# Tellforth vs Storyworth

Storyworth, founded in 2013, is the original: it emails your parent one question a week for a year and binds the written answers into a hardcover. It is simple and it works for people who like to write. It is a scrapbook of answers rather than a book, and the subscription auto-renews.

## What Storyworth does well

- Twelve years of operation and a large, searchable question library organised by category
- Simple for the writer: reply to an email
- Phone dictation added in 2025 for people who would rather speak
- Hardcover included; extra copies are cheap

## Where Storyworth falls short

- The output is the answers, in order, as written: nobody designs a book from them
- Dictated answers are converted to plain text, not written up
- The subscription auto-renews at the yearly price unless cancelled; this is the most common complaint about it
- No follow-up questions: if an answer stops halfway, it stays stopped
- It depends on the parent doing their homework every week; completion is the category's quiet failure and nobody publishes the rate

## Side by side

| | Storyworth | Tellforth |
|---|---|---|
| How stories are gathered | One emailed question a week; the storyteller types a reply (or dictates, converted to plain text) | Voice visits of 15 to 20 minutes with a live interviewer that asks follow-ups, plus a 30-second daily card; no typing, no login for the teller |
| Follow-up questions | None; the next week's question is the next in the queue | One record of every person, place, saying and story; the next question comes from what is still missing |
| What you get | The written answers, in order, bound as a 6×9 hardcover | A designed, finished book: a memoir in the teller's own words, or a novel built on the true story with what was invented listed at the back |
| Ownership | Access continues after the subscription year; the book can be reordered | You own every recording and word; export everything free, any time; no subscription |
| Price | About $99 a year, auto-renewing (check their site) | One-time price; no renewal |
| If it isn't finished | The year ends; you can keep going on renewal | No deadline and no renewal: the record stays open until the book is finished, and we step in early if it stalls |

## Verdict

Choose Storyworth if your parent likes to write and you want the simplest possible product with a long track record. Choose this if your parent would rather talk, if you want a book someone actually designed and wrote from what was said, and if you do not want a renewal.

## Switching

- Export your Storyworth answers as text
- They can be imported as told material; the interviewer reads them and asks what is still missing rather than starting over

## Sources

- Storyworth vs Remento (Storyworth's own page): https://welcome.storyworth.com/storyworth-vs-remento/
- A complete guide to Storyworth's questions: https://welcome.storyworth.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-storyworths-questions

Prices and features of other products are as published on their own sites at the time of writing and may have changed.