A Life Story Video Is a Beautiful Answer to Twelve Questions

A professional life story video costs between $475 and $10,495 in the United States, and the spread comes down to three things: whether anyone edits the footage, how many cameras are in the room, and how far the crew has to travel. The prices below were read from each company's own pricing page on 6 September 2026.

Outside the table, Legacy Video Stories in Waltham, Massachusetts says its packages "start under a thousand dollars", and Steve Pender of Family Legacy Video has argued on his own podcast that $40,000 is "a pretty good deal" against a broadcast documentary.

The table hides the extras. In-person prices assume one day, one location and one camera setup; Family Tree Video adds 15% for 4K. Travel outside the home city is billed on top at three of the four.

A legacy video is a professionally filmed interview about one person's life, edited into a film the family keeps.

An edited legacy video package is one interview, of 90 minutes to four hours, turned into a film of 20 minutes to two and a half hours, with the family's photographs, chapter titles and music cut in.

The parts are consistent across companies: a planning call, an interview day with one storyteller on one or two cameras, then the editing, which is where the hours go. My Life History Video quotes around 200 hours of post-production for its full package, which is why an edited film costs two and a half times the shoot-only price. Photographs are capped: 20 at Family Legacy Video's entry tier, 65 at Family Tree Video's Silver, 100 at its Gold. Delivery takes 14 days at EraLoom and four to five weeks at My Life History Video.

A shoot-only package is the interview with no editing, delivered as raw footage for the family to cut themselves.

What is not in the package matters as much. Nobody sells a second conversation for free; the question you think of in the car on the way home is a new booking. Family Tree Video's private webpage lasts three years, after which the flash drives are the archive. And the interviewer works from a list written before they met the person, because that is the only way an interview day can be priced.

That list is the product's ceiling as well as its floor.

Yes. A phone on a tripod in a quiet room, a printed list of questions and an hour a week for a month will produce a usable life story video for nothing, and for most families the recording matters more than the production.

The method is short. Sit them facing a window. Put the phone on a stack of books at eye level, landscape, and start a fresh recording for each question so one bad take does not cost you an hour. Ask, then stay silent, because the second answer is usually the true one. Keep sessions under forty minutes. Recording your parents' life story sets out the full sequence, leaving videos for your children covers the version where you are the subject, and the questions to ask your parents before they die are organised by what dies with them.

For audio there is a free alternative. The StoryCorps app, from the nonprofit that has recorded conversations since 2003, is described on its own site as a free mobile app that helps you prepare questions, record a conversation and "upload the audio to the Library of Congress".

Storage is where home projects fail. Keep the raw files, and keep two copies in two places, one of them not in the house, and copy them onto new media every few years, because the drive in the gift box will not read in twenty.

A phone in a kitchen beats a crew you never booked.

Video is the only medium that keeps a face, and when the face is the point, nothing else will do.

I want to say that at full strength, because I run a company that does not sell it. A film holds the way your father looks down before he answers, the hands that never stopped moving, the laugh that arrives a beat late, the room he sat in. A grandchild who never met him will learn more about how he carried himself from ninety seconds of footage than from a thousand words of transcript.

A film is also fixed. Whatever was said on the day is what it says, and nothing can make it say anything else. And a film needs nothing from the person afterwards: one afternoon and it is done, which for someone tired or ill may be the only project that gets finished.

If you can afford one, and the person is willing, book it.

Then notice what the film cannot do. Every one of its answers was chosen before the question was needed.

Start building your legacy Free build, 50 memories, no card required.

A Persona can be asked a question nobody thought of on the day, and answer from what the person actually said, in their own recorded voice, for as long as the family wants to ask.

A Persona is a structured record of one person's memories, values, stories and voice, built by that person while alive and released to the people they choose after their death. That is the definition on our own services page. The person talks, in text or by voice, and each answer becomes a memory. The difference from an interview day is who asks. A videographer works from a list. A Persona asks the follow-up, then the one after that, and comes back next week to the thread the person left open.

Time does the rest. A three-hour interview is a heroic effort for anyone over seventy, and that afternoon is the whole corpus of the film. A Persona is built in twenty-minute sessions across months, on the person's good days. The free build is 50 memories, no card, no expiry. Recording the voice is free and the first listen is free; hearing the Persona speak in the person's own voice is what the paid plans on the pricing page buy.

Then the lock. Executor Lock is the process by which a nominated Trusted Contact confirms a person's death and the Persona is frozen as a perfect snapshot: nothing added, no retraining, no drift. The family meets the Persona under the release rules the person set while alive, released after their Executor Lock activates. A film cannot be changed after the person dies. Neither can a Persona, and that took engineering, because the hazard of this category is a version of your mother that keeps learning after she is gone.

The expensive part of a legacy video was never the camera. The expensive part was the asking, and the same is true of a ghostwritten memoir. A Persona does the asking for the price of the person's time, in their words. I told a Spanish newspaper this year what I would ask my own Persona if I were not here: what to say at my daughter's wedding, what to tell my son at twenty-one. Neither would have made a videographer's list, and I have a list of my own I did not get to ask my father before he died.

A film answers what was asked. A Persona answers what was not.

A Persona is voice and text. Your children will not see your face.

What you record with us today is your words and your voice. We hold video to a higher bar than voice, because a face that is nearly right does more harm than no face, and where video ever exists it is made only from a person's own recording, with their consent, behind quality gates we set deliberately high. If the face is what your family needs, that is what the videographers above are for, and I would rather you paid one of them than waited on us.

A Persona is also a version of the person, never the person. Our services page says it in one line: a Persona does not become you; a Persona preserves what you chose to record, inside the boundaries you set. A Persona speaks only from what was recorded, so the first week is thin. And a Persona needs the person: alive, willing, and doing the talking themselves. Nobody can build a Persona of a parent on their behalf, and we do not build Personas of people who have died, however much footage their family kept. The lines we will not cross explains why, gently, for anyone who arrived here after a death rather than before one.

The film you commissioned of your late father is exactly what it is, and it is precious. The Persona is for the parent who is still at the kitchen table.

We keep the voice and the words. The face is yours to film.

Buy by what your family will do with it in ten years, not by what looks best on delivery day.

With under $500, film them on a phone this month and start a free Persona with them the same week: 50 memories, no card, nothing expires. Between $500 and $2,000, Family Tree Video's unedited Zoom interview at $475 or EraLoom's 90-minute session from $1,997 buys a professionally lit face at a modest price, and the Persona handles the follow-up questions the session cannot. Between $2,000 and $10,000, book the edited film, and put Legacy at $14.99 a month beside the film so the family can hear the Persona in the person's voice. The two purchases are not rivals. The film is the portrait. The Persona is the conversation.

If the person is your parent, a digital legacy gift is one payment of $89.99 for twelve months of Legacy, bought without an account and redeemed by them with your name and message shown first. They hold the microphone, and you never get access they did not grant.

Whatever you buy, ask the questions that are not on anybody's list. The film will show your grandchildren how she laughed. Only she can tell them why.

The standard for a legacy is not how beautifully the answer was filmed. The standard is whether the next question has anywhere to go.

How much does a legacy video cost?

Between $475 and $10,495 in the United States, based on four companies' published prices read on 6 September 2026. The cheapest option is an unedited three-hour Zoom interview at $475 from Family Tree Video in Chicago. EraLoom's edited 90-minute session starts at $1,997. Family Tree Video's edited films run $6,400 to $8,200, Family Legacy Video's Q&A starts at $8,500 in Tucson, and My Life History Video's full two-camera package is $10,495 plus travel. Travel and 4K are billed on top at most companies.

How long does a life story video take to make?

Usually one interview day and two to five weeks of editing. The interview runs 90 minutes at EraLoom and three to four hours at Family Tree Video and My Life History Video. EraLoom delivers its edited film within 14 days; My Life History Video quotes four to five weeks and about 200 hours of editing for its full package. Add the planning call, and the realistic span from booking to flash drive is one to two months. EraLoom, as of 6 September 2026, was booking through October.

Is a legacy video worth it?

If the face is what your family will want, yes, and I say that as someone who sells something else. A film keeps the way a person looks and moves, needs only one afternoon from them, and cannot be altered after they die. It is worth the money when the person is willing and you will actually watch it. It is not a substitute for asking the questions yourself, because the film can only answer the questions on the list on the day.

What questions are asked in a legacy video?

The standard list covers childhood and parents, the place they grew up, school, first work, how they met their partner, raising children, the hardest year, faith or values, and what they want the family to know. Companies prepare the list in a planning call and adjust it for the person. The list is good, and the list is the limit: an interview day is priced around a fixed set of questions, so the follow-up that occurs to you afterwards is a new booking. Bring your own questions to the planning call.

Can I record my parents' life story myself?

Yes, and you should, whether or not you also hire a videographer. A phone on a stack of books at eye level, a window in front of them, one question per recording and sessions under forty minutes will produce something your family will watch. Ask, then wait; the second answer is usually the true one. If audio is enough, the free StoryCorps app records a conversation and uploads it to the Library of Congress archive. The only recording that fails is the one nobody makes.

Does Afterlife AI make life story videos?

No. A Persona is voice and text: the person's words, recorded by them while alive, spoken back in their own recorded voice, and locked as a perfect snapshot when their Executor Lock activates. We hold video to a higher bar than voice, because a face that is nearly right does more harm than no face, so nothing on this page promises a moving image. If your family needs the face, hire a videographer. The free build is 50 memories, no card, never expires.

• How to record your parents' life story: the phone method, question by question.

• Leave videos for your children: when you are the subject.

• Memoir ghostwriter cost: the same decision for a book instead of a film.

• A message to be played at my funeral: the recording almost everyone means to make.

• A digital legacy gift: the second purchase, as a present.

• Family Tree Video, Video Biography Prices, Chicago; read 6 September 2026.

• EraLoom, Legacy Video Service Pricing, Iowa; read 6 September 2026.

• My Life History Video, Video Packages, Salt Lake City; read 6 September 2026.

• Family Legacy Video, Video Biography Production Services, Tucson; read 6 September 2026.

• Family Legacy Video, Legacy Audio Biography; read 6 September 2026.

• Family Legacy Video, LVL 18: The Cost of Legacy Videos; read 6 September 2026.

• Legacy Video Stories, How Much Does a Legacy Video Cost?, Waltham, Massachusetts; read 6 September 2026.

• StoryCorps, The StoryCorps App; read 6 September 2026.

• Afterlife AI, Plans and pricing; read 6 September 2026.

• Afterlife AI, service overview; read 6 September 2026.

• Apple App Store, Afterlife AI: Digital Legacy App; read 6 September 2026.

Chris Williams is the founder and CEO of Afterlife AI, a consumer brand of Idy Pty Ltd in Sydney, and the architect of Executor Lock, the process that locks a Persona as a perfect snapshot at verified death. He is a father of four. He has been interviewed on consent-first digital legacy by EL MUNDO, Channel 10 News, The Daily Telegraph and ABC radio. Before Afterlife AI he founded Natural Solar, an Australian solar energy company.