Capturing and preserving family memories can often feel daunting, but tools like Storyworth are designed to help make the process straightforward. Storyworth is a service designed to help families easily document their personal histories and create lasting keepsakes. This guide walks through everything you need to know about Storyworth, including how Storyworth works, how to log into Storyworth, what's special about the Storyworth book, and top Storyworth alternatives to help you make an informed buying decision.
Below, we’ll cover:
If you’re thinking of gifting Storyworth to a loved one or yourself, or it’s your first time hearing Storyworth and just want to know more about it, this guide is for you.
Storyworth is a platform that structures the process of writing a memoir through weekly responses to storytelling prompts. Over a year, these written stories are transformed into a hardcover book, creating a lasting keepsake.
The ideal Storyworth customer loves to write and doesn’t find the prospect of writing an entire book over a year intimidating. They are also comfortable with technology as they’ll be instructed to log into Storyworth to write their reflections and add photographs.
Storyworth has developed a list of general-purpose questions designed to inspire the recall of memories, ranging from distant family history to more contemporary memories.
These questions are designed to encourage people to share their memories, thoughts, and experiences in a meaningful way.
Explore a list of 48 sample Storyworth questions and prompts
Storyworth books are hardcover 6ⅹ9 inch books, and no formatting is allowed—no italics, bold, or underlining. These books are printed in black and white, although customers can purchase a color-printed book for an additional fee.
In short, Storyworth turns written responses to storytelling prompts into a hardcover book. After a year, these stories will be compiled and printed into a beautiful hardcover book.
Let’s take a closer look at how this actually works:
Once you’ve purchased a Storyworth subscription, you’ll get a Storyworth account to manage your project(s). You can also send custom welcome notes to the storyteller.
Note: Each subscription is tied to one storyteller email address, and you can have multiple subscriptions for different storytellers. You can manage all storytellers from your dashboard.
While Storyworth will automatically select questions for you, we notice the best Storyworth experiences are when the storyteller receives personalized questions from their loved ones.
The default questions are randomly selected so the storyteller may receive repetitive questions. One customer reviewed, “Several questions, though worded differently, were redundant.”
While these questions are great starting points, many customers enjoy picking and choosing questions relevant to their storyteller from Storyworth’s question bank (see example questions). If you need additional inspiration beyond those provided by Storyworth, we’ve collected a selection of deep questions to go a bit further with someone you love.
Once a week, the storyteller receives a writing prompt in their inbox asking about their life experiences. They can either reply via email, or log into the platform to type their story. All replies will be automatically saved in their private Storyworth account and shared with you (the gifter).
In our research speaking with Storyworth storytellers, many described the process of writing these stories to be novel at first, but then started to feel a bit like homework over time, which led to them falling behind. If you’re considering purchasing Storyworth for a parent or grandparent, you might consider calling them every week to keep them motivated to keep writing each week.
Learn more from Storyworth customers
After the storyteller has completed all 52 prompts, anyone with access can review the stories and preview the book on your Storyworth account before printing.
Here are a few tips to reviewing these stories and organizing them for printing in your Storywoth book:
As for the book cover, you can customize the title and image, not the title’s typeface or font size. There’s also a selection of cover styles and colors to choose from.
Once you have reviewed everything, place an order to print the book, which should arrive in around 10 business days.
You’ll have 3 months to edit your stories and order the book after the subscription ends. Once your subscription ended, you would still be able to keep your account and stories. But if you haven’t finished writing your stories within the year and wish to write more, you’ll have to renew your subscription for another year.
A Storyworth annual subscription costs $99. The package includes a year’s worth of weekly emailed story prompts, unlimited project guests who can add prompts and view stories, and a 6x9-inch black & white hardcover book.
Pricing for additional books is less straightforward as it depends on the print format and number of pages, but here’s a breakdown:
You can select up to 10 extra black & white books or buy additional books later at the end of your subscription. During the checkout, you can only order the black & white books. To get the colored books, you’ll need to upgrade your book credits when printing, which costs an additional $40 or $60, depending on the number of pages.
Pro Tip: You can get credits for a free black & white book by referring a friend using your referral code. Your friend will also get $10 😉
Storyworth offers a full refund within 30 days after purchase, as long as no books have been printed. They do not offer returns or exchanges for printed books. You can manage refunds from your Storyworth account under Manage account > Billing.
Storyworth will occasionally offer a $10 discount during key holidays, like Mother's Day, Father's Day, and in December.
After speaking with hundreds of Storyworth families, we’ve compiled an overview of what customers like most and least about the Storyworth platform.
Pros of Storyworth
Cons of Storyworth
Read additional Storyworth reviews
Several new services have emerged in the last several years designed to help families capture and preserve stories of aging relatives. Here are some of their offerings:
Remento makes it easy to create an entire book of life stories without writing a word. Remento’s automated interviewing technology interviews your parents or grandparents each week for a year, and compiles their responses into a printed keepsake book.
Here are some features that make Remento stand out:
Price: $99 (with $10 discount available for new customers)
Learn more about the differences between Storyworth and Remento
No Story Lost is a service that helps families capture and preserve their cherished memories through professional interviews and beautifully bound books. The process starts with a friendly interviewer conducting recorded conversations with your loved ones, focusing on their unique stories and experiences.
Here are some features that make No Story Lost Stand Out.
Price: Starting at $1,099
Other companies offering similar products to Storyworth include: