Memoir Ghostwriting Cost: Price Index, October 2026

By The Yourtale team · Published 23 October 2026 · Prices checked 23 October 2026 · 14 min read

A memoir costs $69 to $397 through a guided life-story book service, about $2,100 to $42,000 through a packaged professional memoir service, and $18,000 to $60,000 for most freelance or agency ghostwriters, with elite writers charging $150,000 to $300,000. Printing a 200-page hardcover yourself costs $8 to $49 a copy.

Those ranges come from one place: the pricing pages of 38 providers, which we read on 23 October 2026 and list below with a link to each source. Most cost articles quote a handful of agencies, or a range with no date on it. This index covers the whole market in one table, from a free recording app to a $250,000 ghostwriting package, and every figure has the URL it came from and the day we read it. You can download the full dataset as a CSV (53 price rows).

We also sell a memoir product, and it is in the table. We list it the same way as everyone else and say so wherever it appears.

Key takeaways

• The median entry price for a consumer service that ships a printed book is $99. That is the middle of ten services, from Storyworth Basic at $69 to The Life Before Me Heirloom at $349.
• Hiring a professional writer starts roughly 20 times higher. The cheapest packaged service we found with a human interviewer and printed copies is The Story Keepers at £1,600 (about $2,143). StoryTerrace's Classic book starts at $3,250.
• A ghostwritten manuscript usually costs $18,000 to $60,000, before printing. Reedsy lists $18,000 to $50,000 for biographies and memoirs. The Editorial Freelancers Association's memoir rate of 50 cents to $1.00 a word comes to $30,000 to $60,000 for a 60,000-word book.
• Interview time is what you are paying for. Packaged professional services work out at about $500 to $1,400 per hour of interview. The AI interview services that publish their hours work out at $8 to $20.
• Read the renewal line. Storyworth Unlimited renews at $99 a year and Remento at $99 a year or $12 a month. Meminto, My Life in a Book, Life Story AI and several others are one-time.
• Printing is cheap. Writing is not. Amazon KDP prints a 200-page black-and-white hardcover for $8.05 and Lulu for $15.68.

How did we build this index?

We started from every memoir, life-story, biography and ghostwriting service we could find that publishes a price on its own website. That meant our existing comparison research, searches for pricing pages, and the App Store. We kept a provider only if its own page, checkout or product data showed a figure on 23 October 2026. Providers that only quote on request are listed at the end, so you can see who we left out and why.

The rules we applied to every row:

1. Own page only. No figure comes from a review site, directory or roundup. Industry ranges (Reedsy, Gotham Ghostwriters, the Editorial Freelancers Association) come from those organisations' own published rate pages.
2. List price, not the sale price. Four providers showed a promotion on the day. We record the list price and note the promotion.
3. Currency stated. UK providers are shown in pounds, with a US dollar figure converted at 1 GBP = 1.3393 USD, the rate on 23 October 2026.
4. Arithmetic is marked. Where a printer publishes a base price plus a per-page rate, we worked out the 200-page cost ourselves and say so.

The fetches were automated, then checked by hand against the live pages for the largest providers (Storyworth, Remento, StoryTerrace and Gotham Ghostwriters). Prices change. We plan to re-read every source each quarter and date each edition, starting in January 2027.

What does a memoir cost in 2026?

The market splits into five routes, and the price depends mostly on one question: who turns the stories into prose?

The rest of this page lists every row behind those ranges.

What do guided life-story book services cost?

These services send a weekly question for a year. The storyteller answers by typing, by voice-to-text, or on a phone call that is transcribed, and the answers are printed as a hardcover. The words in the book are the storyteller's own.

Meminto's storyteller can type, dictate with speech-to-text, or take weekly phone calls. Its pricing page says the phone feature costs extra on top of the book and does not publish the figure, and transcription runs on credits. Kindred Tales showed $90 with a promotional code on the day; $110 is the struck-through list price.

For the head-to-head detail on the biggest three, see Remento vs Storyworth vs Yourtale and Meminto vs Storyworth vs Yourtale.

What do AI memoir services cost?

This is the newest route, and the fastest-growing part of the index. An AI asks the questions, usually by voice, and writes the prose from the answers. The storyteller or the family then reads and corrects it. Most of these services sell a digital book, and only some include a printed copy.

Two cautions on this group. Autobiographer's website and its App Store listing describe different billing for the same $99, so check which one you are agreeing to at checkout. Memoirist's hardcover showed $79 with a 20% promotion on the day; $99 is its list price.

Our own row: $199 is a one-time founding rate, set while we print the first ten books. It covers the interviews, an AI-drafted book that you edit yourself, and the first printed copy. No Yourtale employee writes or edits the book. Recordings and drafts are encrypted, stored in the EU, never used to train models, and deleted on request. If you want the longer case for and against this model, we wrote it up in how to get a memoir without doing the writing.

What does a professional memoir service cost?

Here a person interviews the storyteller, writes the book, and has it designed and printed. Prices are set by interview hours and page count. Most firms in this group publish fixed packages, which makes them easier to compare than ghostwriters.

StoryTerrace's US Classic is the clearest example of how this market prices. The same book costs $3,250 for 55 to 60 pages from 4 remote interview hours, $4,950 for 80 to 90 pages from 6 hours, and $7,450 for 115 to 125 pages from 10 hours. Moving the interviews in person adds $450 to $900. We cover what customers say about the experience in our StoryTerrace review, and the price history in StoryTerrace cost.

What does a memoir ghostwriter cost?

A ghostwriter delivers a manuscript, usually written for publication, and prints nothing. This is the most expensive route by a wide margin, and the only one quoted per word, page or hour.

The EFA figure is the most useful single number here, because it is a survey of working editorial professionals rather than one firm's marketing page. At 50 cents to $1.00 a word, a 60,000-word memoir costs $30,000 to $60,000, which matches the band where Reedsy and Gotham overlap. Our longer guide on how much a memoir ghostwriter costs explains what the money buys, and biography ghostwriter cost covers the research-heavy case.

What does it cost to print a memoir yourself?

If you already have the words, printing is the cheapest part of the job. These are single-copy print costs for a 6 by 9 inch hardcover of 200 pages, before shipping and tax.

The KDP and Blurb totals are our arithmetic from their published rates; Blurb's assumes the 24-page base its pricing FAQ describes. Lulu's figures are the ones its own calculator returns for that specification. If you plan to write the book yourself with a general AI assistant, ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month (OpenAI). The full set of do-it-yourself costs, including design and editing, is in how much it costs to make a memoir book.

What does an hour of interview cost?

Hours of interview are the one unit every route shares, so dividing price by interview time gives the clearest comparison in the index. The figures below use each provider's published hours. Prices are the US dollar figures above.

The gap is about a hundredfold, and it is the honest summary of the whole market. A professional's hour includes their preparation, the writing that follows, editing and design. An AI hour includes a draft, and the editing falls to you. Which of those is worth paying for depends on the book you want.

Which memoir services renew, and what costs extra?

The headline price is not always the whole bill. These are the extra costs the providers' own pages state.

Renewals. Storyworth Unlimited auto-renews at $99 a year. Remento continues at $99 a year or $12 a month after year one, or you cancel and keep the book. Tell Mel renews from $39 a year. Storii, Memoir.bot and LifeScribe AI are subscriptions from the start. Meminto, My Life in a Book, Memorygram's Legacy Book, Life Story AI, MemoirMaker, The Life Before Me and Yourtale are one-time prices. If you are buying a gift, check which kind you are buying. We wrote about the renewal question in is Storyworth worth it.

Extra copies. Storyworth charges $39 to $99 per extra copy, depending on color and length. Remento charges $69 up to 200 pages and $99 above that. My Life in a Book charges $40, Kindred Tales $49 when ordered with the book, and Life Story AI $29 to $59 depending on the plan.

Interviews and transcription. Book of My Life adds £400 to £1,750 for face-to-face interviews, and StoryTerrace adds $450 to $900. Meminto's phone interviews cost extra at a price it does not publish, and its transcription runs on credits.

Printing. Pictures and Stories excludes printing from its packages. Ghostwriting fees never include it.

Shipping. Meminto's pricing page lists shipping from $8.99, while its checkout showed from $9.99 on the day. Storyworth, Remento and My Life in a Book include first-copy shipping within the US.

Which providers did we leave out?

We tried these and dropped them, because their own site did not show a price we could read on 23 October 2026:

• Quote only: StoryFile, Family Legacy Books, Lifetime Memoirs, Memoir Pros, Heritage Memoirs, BookBaby (printing), StoryTerrace Tailored, and Kevin Anderson & Associates' top tier.
• Price not readable: Fiverr's ghostwriting guide blocked automated access. Mixbook's photo-book prices did not load. BiographyWriterUK and Share Your Life Story list packages with no price on the page.
• Not operating on the day: HereAfter AI's site returned "page not found". StoryKeeper showed "launching soon".
• Conflicting figures on the same site: StoriedLife shows two different annual prices on two of its pages, so we left it out until it is consistent.

If you run one of these services and publish a price, or if any figure above is wrong, email hello@yourtale.art and we will check the page and correct the index.

How to cite this index

You are welcome to quote any figure, chart or table here with a link to this page. Please cite it as:

Yourtale, Memoir and Ghostwriting Price Index, October 2026 edition, prices read 23 October 2026. https://www.yourtale.art/en/blog/memoir-ghostwriting-price-index

The CSV has one row per package, with the price as published, a low and high US dollar figure, billing, what is included, who writes the book, the source URL and the date read. For the broader picture of who sells what, our guide to the best memoir writing services compares the services in prose, and the Storyworth alternatives piece focuses on services that ship a real book.

Frequently asked questions

How much does memoir ghostwriting cost?

A full-length memoir from a professional ghostwriter usually costs $18,000 to $60,000. Reedsy lists $18,000 to $50,000 for biographies and memoirs, and the Editorial Freelancers Association's 2026 memoir rate of 50 cents to $1.00 a word gives $30,000 to $60,000 for 60,000 words. Gotham Ghostwriters puts elite, bestseller-credentialed writers at $150,000 to $300,000. All figures were read on 23 October 2026.

What is the cheapest way to get a printed memoir?

A guided prompt service is the cheapest route that includes a printed book: Storyworth Basic is $69 and My Life in a Book is $79, one hardcover each, with the storyteller supplying the words. If you already have the text, Amazon KDP prints a 200-page black-and-white hardcover for $8.05 and Lulu for $15.68, before shipping.

How much does a professional life story book cost?

A packaged service with a human interviewer, a writer and printed copies starts at about $2,100 to $3,250. The Story Keepers starts at £1,600, Memorygram's Biography Service at $2,997 and StoryTerrace Classic at $3,250. Larger books run to $8,000 to $42,000, set mainly by interview hours and page count.

Are memoir services one-time or subscription?

Both exist. Meminto, My Life in a Book, Life Story AI, Memorygram's Legacy Book and Yourtale charge once. Storyworth Unlimited renews at $99 a year, Remento continues at $99 a year or $12 a month after the first year, and Storii, Memoir.bot and LifeScribe AI bill monthly or yearly from the start.

How often is this index updated?

We plan to re-read every source each quarter and publish a dated edition. This is the October 2026 edition, with all prices read on 23 October 2026. If a provider changes its price between editions, email hello@yourtale.art and we will check and correct it.

Is Yourtale in the index?

Yes, at $199 one-time, listed under AI interview services and marked as our own. We do not rank providers or recommend one over another in the tables. Every row, ours included, is the price as the provider's own page shows it.

Sources cited above (all read 2026-10-23)

• Storyworth, "Storyworth pricing".
• Remento, home page and pricing.
• Meminto, "Pricing".
• My Life in a Book, home page.
• Kindred Tales, home page.
• Memorygram, "Legacy Book", and Biography Service.
• Heritage Whisper, home page.
• Storii, "Pricing".
• LifeBio, "Individuals and families".
• StoryCorps, "StoryCorps App".
• Tell Mel, home page.
• Life Story AI, home page.
• MemoirMaker, home page.
• Autobiographer, home page, and App Store listing.
• Memoirist, home page.
• The Life Before Me, "Pricing".
• Memoir.bot, "Pricing".
• LifeScribe AI, App Store listing.
• The Story Keepers, "Life story books".
• Pictures and Stories, "Starting from scratch".
• StoryTerrace US, "Classic", and pricing; StoryTerrace UK, "Classic".
• Book of My Life, "Book of My Life prices".
• LifeBook, "Pricing" (US), and UK pricing.
• Main Line Memoir, "Memoir ghostwriter cost".
• The Story Worth Telling, "Pricing".
• Upwork, "How much does it cost to hire a ghostwriter".
• Editorial Freelancers Association, "Editorial Rates" (2026 Rate Chart).
• The Writers For Hire, "Pricing".
• Reedsy, "How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Ghostwriter?".
• Gotham Ghostwriters, "Straight Talk for New Authors".
• Scribe Media, "Pricing".
• Kevin Anderson & Associates, "Rates".
• Amazon KDP, "Printing cost".
• Lulu, "Pricing calculator".
• Blurb, "Pricing".
• Shutterfly, "How much do photo books cost".
• OpenAI, "What is ChatGPT Plus?".
• Exchange rate: 1 GBP = 1.3393 USD, open.er-api.com, 23 October 2026.