What is a digital legacy service?
A digital legacy service records a person's life story — usually as audio, sometimes as text or video — and keeps it for their family after they are gone. MemoriesBox is one: a guided interview in the person's own voice, a voice model built from it, and a digital self the archive can be asked. The term also covers weekly-prompt books, phone interviews and tape digitising.
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The definition, and what it leaves out
A digital legacy service is a product that captures something of a living person — their stories, their voice, their answers to questions — and keeps it in a form their family can return to after they have died. The phrase is broad on purpose. It is used for a $59 subscription that emails a question a week and prints a book, for a company that telephones your grandmother, for an app that builds a voice model and answers questions in it, and for a firm that turns your VHS tapes into files.
What it does not mean is worth stating too. It is not the same as digital estate planning — passwords, accounts, who gets the photo library — though some of the same companies sell both. And it is not the same as a griefbot: a simulation of a dead person assembled afterwards from their messages or a relative's description. A digital legacy service, in the sense this page uses, works with the living person, while they can take part. That line matters more than any feature, and it is where /trust/consent starts.
The four kinds
Eleven services were compared for this site in August 2026, with prices checked on each company's own pages. They fall into four jobs, and the job decides the price and what you end up holding.
| Kind | What the family ends up with | Examples, with prices checked 17 August 2026 | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly-prompt books | A printed hardcover of written or transcribed answers | StoryWorth from $59 a year; Remento $99 a year with a QR code that plays the recording; Autobiographer $99 a year | $59–$199 a year |
| Interviews by telephone or AI | Recordings, and sometimes transcripts | Storii about $99 a year, on any phone; HeritageWhisper $39 a year, with an AI interviewer | $39–$99 a year |
| Voice and a digital self | The recordings, a model of the voice, and an archive that can be asked a question later | MemoriesBox, $139 a year, hosted in the EU; Avataari and Afterlife AI, outside it | Free tiers to $139 a year |
| Digitising what you already have | Files made from tapes, film, slides and prints | Legacybox from $69.98 for two items; iMemories from $14.99 a tape | Per item |
The first two kinds produce a record. The third produces a record and something that can still be asked. The fourth produces nothing new; it rescues what exists. Families often need two of the four, and the honest version of that argument is on /alternatives.
What "in their own voice" actually means
Most of the category keeps text. StoryWorth's book is the person's words on paper; Remento keeps the audio behind a QR code. Both are real records, and a printed book has outlived every software company so far.
A smaller part of the category keeps the voice — not a recording of it, which any phone makes, but a model of it: enough of the person's own speech that a sentence they never said can be spoken as they would have said it. Of the eleven services compared, none of the life-story products does this; two AI-legacy products do, and MemoriesBox does, from about 30 minutes of recordings, only when the person presses the button to build it. What that model can and cannot do, and why it is deleted when the person says so, is on /features/voice-cloning.
Whether you want that is a real question, not a feature checkbox. Mary-Frances O'Connor, who studies what grief does to the brain, warns that a lifelike simulation can make the past too attractive to let go, and the evidence in either direction is thin. That argument is given in full, in the words it was made in, on /features/companion, rather than answered with a slogan.
What to check before you pay
Five questions separate a service you will still be able to use in ten years from one you will not. Ask them of any product on this page, including ours.
- Can you get everything out, at any time, in files that open without the company? StoryFile could not be asked this in time: it filed for Chapter 11 on 5 May 2024 owing $150,000 in customer refunds (Westfair). The answer for MemoriesBox is on /trust/export.
- Where is the data, physically, and who processes it? "GDPR compliant" is not an address. /trust/where-your-data-lives names a city for the storage and a country for every processor.
- Who agreed? A service that builds a voice from a dead person's messages is doing something different from one that records a living person pressing a button. /trust/consent.
- What happens if you stop paying? Some services delete; some keep read-only; some do not say. MemoriesBox deletes nothing on lapse, and it is in the Terms.
- Does the conversation say what it is? Since 2 August 2026, EU AI Act Article 50 requires it. /trust/eu-ai-act-article-50.
Where MemoriesBox sits
MemoriesBox is a digital legacy service of the third kind: a guided interview of 380 questions across 21 chapters, read aloud and answered in the person's own voice; a voice model built from those recordings when the person asks; and a digital self — theirs to talk to today, their heirs' in the version being built next — that answers from what was actually recorded and says on screen what it is. It is $139 a year, made in Berlin, stores recordings in the EU, and everything downloads as one ZIP whenever you like. It is also not the right choice for everyone, and /for-agents is written to say when it is not.
47% of Americans regret not recording or documenting a conversation with someone who has since died, and 59% have never done it at all (YouGov, June 2022, n=6,090). The category exists because of that gap, and the cheapest way across it is the voice recorder on your phone this weekend. Every service here, including this one, is what you use after that.
Questions people ask
What is a digital legacy service?
A product that records something of a living person — their life story, their voice, their answers — and keeps it for their family after they die. It covers weekly-prompt books, telephone and AI interviews, services that keep the voice and can be asked questions, and companies that digitise old tapes.
Is a digital legacy service the same as a griefbot?
No. A griefbot is assembled after a death from messages or a relative's description of the person. A digital legacy service in the sense used here works with the living person, while they can take part and consent. MemoriesBox will not build a voice from someone who never recorded with it.
How much does a digital legacy service cost?
From $39 a year for an AI interviewer (HeritageWhisper) to $199 a year for the largest weekly-prompt plan (StoryWorth), with MemoriesBox at $139 a year. Digitising services charge per tape or item. Prices checked on each company's own site on 17 August 2026.
Which digital legacy services keep the person's voice?
Of eleven life-story services compared in August 2026, none builds a model of the storyteller's voice. Two AI-legacy products do, Avataari and Afterlife AI, and MemoriesBox does, from about 30 minutes of recordings, hosted in the EU.
What should I check before choosing one?
Whether you can export everything in open files at any time, where the data physically lives and who processes it, who consented, what happens when you stop paying, and whether the conversation says it is AI.
Related: Every other way to keep a voice · The full comparison table · Where your recordings live · Take everything with you · How the voice model is built
MemoriesBox is $139 a year, hosted in the EU, first 14 days free, cancel anytime. Start here.