. Each valuation records where the number came from — a formal appraisal, a comparable sale, or a rough estimate — because a probate filing that cannot say where a figure came from is a figure that gets challenged. Beneficiaries are people with an optional share percentage; assigning an item to a beneficiary is a single field on the item, and when two beneficiaries are both recorded as wanting the same item the app flags it rather than silently overwriting. The Beneficiaries screen shows each person’s assigned items and their running total so the executor can see when a split has drifted away from the shares in the will. Export produces a schedule of assets as a PDF grouped by room with totals, and a CSV for anyone who wants it in a spreadsheet, with a toggle for whether photos are included. Everything works offline — houses being cleared often have the power off — and syncs when there is signal. Be conservative in the copy: the app records values, it does not appraise, and it is not legal advice. Screens: Estate, Room, Add Item, Beneficiaries, Export.”

Then iterate with small, screen-specific prompts (“make the primary button bigger”, “add an empty state”), preview on your own phone, and export the full Expo project whenever you want. The full method: how to build an app with AI.

How it makes money

A one-off purchase of roughly $30–60 per estate fits the job better than a subscription — this is a task with an end, and asking a grieving executor to cancel a recurring charge afterwards is a bad experience and a support burden. The larger opportunity is selling to probate attorneys and estate-clearing firms who settle estates continuously, at a per-seat annual price.

Implementation and the revenue math for every model: how to make money from an app. When you’re ready to ship: App Store and Google Play publishing guides.

Build it now

The prompt above is free to run at shipnative.dev — working estate inventory app on your phone today, full code export, no credit card.

How to Build an Estate Inventory App with AI