Memowrite vs Ethos: what it costs, and what renews
Their page shows $57. It does not say the plan renews.
We make one of these. Ethos is ours, so read this the way you would read any comparison written by one of the two companies in it. Everything we say about Memowrite is linked to a page Memowrite publishes, at the foot of this article, so you can check all of it.
We have not used Memowrite. Their product sits behind an email gate and we do not have an account. So this page compares what they publish with what we do. Where they do not publish something, we say that instead of guessing.
The short answer
Memowrite sends a fixed set of 50 questions and turns the answers into a small full color hardcover. Ethos interviews your father over two to three months, writes it as one continuous story, and each question comes from what he said last time.
The practical difference on the day you buy is simpler than that. Memowrite is a subscription that renews. Ethos is $99, once.
What Memowrite costs
Their product page shows $57, with $94 struck through and a 35% off badge. That page does not say how long the plan lasts, and it does not say it renews. The only clue to the length is the address the buy button points at, which names a three month plan.
Their terms say the plan renews automatically for another period the same length as the last one, and that you have to cancel at least 48 hours before it ends. Their help centre puts it plainly: if you have not finished the book by the end of the plan, it renews. And on what the renewal costs, they say it continues at the regular price of that plan, not the sale price you first paid.
To be fair to them: they also say the subscription cancels itself once the book goes to print, and you can cancel at any point before that at no cost. The renewal is what happens if the writing takes longer than the plan you bought, which for a life story is not unusual.
We could not find a price for extra printed copies on any page they publish, so this article does not give one. Their terms say the fee is specified on the website. We could not find where.
What Ethos costs
$99, once, for a hardcover. Five copies bought together are $237, which is $47.40 a book, and one more ordered later is $69. There is no plan, no renewal date and nothing to cancel. If the book takes six months instead of three, it costs the same.
The book you end up with
Memowrite's product page lists a full color hardcover in A5, up to 500 pages with unlimited revisions, 20 cover designs, and free worldwide shipping on any number of books. That is a genuinely good list and the page limit beats ours.
Memowrite
5.83 x 8.27 in
Archival-quality paper
Ethos
7 x 10 in
Thick coated paper
The questions, and whether they follow him
Memowrite's method is 50 questions. Their how it works page says you get access to all of them from the start and can take your time. Their help centre says the questions are carefully selected and that you can skip any that do not fit.
What we could not find anywhere on their site is a claim that a later question is built from an earlier answer. We are not saying it does not happen. We are saying they do not publish it, and we will not tell you something about a competitor's product that they have not said themselves.
For Ethos that part is the entire method, so we will show it rather than describe it.
He talks. Does anyone keep his voice?
Both let him speak instead of typing, and on Memowrite that is not locked behind a higher plan, which is more than StoryWorth can say. Their help centre describes a recording button beside each question, up to ten minutes at a time, as many times as he likes.
The same page says something worth reading twice: the audio is not saved. The speech becomes text, and the text is what remains.
With Ethos every recording is yours to download and keep. In twenty years the book will be the thing you hand to someone. His voice will be the thing you play.
Who writes it
On Memowrite the storyteller writes, and their how it works page says the Memowrite team then proofreads, edits and polishes every word. We have read their pages carefully and they do not say whether that is a person or software, so we are not going to tell you which it is.
We will tell you about ours, because this is the claim everyone in this market is loose about. Nobody at Ethos reads the finished book. There is no editor and no proofreader. Software shapes what he said into chapters and keeps his voice. What we do instead is pull every name and every place we heard into one list and send it to you to check before anything is printed, because a misspelled maiden name is the mistake a family notices and a computer does not.
What people say about Memowrite
There is no independent review of Memowrite that we could find. The two that read like reviews are commercial: one carries an affiliate disclosure, and the other sits on a web address with the word advertorial in it. That is not a criticism of the product. It means there is no disinterested account of it to point you at, and we would rather say so than link something and call it a test.
On ratings, we will give you both numbers we found and let you weigh them. Memowrite's own pages show a rating widget reading 4.7 out of 2,142 reviews. On 26 August 2026, their Trustpilot page showed 4.3 from 2,866 reviews. We are not going to tell you what the difference means. Both are linked, both were read on the same day, and 4.3 across nearly three thousand reviews is a decent score for any company.
Where Memowrite beats us
- Free shipping, anywhere in the world
- They ship free, worldwide, on any number of books, per their help centre. We charge shipping on a single copy. If you are outside the US this may decide it for you on its own.
- More pages
- Up to 500 against our 400. A very long life with a lot to say fits in theirs and might not fit in ours.
- A cheaper way in
- $57 is less than $99. If the writing gets done inside the plan, and he is happy typing, they cost less. That is a real answer and we are not going to talk you out of it.
- Twenty covers
- They publish 20 cover options. We do not offer that much choice.
Where we think we are worth the difference
He does not write. He talks, for about fifty minutes, and the next question comes from what he just said, so the story opens outward instead of working down a list. It arrives as one continuous book with chapters, not fifty answers in a row. Up to 50 family and friends can each be interviewed and their memories go into his book. Every recording stays yours. And it is one payment, so nothing renews while you are getting round to it.
$99, once
No subscription and no renewal date. Prices checked August 2026; features checked August 2026.
- A hardcover biography, 7 by 10 inches, full color inside on thick coated paper
- His whole life in order, from childhood to now, in chapters
- Up to 400 pages, so a long life costs the same as a short one
- A question a week, answered out loud. No typing, no app, no password
- Questions written from what he has already said, by people who write memoirs for a living
- Up to 50 family and friends, each with their own interview, all of it in his book
- Every recording, yours to download and keep
- The digital copy
- A list of every name and place we heard, to check before it prints
What our own customers say
★★★★★
I'm 74. Figured I had nothing worth writing down. Two months in, I had 180 pages. My grandkids read it together at Thanksgiving.
★★★★★
I just answered the questions. That's all I had to do. They sent me back a book that sounds like me. My daughter said she could hear my voice on every page.
★★★★★
Got this for my dad who never talks about himself. There are stories in this book none of us had heard.
★★★★★
Good experience overall. We gave it to my father in law and he answers his question every week. Printing took longer than we expected.
Questions people ask us
Is Memowrite a one-off payment?
No. It is a subscription. Their product page shows $57 with $94 struck through, and that page does not say how long the plan runs or that it renews. Their terms say the plan renews automatically for the same length again, and their help centre says the renewal is charged at the regular price rather than the sale one. You can cancel, and they say the plan also ends by itself once the book goes to print. Ethos is one payment. There is nothing to cancel because there is nothing running.
Do the questions follow what he already said?
Memowrite publishes a fixed set of 50 questions, and their help centre says you can skip any that do not fit. We could find nothing on any of their pages saying a later question is built from an earlier answer, so we do not claim either way. With Ethos it is the whole method: we listen to what he says, and the next question comes from that.
Does he get to keep the recordings?
With Ethos, yes. Every recording is yours to download and keep, in his own voice. Memowrite's help centre says their voice feature converts speech to text and that the audio is not saved, only the words. If hearing him again matters to your family, that is the difference that will matter most in twenty years.
Which book is bigger?
Memowrite's is A5, which is 5.83 by 8.27 inches, and it goes up to 500 pages. Ethos is 7 by 10 inches and goes up to 400. Theirs holds more words, ours is a larger object on the table and prints photographs bigger. Both are full color inside.
Have you actually used Memowrite?
No, and we say so on this page rather than pretending otherwise. Their product sits behind an email gate and we have no account, so everything here comes from pages Memowrite publishes, all of them linked at the foot. We have used StoryWorth and Remento, which is why our three-way comparison can say how those two behave.
Still deciding?
If StoryWorth and Remento are also on your list, we wrote a longer comparison of those two against us, with screenshots of both products because we have used them: StoryWorth vs Remento vs Ethos.
And if StoryWorth is the name you keep coming back to, we weighed it against the same field here: StoryWorth alternatives.
We paid for both of those and used them, so there is a page on each with screenshots from our own accounts: Remento review and StoryWorth review.
See the Ethos life story bookOne last thing. The question to ask about any of these is not which is cheapest. It is what you are holding in two years. A set of answers to fifty questions is a real thing and some families want exactly that. A book that reads like somebody's life, in his voice, with his recordings kept, is a different thing. Buy whichever one you actually wanted.
Sources. Everything said about Memowrite above comes from these pages, all read on 26 August 2026. Prices verified August 2026. Features verified August 2026. Competitor prices change, and if you are reading this much later, check them yourself.
- Memowrite product page — price, A5 size, 500 pages, 20 covers, full color, free worldwide shipping.
- Memowrite, how it works — the 50 questions, access from the start, and the proofreading claim.
- Memowrite terms and conditions — automatic renewal, and the 48 hour cancellation window.
- Memowrite help centre, on renewal — the plan renews if the book is not finished.
- Memowrite help centre, on the renewal price — renewal is charged at the regular price.
- Memowrite help centre, on voice — ten minutes per recording, and that the audio is not saved.
- Memowrite help centre, on the questions — the questions are selected, and you may skip them.
- Memowrite help centre, on shipping — free shipping globally.
- Memowrite on Trustpilot — 4.3 from 2,866 reviews, read 26 August 2026.
Memowrite is a trademark of its owner. We are not affiliated with them, and this page is not endorsed by them.