StoryWorth alternatives: what to use instead, and why

Read this before you buy the one you have heard of.

Three things decide this, and you pick them before you pay

StoryWorth is the name most people in this category have heard, which is usually why anyone ends up comparing at all. It is a good product. It is also one of four that are not different versions of the same thing, and the differences are easier to see now than in month four.

Does he have to type? Three of the four let him talk instead. Does it renew? Three of the four run on a plan and one is a single payment. And the one that decides how you feel about the box when it arrives: do you want a book, or a collection? Most of these send a prompt and print the answer, so what comes back is fifty good answers to fifty unrelated questions. That is a real thing to own and some families want exactly it. It is just not the same object as something that reads like his life from start to finish.

What StoryWorth costs today

Worth knowing before you compare anything against it. Three plans, $59, $109 and $199 a year. The $59 prints black and white up to 480 pages. The $109 prints color up to 300, and $20 more at printing takes it to 480. The $199 adds guided phone interviews and renews at $99.

The 480 page figure gets quoted a lot without the condition attached. It is black and white. In color you are at 300 unless you pay the $20.

If you want to see it rather than read a summary of it, we paid for an account and went through all three plans screen by screen: StoryWorth review.

The alternatives

1. Remento, if the typing was the problem

The closest thing to StoryWorth in shape: a prompt arrives, he answers it, the answers get printed. The difference is he speaks rather than types, and the book is 8 by 10, full color on double-thick photo paper, which is the nicest object any of us print.

One plan, $99 a year, 200 pages included and $30 more up to 380, extra copies $69, unlimited collaborators, up to 30 minutes per story.

Remento does thread a little: their help centre says that after he records, it generates one follow up question from what he just said. That is one link, inside one story. The following week still opens a prompt off the list, so the book is still built from separate answers rather than one story that keeps going.

We used Remento too. The long version, with the book that arrived and five things it does better than we do, is here: Remento review.

2. Memowrite, if you want the most pages

Up to 500 pages, full color, in an A5 hardcover, with free worldwide shipping on any number of books, all per their product page. He can type or speak, and the voice feature is not locked behind a higher plan.

Two things to know before you buy. Their product page shows $57 and does not say the plan renews; their terms say it renews automatically, and their help centre says the renewal is charged at the regular price rather than the sale one. And their help centre says the voice audio is not saved, only the text it becomes, so there is no recording of him at the end of it.

We have not used Memowrite, so that is all we will say about it. The longer version, still built only on what they publish, is here: Memowrite vs Ethos.

3. Ethos, if the book itself was the problem

Ours, so weigh it accordingly. He is interviewed over two to three months and never types anything. Each question is written from what he said last time, so one story opens the next instead of working down a list, and it comes back as one continuous book with chapters rather than fifty entries in a row.

$99 once, not a plan. Five copies together are $237, which is $47.40 a book, and one more later is $69. Up to 400 pages in color with nothing more to pay to reach it. Up to 50 family and friends can each be interviewed and their memories go in his book. Every recording is yours to download and keep.

Being straight about our own weak spots, since this is that kind of page: we charge shipping on a single copy where StoryWorth, Remento and Memowrite do not, our 400 pages is fewer than StoryWorth in black and white and fewer than Memowrite, and nobody at Ethos reads the finished book. There is no editor and no proofreader. Software shapes what he said into chapters. What we do instead is send you every name and place we heard as one list to check before anything prints.

Where StoryWorth is still the right answer

He is on a landline and will not install anything

No app, no password, and he can answer by replying to the weekly email. Story Calls and Family Calls let him talk down the phone and it comes back word for word. StoryWorth do not publish which plan those need. On this, they are better at it than we are.

He actually likes writing

StoryWorth does not rewrite what he typed, so the page is literally his sentences, commas and all. We fix grammar and order so it reads as a book. If you want his words untouched, they are closer to it.

You want the cheapest way to a hardcover

$59 a year sits at the bottom of this market, as long as black and white is fine and the writing gets done inside the year. Only Memowrite's $57 opening price undercuts it, and that one renews at the regular price if the book is not finished.

What our own customers say

Questions people ask us

Want the long version?

We wrote a full three way comparison of StoryWorth, Remento and Ethos, with screenshots of both of their products because we have used them: StoryWorth vs Remento vs Ethos.

One last thing. The way these go wrong is almost never the price. It is a blank page arriving every Monday for somebody who does not enjoy writing, and a year later the book is still not made. You cannot tell from a pricing page which of these he will actually finish. You can tell from the screen he is asked to look at. Show him one, and buy the one he does not flinch at.