LifeTales
LifeTales is a Toronto-based web platform that lets individuals and families build multimedia memoirs from video, audio, photo, and text, then publish them as physical hardcover books with QR-linked video, e-books, or public websites.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2019
- HeadquartersToronto, Canada
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What LifeTales does
LifeTales Inc. is a Toronto, Canada-based consumer software company that operates a web-based multimedia memoir platform allowing individuals and families to record, organize, and publish personal and family histories through video, audio, photo, and text segments. The founder, Harvey Beck, established the company in the mid-2010s and brought it out of private beta into Public Beta on August 7, 2024. LifeTales extends its core platform through two sub-brands, Celebrate.buzz for group video celebrations and Baby's First Year for a baby's first-year recording application, signaling an intent to address adjacent family life-event verticals beyond the general memoir use case.
The platform runs on Amazon cloud infrastructure and emphasizes privacy through end-to-end encryption of stored recordings. Its technical stack includes speech-to-text transcription with filler-word removal, QR-code generation that links physical book pages to embedded video, and a multi-format output pipeline that produces 8x10 hardcover physical books priced at $69–$79, EPUB, PDF, and a public-facing memoir website. Collaboration is built around invited family members who can contribute segments without creating a login, lowering friction for multi-generational participation.
The business model is a self-serve consumer SaaS subscription priced at $19.99/month on an annual basis or $49.99/month monthly, with a beta promotional rate of $10/month representing roughly a 50% discount. Additional revenue streams include physical book purchases, public-memoir add-on subscriptions of $9.99–$19.99/month, collaborator fees, and paid storage upgrades. Customer acquisition is organic and self-serve, with no disclosed enterprise channel, named anchor customers, or partnership distribution; the company remains in a pre-traction phase with 1–10 employees and no external funding disclosed.
LifeTales firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- LifeTales
- Legal name
- LifeTales Inc.
- Website
- https://lifetales.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2019
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- LifeTales is a Toronto-based web platform that lets individuals and families build multimedia memoirs from video, audio, photo, and text, then publish them as physical hardcover books with QR-linked video, e-books, or public websites.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
LifeTales industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Memoir Creation Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Biography, Memoir & Narrative Nonfiction Publishing (MPAJAAAI)
Keywords
Where LifeTales is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Toronto
- HQ country
- Canada
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
LifeTales business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain
Revenue model
- Annual Subscription: Annual subscription at $19.99/month (billed annually). Includes 6 collaborators, 200GB storage, first physical book, downloadable website, PDF, and e-book. Additional collaborators at $2.99 each per month, public online memoir at $9.99/month, and printed books starting at $69 each.
- Monthly Subscription: Monthly subscription at $49.99/month (billed monthly). Includes 6 participants, downloadable website, PDF, and e-book. Additional participants at $5.99 each, public online memoir at $19.99/month, and printed books from $79 each.
- Physical Book Sales: Printed hardcover books in full color 8x10 format with QR codes for video playback. First book included with annual subscription; additional copies and copies for monthly subscribers sold as add-ons starting at $69-$79 per book.
- Public Online Memoir: Optional add-on to publish all or a subset of the private memoir as a public website, allowing sharing with and discovery by people from the user's community, ethnicity, or other valued group. Priced at $9.99/month for annual subscribers or $19.99/month for monthly subscribers.
- Read-only Subscription: After the main subscription ends, users can pay a small cost to keep a read-only version of the memoir online for easy sharing with friends and family, without the full subscription.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Annual Basic Plan - $19.99/month (billed annually) |
| Subscription | Monthly | Monthly Basic Plan - $49.99/month |
| Subscription | Annual | Beta Annual Plan - 50% discount ($10/month) |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | 7-Day Free Trial |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels6 records
LifeTales product offering
Product offeringCore offering
LifeTales is a web-based multimedia memoir creation platform that enables individuals and families to capture, preserve, and share life stories through a combination of video, audio, photos, and text. Subscribers can invite up to six collaborators, organize content into flexible chapters, receive weekly story prompts, and produce multiple output formats including full-color physical books with QR codes, EPUB e-books, downloadable PDFs, and optional public websites. The platform targets families documenting elders' lives and individuals recording their own stories, with no app download required and usage designed to be intuitive for users in their 70s.
Product overview
LifeTales is a multimedia memoir preservation platform consisting of the core LifeTales Memoirs product plus two companion apps (Celebrate.buzz and Baby's First Year). The main offering enables users to create, share, and preserve life stories using video, audio, pictures, and text through a collaborative platform with weekly prompts and flexible organization. Output options include physical hardcover books with QR codes for video playback, EPUB e-books for color e-readers, downloadable PDFs, and optional public website sharing. The company operates on a subscription model with add-ons for additional collaborators, printed books, and storage.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Celebrate.buzz: A service for creating, sharing and preserving group videos made from content uploaded by users or invited contributors
- Baby's First Year
Products and services
- LifeTales Memoirs Web-based multimedia memoir creation platform that lets individuals and families build a memoir by combining video, audio, photos, and text into flexible chapters, with up to 6 collaborators, weekly story prompts, automatic transcription, and multiple output formats. Targeted at individuals and families preserving life stories, especially for or with elders.
- Celebrate.buzz Wholly-owned companion service that enables users to create, share, and preserve group videos assembled from content uploaded by invited contributors or stock media, with optional conversion into a coffee-table video book. Targets families and groups collecting video memories.
- Baby's First Year Wholly-owned companion app for creating and preserving stories about a baby's first year using text, audio, video, and photos. Supports inviting a spouse/partner as a collaborator and converting stories into a printed book. Targets new parents documenting a baby's first year.
Quantifiable outcome
- 54 people can be connected on a single memoir, each able to contribute stories, photos, and comments
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use LifeTales
Customer profileNamed customers3 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
LifeTales technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability5 records
Feature8 records
LifeTales partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators4 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights4 records
LifeTales competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Remento: Remento is a family memoir platform that turns text-message-based storytelling into a printed storybook. It competes in the same niche (capturing elder stories into a keepsake book) using a similar multimedia-collaborator dynamic, but its storytelling input is constrained to text-message threads versus LifeTales' broader audio/video/photo model.
- StoryWorth: StoryWorth is the closest direct peer: a subscription service that sends weekly question prompts to a loved one, compiles their answers into a printed hardcover book. It targets the same elder-memoir use case, uses the same weekly-prompt retention mechanic, and competes for the same adult-child buyer; LifeTales differentiates by adding native audio/video, automatic transcription, and QR-coded physical books.
Broad incumbents
- FamilySearch: FamilySearch is a large nonprofit genealogy and family-history archive operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offering free family-tree building and story-attachment features. It serves the same multigenerational memory-preservation buyer as LifeTales but is free, broader in scope, and uses a wiki-style collaborative model rather than multimedia memoir capture.
- Legacy.com: Legacy.com is the dominant memorial and obituary platform, and has expanded into memorial websites and tribute videos for deceased loved ones. It overlaps with LifeTales' memorial use case (Mike F.'s Phil memoir) and shares the end-of-life memory preservation buyer, but operates at a much larger scale and via partnerships with newspapers rather than self-serve multimedia capture.
- Ancestry: Ancestry is a broad incumbent in family-history and genealogy, with a much larger subscription base, deep records databases, and the ability to attach stories and photos to family trees. It competes indirectly for the same buyer (families interested in preserving heritage) but solves a different primary job (researching lineage vs. capturing personal memoirs).
- MyHeritage: MyHeritage is a major genealogy platform with deep-quest, family-tree, and photo/story attachment features, including AI tools for animating and restoring old photos. It competes for the multigenerational memory buyer at a much larger scale but lacks LifeTales' weekly-prompt-driven memoir-capture workflow and QR-enabled video physical books.
- Artifact Uprising: Artifact Uprising is a premium photo-book and print brand positioned as a higher-end keepsake alternative. It competes for the same family-gifting and memoir-adjacent use cases as LifeTales' physical book add-on but lacks the multimedia capture, transcription, and ongoing subscription workflow.
- Shutterfly: Shutterfly is a large consumer photo-book and print-on-demand platform that competes with LifeTales' physical-book output but at lower price points and without the multimedia storytelling, transcription, or QR-code playback features. It represents the closest mainstream alternative for a family that wants a printed keepsake without a subscription memoir workflow.
- Chatbooks: Chatbooks is a subscription photo-book service that auto-compiles smartphone photos into printed softcover books on a recurring cadence. It targets similar family-memory buyers with a simpler, lower-friction offering and represents the substitute path for users who don't need audio/video or structured chapters.
Emerging players
- Canva: Canva is a broad design platform with photo-book templates and increasingly AI-assisted storytelling tools. While not memoir-specific, it represents an emerging low-cost alternative for tech-comfortable users who might otherwise pay for LifeTales, particularly if Canva adds audio/video embedding to its book products.
Market position
Strengths1 record
Weaknesses1 record
Competitive moat3 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
LifeTales social profiles
Digital presenceLifeTales financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
LifeTales leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
LifeTales subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries2 records
LifeTales funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
LifeTales M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about LifeTales
What does LifeTales do?
LifeTales is a web-based multimedia memoir creation platform that enables individuals and families to capture, preserve, and share life stories through a combination of video, audio, photos, and text. Subscribers can invite up to six collaborators, organize content into flexible chapters, receive weekly story prompts, and produce multiple output formats including full-color physical books with QR codes, EPUB e-books, downloadable PDFs, and optional public websites. The platform targets families documenting elders' lives and individuals recording their own stories, with no app download required and usage designed to be intuitive for users in their 70s.
Is LifeTales a public or private company?
LifeTales is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was LifeTales founded?
LifeTales was founded in 2019. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is LifeTales based?
LifeTales is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, in the North America region.
How does LifeTales make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. Annual Subscription is the primary driver. The others are monthly Subscription, physical Book Sales, public Online Memoir and read-only Subscription.
Who are LifeTales's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Remento and StoryWorth. Broad incumbents are FamilySearch, Legacy.com, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Artifact Uprising, Shutterfly and Chatbooks. Canva is listed as an emerging player.
Does LifeTales have an API?
No public API is recorded for LifeTales.
What industry is LifeTales in?
LifeTales's product category is Memoir Creation Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAJAAAI, Biography, Memoir & Narrative Nonfiction Publishing. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.