Every way to keep a family voice, side by side
Remento at $99 a year, hardcover book included, fits most families. Storii calls any landline for about $99. MemoriesBox at $139 is the only one of the eighteen we compared that clones the voice and is hosted in the EU.
Facts on this page verified
Remento at $99 a year, hardcover book included, fits most families. Storii calls any landline for about $99. MemoriesBox at $139 is the only one of the eighteen we compared that clones the voice and is hosted in the EU.
Prices checked 17 August 2026 from each company's own site. Prices move. If a figure here is stale, write to hello@memoriesbox.org and we will correct it and change the date.
This page is one table. It is the whole point of the page. Everything under it explains how to read it.
Every option, side by side
| Service | Price | How the story is captured | Original audio kept | Printed book | Voice clone | Family can ask a new question later | Where the data lives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MemoriesBox | $139 / year, first 14 days free | Long guided interview across many sessions | Yes | From $139 extra | Yes, after about 30 minutes of recordings | Yes | European Union |
| StoryWorth | $59 / $109 / $199 per year, book included | Weekly email or SMS prompts | Yes, phone recording and audiobook | Included | No | No | Not disclosed |
| Remento | $99 / year, one hardcover included | Weekly prompts, self-recorded | Yes, a QR code in the book plays the original | Included | No | No | Not disclosed |
| Storii | About $9.99 / month or $99 / year, not published on the site | Automated phone calls, a landline works | Yes | No | No | No | AWS, no EU claim |
| Meminto | $99 / $149 / $397 one-time | Prompts plus a phone interview | Yes, QR audio and video in the book | Included | No | No | Germany, EU, discloses US subprocessors |
| HeritageWhisper | $39 / year | "Pearl", a live adaptive AI voice interviewer | Yes | No, a digital living book only | No | No | Not disclosed, US |
| Willow Stories | €299 first year, then €29 / year | Guided interviews plus human Willow Guide calls | Unclear, audio preservation is not stated | From €79 extra | No | No | "Servers in the EU", Vienna |
| Simirity | Free / $6 / $9 per month | A private family journal, no interview | Yes, as uploaded media | No | No | No | UK Ltd, servers not disclosed |
| LifeTales | $19.99 / month billed annually, about $239.88 / year | Prompts, video and audio | Yes | From $69 | No | No | AWS, region not stated |
| trylifestory | $595 one-time | A human two-hour video interview over Meet, professionally edited | Video | No | No | No | Not disclosed |
| Memoirji | Not published | A WhatsApp chat | No. Voice in, text out | No. A PDF memoir | No | No | US LLC, not disclosed |
| Autobiographer | $99 / year or $16 / month on the App Store | iOS-only AI audio conversations | Yes | No. A written biography | No | No | Not disclosed |
| Afterlife AI | Free / $14.99 / $29.99 per month | A "consent-first digital twin" with conversational Q&A and an Executor Lock | Not stated | No | Voice | Yes | Australia, IDY Pty Ltd, GDPR claimed for the EEA, no residency guarantee |
| Avataari | Free / $10 / $100 one-time credits | Guided interview plus an undisclosed voice vendor clone | Not stated | No | Yes | Yes | AWS, multi-region, country not disclosed, no EU claim |
| StoryFile | Not published, quote only | Pre-recorded video answers, AI-routed. Institutional | Video | No | No | Video retrieval | US |
| Seance AI | Free / $19.99 | Built from the survivor's description of the person. States that it is "for entertainment purposes" | No. There is no recording of the person | No | Synthetic | Text only | Not disclosed |
| Uare.ai (formerly Eternos.life) | $9.99–$199.99 / month in credits | Pivoted away from legacy work in November 2025 | Not stated | No | Yes | Yes | US |
| HereAfter AI | Was $3.99–$7.99 / month | Site returns 404 on every path. App last updated September 2023 | Yes, playback of the real voice | No | No | No, playback only | Not applicable |
How to read the four columns that matter
Original audio kept means the recording of the person speaking still exists and can be played. It is not the same as a transcript.
Voice clone means something narrower. A voice clone is a synthetic model of a person's voice, built from recordings of that person speaking, which can then read text aloud in the same timbre and cadence.
Family can ask a new question later means the family can put a question that was never asked during the recording sessions and receive an answer. Playback is not that. Search is not that.
Where the data lives is the column most companies leave blank. Several name no country at all, and a company's registered address is not the same thing as the place a recording is stored. That is not an accusation. It is a fact about what is published, and it is the column that decides which law applies to a recording of your mother's voice.
Three rows worth reading twice
Storii, "Printed book: No", and the box that is not a box. Storii's gift box sells for $59.99 on sale against a $119.99 list price and contains a card with a phone number. Working over the ordinary telephone network is the whole strength of the product, so this is not a criticism of how it functions. It is worth knowing before you unwrap it in front of someone.
Memoirji, "Original audio kept: No." Voice goes in as a WhatsApp message and text comes out as a PDF. If you are buying this to keep a voice, that single cell disqualifies it, whatever else it does well.
HereAfter AI, "Site returns 404 on every path." The app was last updated in September 2023. It is in the table because people still search for it and still find old reviews recommending it. Do not buy it. If you had an account, assume the recordings are gone and check any local copies you made.
Sorted by price alone
| Service | Cost in year one | Book included |
|---|---|---|
| Simirity | Free, or $6–9 per month | No |
| HeritageWhisper | $39 | No |
| StoryWorth | $59 at the entry tier | Yes |
| Storii | About $99 | No |
| Remento | $99 | Yes |
| Meminto | $99 one-time | Yes |
| Autobiographer | $99 | No |
| MemoriesBox | $139 | No, from $139 extra |
| LifeTales | About $239.88 | From $69 extra |
| Willow Stories | €299 | From €79 extra |
| trylifestory | $595 | No |
Read that table before the feature table. Most people who arrive here are choosing between two prices, not eighteen products, and three of the cheapest options do the core job well.
What none of them do
Of the eleven life-story services we compared in August 2026, none clones the storyteller's real voice and none lets the family ask a new question later. Two AI-legacy products do: Avataari, a Melbourne company that does not disclose its hosting region, and Afterlife AI, operated from New South Wales. MemoriesBox is the only one hosted in the European Union.
That is the finding, with the date attached. It will stop being true at some point, and when it does we will change this page rather than quietly leave it up.
What this table cannot tell you
We compiled every figure above from each company's own published pages on 17 August 2026. We have not run a paid year on all eighteen products, and we are not going to claim we have. Where a company does not publish a price, the cell says so rather than guessing.
Three things the table deliberately does not cover.
Renewal terms. What happens to your recordings, your edit access and your book credit when a subscription lapses varies between these companies and is not consistently published. Read the terms on the company's own site before you pay. This is where buyers get caught.
Book quality. StoryWorth and Remento both include a hardcover in the price, and their books are better than ours today. We sell ours as a separate product, from $139, on top of a $139 subscription.
Whether it gets used. The most expensive option here is the one that sits untouched. 53% of people surveyed in the UK learned something new about a family member only after that person died, and 43% found it while clearing out their home (Ancestry.co.uk, November 2022, n=2,000). A $39 subscription somebody actually uses beats a $139 one nobody opens.
If you want to spend nothing
Open the voice recorder that is already on your phone, sit down with the person, and ask them about the year they turned twenty. That is the whole method, and it costs nothing.
StoryCorps is free, has recorded more than 700,000 people since 2003, and its archive is held at the Library of Congress (storycorps.org/about). If there is already a voicemail from the person on your phone, save it properly today: how to save a voicemail forever.
Questions people ask
What is the best life story service in 2026?
For most families, Remento at $99 a year, with one hardcover included. It sends weekly prompts, the person records the answer in their own voice, and a QR code in the finished book plays that original recording.
Which life story app is cheapest?
HeritageWhisper at $39 a year is the cheapest paid option of the eighteen compared here. Simirity has a genuinely free tier, but it is a family journal rather than an interview service.
Which one works if my parent doesn't use a smartphone?
Storii. It places automated phone calls, works on a landline, and needs no app or account from the person answering. Its gift box, $59.99 on sale against a $119.99 list price, contains a card with a phone number. There is no hardware in it.
Which service keeps the actual voice rather than a transcript?
StoryWorth, Remento, Storii, Meminto, HeritageWhisper, LifeTales, Autobiographer and MemoriesBox all keep the original audio in some form. Memoirji is the clear exception: voice goes in as a WhatsApp message, text comes out, and the audio is not preserved.
What happens to the recordings if the company shuts down?
It has already happened more than once in this category. StoryFile filed for Chapter 11 in May 2024 owing $150,000 in customer refunds, HereAfter AI's site now returns 404 on every path, and MyHeritage confirmed DeepStory’s discontinuation in an August 2025 notice; users reported it had stopped accepting new creations by July 2025. Before you pay anyone, including us, find the export button. We wrote up the full history at what happens if we shut down.
Where to go next
Head-to-head pages: MemoriesBox vs StoryWorth · MemoriesBox vs Remento · StoryWorth vs Remento · StoryWorth vs Storii
Related: Every alternative, grouped by job · The best life story apps in 2026 · Where your recordings actually live
If the EU column is the one you care about, that is the column we built the product around, and the MemoriesBox pricing page explains what $139 a year covers.