Offerings
What you can do now, and what your family and/or designees receive later.
Choose Record Membership or Archive Membership. Either can start with a 7-day free trial. You pay only for what you add while you are living. After you are gone, the people you name pay for their own access to the guide, only if they want it.
For you, now
Your story, kept for future generations
Record Membership
$119 per year
Answer a question a day, write about anything, and build your family tree. Private to you, and it grows with you over the years. One day, the people you choose receive your whole record.
BeginYour story, and a guide to it
Archive Membership
$239 per year
Everything in Record Membership, plus a guide your family and/or designees can one day ask about your life. It answers only with your own words, quoted and dated. Review your choices each year and, if you like, have a partner library or archive keep a copy for future generations.
BeginPreview
$89 per year, with Archive Membership
See what your family and/or designees will see: ask the chat about your own record, and correct or add to anything while you can.
Record Membership includes 2 people who receive your record, and Archive Membership includes 5. With either, you can add more for a one-time fee each, up to 10 in all: $39 each with Record Membership, $89 each with Archive Membership, where they may also use the guide.
Side by side
| What is included | Record Membership | Archive Membership |
|---|---|---|
| Answer questions: a new question every day, and more whenever you like | ||
| Write about anything, in your own words | ||
| Build your family tree | ||
| The people who receive your record: 2 included with Record Membership, 5 with Archive Membership, more for a one-time fee each, up to 10 in all | ||
| After you pass, each of them receives a copy of your whole record, by email, through a protected download link | ||
| A yearly review of your wishes and the people you named | ||
| A guide your family and/or designees can ask about your life. It quotes only your own words, with their dates, and never speaks as you | ||
| Pay ahead, up to 10 years at a time and 12 years in all, with 10 years for less. Whatever paid time is left after your passing is the guide's, free for the people you named | ||
| The option of a Historical Deposit with a partner library or archive, for a one-time fee | ||
| Price | $119 per year | $239 per year |
For history, if you choose
Your family first. Then, if you choose, history.
Without a deposit, your record lasts as long as the people you name keep their copies. A Historical Deposit gives it a home beyond your family and beyond us: when your record leaves ToldForward after your passing, a copy goes to a partner library or archive for your state, which keeps it under its own policies.
$439, one-time, with Archive Membership
- Your family and/or designees receive their copies first. The deposit follows only when your record leaves ToldForward.
- It is an add-on to Archive Membership, which provides the technology that prepares it. You can add it once your paid Archive Membership has begun, not during the free trial.
- You choose it while you are living, and sign a deed of gift, the standard agreement libraries and archives use.
- The fee is non-refundable, including if you withdraw. We refund it only if we cannot deliver: if no partner accepts your record within 24 months, or if ToldForward closes first.
- It goes to one of our partner institutions for the state you lived in when you signed up. We promise that one of them will receive it, not which. If you move, you can move it to your new state while you are living, at no extra cost.
- The library or archive keeps it under its own policies, including how long it is kept, and how and when it can be read.
- Nothing is ever made public while you are living, and it is always your choice, never the default.
- We are confirming partner libraries and archives now. The Historical Deposit is offered once they are in place.
- How a Historical Deposit works
For after
Paying Archive Membership ahead
$1,999 for 10 years
Pay up to 10 years at once; each purchase adds to the time you already have, up to 12 years from today. Whatever paid time is left when your passing is confirmed becomes the guide's time for the people you named, at no cost to them; the waiting period comes out of it.
Dialogue
$119 per year, per person, once your paid time has run out
Your family and/or designees can ask questions about your life and read the answers in your own words, quoted and dated. It opens no sooner than 6 months after your passing is confirmed, free for as long as your paid Archive time lasts. After that, each designee you named may continue it on their own, year by year, for as long as ToldForward is running, if they continue before your paid time runs out (or, if it ran out during the waiting period, within 12 months of their access opening): once the guide closes for someone, it cannot be reopened. Each of them can download their copy of your record for 12 months after their access opens. We remind them 90, 60, 30 and 3 days before. Everyone keeps their own download of your record either way.
Commitments that apply to every offering.
Written into your agreement, not left to policy.
- Your data only
- Data comes only from you, while you are living.
- Text only
- We never receive audio: you type, or use your own device's dictation. No voice or likeness is ever kept.
- 6 months
- No conversation with your record sooner. You may set it longer.
- Adults only
- No one under 18 uses the conversational guide.
- No mimicry
- The guide quotes you and speaks about you, never as you, and always identifies itself as AI.
- Never public in life
- Your record is never published while you are living.
- If we ever close
- Your record is released early, in full: to you, or after your passing to the people you named, with the waiting period still kept.
- Built to outlast us
- Open formats, and a method for building the guide that we will publish, mean your record can be read and the guide rebuilt without us.
Every life story starts with a single answer.
It takes a few minutes, and only you can see it.
Start your free trial