StoryWorth vs Remento

Remento at $99 a year is the better buy for most families: one hardcover included and a QR code in the book that plays the original recording. StoryWorth starts cheaper, at $59, and prints the better-established book. Neither keeps the voice, which is what MemoriesBox adds.

Prices checked 17 August 2026 from each company's own site.

Neither of these is our product. This page compares them because they are the two services most people are actually choosing between, and because the difference between them is easy to state and rarely stated.

The short version

How each one actually works

StoryWorth

One question arrives each week, by email or SMS. The person answers it, in writing or by recording the answer on a phone, and the reply is stored as a chapter of a book that grows through the year. Nothing needs to be installed by the person answering, and no session needs to be scheduled by anyone. After twelve months the chapters are laid out and printed as a hardcover, and that hardcover is included at every tier, from $59 to $199 a year. An audiobook can be produced from the recorded answers. The book is the point of the product, and every single part of it is arranged so that a finished hardcover exists on a shelf at the end of the year, whatever else does not.

Remento

One prompt arrives once each week. The person opens it and answers out loud, recording themselves rather than typing, which is the single decision the whole product rests on. Remento then runs a step it calls Speech-to-Story, which turns the spoken answer into written prose for the page. The original recording is kept, and each story in the finished hardcover carries a QR code that plays it. One hardcover is included in the $99 annual price. The result is a book that behaves like an ordinary book on a shelf and also plays the voice that made it. Of the two products here, it is the newer design, and it treats the audio as something to be kept inside the printed object rather than filed away somewhere separate.

What they cost

At the entry tier StoryWorth is $40 cheaper than Remento and still includes a book. At the middle tier the two are within a few dollars of each other. Nothing published on either site explains the tiers in terms a buyer can convert into a decision without reading the checkout page, so read it.

Renewal is the part that catches people, and neither company makes it easy to compare at a glance. What happens to your stories, your recordings and your book credit when a subscription lapses is set out in each company's own terms. We have read the pricing pages, not the account back-ends, and we are not going to characterise renewal behaviour we have not verified. Check it yourself before you buy, on the company's own terms page, whichever of the two you choose.

Where they genuinely differ

Typing versus talking. StoryWorth accepts a written answer, which suits someone who writes comfortably and would rather compose than perform. Remento pushes the person to speak. Which means: StoryWorth fits a letter-writer and Remento fits a talker, and most families know within one sentence which of those they are dealing with.

The rewrite. Remento's Speech-to-Story turns speech into prose, so the printed text reads better than a raw transcript and is not word-for-word what was said. StoryWorth prints the answer as it was given. Which means: Remento produces a more readable book, and StoryWorth produces a more literal one. Families who want the exact phrasing, the repetitions and the particular way a person says things should know the trade before they pay.

Where the audio ends up. Both keep recordings. StoryWorth can turn them into an audiobook. Remento puts a QR code beside each story in the printed book. Which means: with Remento the audio travels with the object, and a grandchild who picks the book off a shelf in 2050 can hear the voice without an account, a password, or the company still existing.

What neither does. Neither builds a voice model, and neither can answer a question that was never asked during the year. Which means: both products finish. When the book is printed, that is the complete artefact, and there is nothing further to ask.

What each one does better

StoryWorth is better at

Price at the entry point, and the range of tiers. $59 a year with a hardcover included is the cheapest way in this comparison to end up with a printed book, and there is a $109 tier and a $79 tier above it if you want more. It also accepts a written answer, which matters more than it sounds: a person who is self-conscious about being recorded will often write four paragraphs happily and then freeze in front of a microphone. For that person, StoryWorth is the only one of the two that will produce anything at all this year.

Remento is better at

Keeping the voice usable, and making the book readable. The QR code is by far the strongest single idea in either product: the recording lives inside the printed object, so it survives a lapsed subscription and a lost password. Speech-to-Story means nobody has to transcribe or edit anything, which is where most self-run family projects die. Recording out loud also gets more out of most people than typing does, because talking is faster, looser and much less self-conscious than writing a paragraph. And at a flat $99 a year with the book included, there is only one price to understand.

Which to choose

Choose StoryWorth if the lowest price with a book included is the point, the storyteller would rather write than talk, or you want the printed text to be the words as they were given rather than a rewrite.

Choose Remento if you want the original voice inside the finished book, the storyteller talks more easily than they write, nobody in the family wants to edit a transcript, or you want a single flat price.

For some people neither is right. If money is the constraint, a voice recorder is already on the phone in your pocket, and StoryCorps is free: more than 700,000 people recorded since 2003, with the archive held at the Library of Congress (storycorps.org/about). And if the person will not use email or SMS at all, Storii telephones a landline for about $99 a year, which neither of these two will do.

Questions people ask

Is StoryWorth or Remento cheaper?

StoryWorth, at its entry tier: $59 a year against Remento's $99, with a hardcover included in both. At the middle tier, $109, the two are effectively the same price.

Does Remento include a printed book?

Yes, one hardcover in the $99 annual price, with a QR code beside each story that plays the original recording.

Does StoryWorth keep the original recording?

Yes. Answers can be recorded by phone and an audiobook can be produced from them. Neither StoryWorth nor Remento builds a voice clone or answers a question that was never asked.

Which one keeps the words exactly as they were spoken?

StoryWorth prints the answer as given. Remento's Speech-to-Story rewrites a spoken answer into prose, so the printed text is a rendering rather than a transcript, while the original audio stays available through the QR code.

Which one is better for a grandparent who is not comfortable with technology?

Remento asks less: open a prompt, talk, done. StoryWorth asks the person to write, unless they record. Neither works without email or SMS, and neither works on a landline.

A third option, briefly

We build MemoriesBox, so treat this paragraph accordingly. It does a different job from both: it records a long interview, keeps and clones the person's own voice, and lets the family ask it a question later. $139 a year, hosted in the EU, book extra. If a printed hardcover is what you want, the two above are the better comparison.

Related: StoryWorth vs Storii · Everything compared · The best StoryWorth alternatives · What happens when a memory company shuts down