Everything you need to know.

Not at all. Lifestoria calls them — they just need to pick up the phone. There are no apps to download, no accounts to create, and no buttons to press. If your loved one can answer a phone call, they can use Lifestoria.

You — the family member setting it up — handle everything else from a simple web dashboard. Your loved one never needs to touch a computer or smartphone.

Most families complete setup in under ten minutes. You'll tell us your loved one's name, language, a preferred call time, and a few things about them to help personalise their Life Arc. That's it.

From there, Lifestoria handles everything — the scheduling, the introductions, and the ongoing conversations. You can check in anytime to read new chapters as they're added.

Yes — we strongly recommend it. Letting your loved one know that a call is coming, and that it will be a gentle conversation about their life and memories, helps them feel at ease and more open when it arrives.

Many families frame it simply: "Someone is going to call you to ask about your life — things you remember, things that shaped you. I thought it would be a nice way to capture your stories." That's usually all it takes.

Yes — and gifting is one of the most meaningful ways families use Lifestoria. You set up and pay for the account, enter your loved one's details, and choose a plan. Everything else happens automatically. Your loved one simply receives a call and begins sharing.

The story archive is built for the person you gift it to, but you can share access with family members so everyone can read it as it grows. Visit our gifting page to get started.

Yes — and often it works especially well. Long-term memories from earlier in life tend to remain vivid even when recent memory fades. Lifestoria's guided conversations are designed to move gently through time, exploring childhood, early adulthood, relationships, and values — areas that are often richly accessible even for those experiencing some cognitive change.

If you have specific concerns about your loved one's situation, we recommend reaching out to us directly. We're happy to talk through whether Lifestoria is a good fit.

This is very common — and something Lifestoria is specifically designed for. The first call is always warm and unhurried. The questions start gently, with simple things like where they grew up or what school was like. There is no pressure to share anything uncomfortable.

Many families are surprised. People who claimed to "have nothing interesting to say" end up talking for an hour. Sometimes it's easier to open up to a gentle, patient listener who isn't family — there's no history, no dynamic, no judgment.

Lifestoria places a phone call at the scheduled time and introduces itself as a service set up by the family to capture their loved one's stories. The conversation begins gently — with light questions about their early life, family, or a period they've mentioned before.

Calls typically last between 20 and 45 minutes, though there's no set limit. Lifestoria listens, asks follow-up questions when something interesting surfaces, and keeps the pace natural. After the call, everything is transcribed and a new chapter is written.

The Life Arc is a structured question path designed around your loved one's life — covering key themes like childhood and origins, family and relationships, work and vocation, values and beliefs, major turning points, and the wisdom they'd want to pass on.

Lifestoria shapes this arc based on the information you provide during setup — their era, cultural background, key life chapters, and what your family most wants to preserve. The arc evolves as conversations unfold, following threads that prove especially meaningful.

Missed calls are automatically rescheduled — you are never charged for a call that didn't happen. We'll notify you so you can let your loved one know to expect it, and we'll try again at the next available window.

If your loved one is consistently unavailable at a particular time, you can update the preferred call time from your dashboard at any point.

Absolutely. They can simply say they'd like to stop, or hang up — Lifestoria will close the call warmly and save everything that was shared. The next call will pick up naturally from where the conversation left off.

There is no obligation to speak for a set amount of time. Every conversation, no matter how short, adds something valuable to their story.

No. Each call builds on previous ones. Lifestoria remembers what was shared, where the conversation paused, and what threads are worth exploring further. This means your loved one is never asked to repeat themselves, and the story deepens naturally over time.

Occasional revisits to an earlier theme are intentional — memory often unlocks more detail the second time around, especially when approached from a different angle.

Yes. Full recordings of every call are available in your dashboard, alongside the transcript and the written chapter. Hearing your loved one's voice — the pauses, the laughter, the way they say certain things — often becomes one of the most treasured parts of the experience.

The story archive is a growing collection of chapters built from every conversation. Each chapter is drawn from a single call and includes: a written narrative in your loved one's voice, a full transcript of the conversation, and a recording of the call itself.

Over time, the chapters are woven into a complete story — covering their origins, family, relationships, work, values, turning points, and the wisdom they'd want to leave behind. It's the kind of document that gets passed down across generations.

The chapters are written by Lifestoria's AI, trained specifically to render spoken memory into warm, readable prose — while preserving the voice, personality, and phrasing of the person who shared it. We do not flatten stories into generic summaries. The goal is to read like something your loved one actually wrote.

If a particular chapter feels off, or you'd like something revised, you can request an edit from your dashboard. We want every story to feel true.

Yes. You can invite family members to access the story archive directly — they'll be able to read new chapters as they're added, listen to recordings, and download everything at any time. Each person reads at their own pace.

Families often find this becomes a shared experience — siblings comparing memories, grandchildren reading about a grandparent's childhood for the first time, cousins discovering things about the family they never knew.

Yes. You can download the full story archive as a formatted PDF at any time — including all chapters, transcripts, and references to recordings.

The download is yours to keep regardless of whether your subscription is active.

There is no fixed endpoint — a story archive grows as long as a life deserves. Most families find that 10 to 20 conversations cover the major chapters meaningfully, but many continue far beyond that, exploring specific periods in greater depth or capturing stories that emerge later.

A life is never fully told. But every conversation makes the story richer.

Everything that has been captured stays with you. You can download the full story archive — all written chapters, transcripts, and links to recordings — even after cancellation. The stories your family gathered will never be taken away.

If you choose to resubscribe later, their story picks up exactly where it left off.

The only difference is the number of calls scheduled per month — which determines how quickly their story archive grows. Letter (1 call/$50), Journal (2 calls/$75), and Anthology (4 calls/$100) all include exactly the same features: the full Life Arc, personalised questions, professional chapter writing, recordings, and family sharing.

Most families choose Journal as a steady, comfortable pace. Anthology is popular when families feel there is some urgency — or simply want the deepest story archive, sooner. See the full pricing page for details.

Yes — at any time. Changes take effect at the start of the next billing period. If you start with Letter and find you want more calls per month, upgrading to Journal or Anthology is a one-click change from your dashboard. Downgrading works the same way.

Nothing is ever lost when you switch plans. Their story continues from exactly where it was.

Yes. If your loved one is unwell, travelling, or simply needs a rest, you can pause the subscription from your dashboard. Calls will stop immediately and resume when you're ready — with no loss of data and no retroactive charges.

None. The monthly plan price covers everything — calls, Life Arc customisation, transcription, chapter writing, recordings, family sharing, and downloads. There are no activation fees, no per-call charges on top, and no premium tiers for features.

What you see on the pricing page is what you pay.

We accept all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay where supported. All payments are processed securely through Stripe, and your card details are never stored on Lifestoria's servers.

Yes — any time, for any reason, with no cancellation penalty. You'll retain access until the end of the billing period you've already paid for, after which no further charges occur. Your story archive is always downloadable, before and after cancellation.

Lifestoria currently supports over 90 languages natively — including Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Italian, German, Polish, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Turkish, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, and many more.

You can view the full list on our language page. If you don't see the language you need, contact us — we're adding more regularly.

Yes — Lifestoria is designed to handle code-switching naturally. Many multilingual speakers move between two languages in a single conversation, and Lifestoria follows along. The transcript and written chapter will reflect the language or blend of languages actually used.

If your loved one primarily thinks in one language but occasionally uses phrases from another, this is captured as a natural part of their voice, not corrected or flattened.

Yes. If your loved one speaks Portuguese, their stories are written in Portuguese. If they speak Hindi, they're written in Hindi. We do not translate without being asked — preserving the language of the person telling it is fundamental to preserving their voice.

If you'd like a translation of their story archive into another language for other family members, this can be requested as an additional option from your dashboard.

Lifestoria's voice recognition is trained across a wide range of regional accents, dialects, and speech patterns. It handles variation well — including elders who speak more slowly, who pause often, or who use older regional expressions.

In the rare case of a transcription error, you can flag it from your dashboard and a corrected version will be applied to the chapter.

Yes. Lifestoria can speak more slowly and clearly, and can repeat questions if asked. You can indicate hearing preferences during setup, and your loved one can also ask Lifestoria to repeat something at any point during the call.

If your loved one uses a hearing aid or amplified phone, standard call volume should work well. If you have specific accessibility needs, please reach out to us directly and we'll do our best to accommodate.

Only people you explicitly invite. The story archive is completely private by default — it is not visible to anyone outside the family members you grant access to. You control who can read, listen, and download.

Lifestoria staff do not read your family's stories. Our systems process conversations to generate chapters and transcripts, but no human employee has access to your family's content.

No. Your family's conversations are never used to train our AI models, and are never shared with any third party for this purpose. Your stories belong to your family — not to us, not to anyone else.

We have structured our agreements with all underlying AI providers specifically to exclude customer data from training pipelines. This is a non-negotiable part of how we build Lifestoria.

All data — recordings, transcripts, and story chapters — is encrypted at rest and in transit using industry-standard AES-256 and TLS 1.3 protocols. Our infrastructure is hosted on secure cloud providers with SOC 2 compliance.

Access to data is role-restricted internally, and all access is logged. We conduct regular security reviews and do not store payment details — all payment processing is handled by Stripe.

Never. Lifestoria does not sell, rent, or share personal data with advertisers or data brokers. We do not run ads within our product, and we do not monetise your family's information in any form.

Our business model is simple: families pay for the service, and the service serves them. Your data exists to preserve their story — nothing else.

Yes. You have the right to request full deletion of your account and all associated data at any time. Once submitted, all recordings, transcripts, chapters, and personal information are permanently deleted within 30 days.

We recommend downloading your story archive before requesting deletion, as this action is irreversible. To request deletion, contact us via our contact page or email us directly.

Yes. Lifestoria is built with GDPR compliance as a baseline — including lawful basis for data processing, clear consent flows, data minimisation practices, and full data subject rights (access, correction, portability, and deletion).

For users in Brazil, we adhere to LGPD requirements. For California residents, your rights under CCPA are honoured. Our full privacy policy is available at lifestoria.ai/legal/privacy-policy.html.