Why you shouldn't use HandedDown
StoryWorth and Remento make one person's book. HandedDown makes a family's library.
If one book is all you need or want, they probably do it better than we do. Here are those points, ahead of time, before you invest your time or money.
You want a gift to give this year
StoryWorth and Remento are built to be given. You buy it, a question goes to your mother every week, and a book arrives at the end of the year. A deadline can be a good thing. It gets books finished, but it can also make for a rush job, which isn't what you want from a memory.
The risk with any open project is that it stalls. We approach this dilemma by making everyone a storyteller and contributor, so one person isn't carrying the load, and anyone who picks up the pen and writes a story can start a chain reaction through your family. Finally, a stalled project isn't gone. It is still waiting for you whenever you have the time. If you want more consistent stories about a particular person (maybe Gran's 100th is around the corner), you can set a goal date. Unanswered questions about that person will ramp up until the date. Once it's past, set another one if you'd like, or print your book, for yourself or as a gift to someone in the family. You are in control.
Pick StoryWorth or Remento.
One person is telling their own story
If the whole book is one person answering questions about their own life, StoryWorth asks them and gets out of the way.
Our machinery is for many people writing about each other: invitations, choosing who a book is about, consent for everyone named. For a single memoir, that is overhead you do not need.
Pick StoryWorth.
You want to hear their voice on every page
Remento prints a QR code with every chapter, and it plays the recording the chapter was written from.
We record to get words onto the page. Each person keeps one voice memo, up to ten minutes, and that is the one recording a book links to. Other recordings are deleted once their words are confirmed, or 30 days after the words exist.
Pick Remento.
You want it to read like a memoir
Remento turns a recording into written chapters for you.
We keep what people actually said. The machine transcribes it, you correct what it got wrong, and a person's own words are set apart in the book from what relatives wrote about them. It reads like your family talking.
Pick Remento.
You want to research your ancestors
Storied searches historical records and old newspapers, and helps turn what you find into stories.
We have no records to search. We can read a family tree in from genealogy software, and after that we are about what living people remember.
Pick Storied.
You want a company with a long record
StoryWorth and Remento have printed far more books than we have.
We are new. That is why our promise is about formats, not about us: your whole archive, every photograph at full size, every story as plain text and every book you build as a PDF, downloads any time, free, whether or not you ever support us.
Pick StoryWorth or Remento. Read the promise
What each costs
| Price | For | |
|---|---|---|
| StoryWorth | $59 · $109 with colour inside | A year of weekly questions for one storyteller, one hardcover book, an e-book and an audiobook. Source |
| Remento | $99 · more copies $69 each | A year for one storyteller, one colour hardcover up to 200 pages, family collaboration. Source |
| HandedDown | Free · colour books from $21 paperback, $34 hardcover, by the page, shipped | Everyone in the family, for as long as you like, any number of books. Every book you build downloads as a PDF, free. Support is voluntary and buys nothing extra. |
Their prices are from their own pages, October 2026, and change with their sales. Storied is a subscription to a records service, so it doesn't fit this table. Ours are on the support page, by page count.
Still here?
Then you want what the others don't make: a family's stories, from everyone who remembers them, about everyone worth remembering, printed as books the family keeps.